Dracula (1958 film) Dracula (1958 film) Dracula is a 1958 British horror film directed by Terence Fisher and written by Jimmy Sangster based on Bram Stoker's novel of the same name. The first in the series of Hammer Horror films starring Christopher Lee as Count Dracula, this original also features Peter Cushing as Doctor Van Helsing, along with Michael Gough, Melissa Stribling, Carol Marsh, and John Van Eyssen. In the U.S. the film was retitled Horror of Dracula to avoid confusion with the earlier "Dracula" (1931) starring Bela Lugosi, and the film was released in the U.S. in 1958 on a double feature
Dracula in popular culture called "Nosferatu: eine Symphonie des Grauens" ("Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror"), which took the story of Dracula and set it in Transylvania and Germany. In the story, Dracula's role was changed to that of Count Orlok, played by Max Schreck. The Stoker estate won its lawsuit, and all existing prints of "Nosferatu" were ordered destroyed. However, a number of unlicensed copies of the movie survived to the present era, where they entered the public domain. The 1931 film version of "Dracula" was based on the 1927 stage play dramatised, with the Stoker estate's endorsement, by Hamilton Deane and John L.