Hammer re-reads Dracula : The second time as farce, or, keeping a stiff upper lip in the ruins.

This article critically examines Hammer Studios' 1958 film *Dracula*, challenging the conventional view that it offers audiences a straightforward fantasy of good triumphing over evil and a nostalgic refuge from contemporary British social anxieties. Instead, the film is interpreted as a self-conscious re-reading of vampire lore and Victorian conventions, emphasizing the instability and contradictions in gender, desire, family, and class relations both in its Victorian setting and 1950s Britain. Through its deliberate alterations of vampirism "rules," complex female characters, and a blend of horror with farcical domestic tensions, *Dracula* blurs traditional binaries of good and evil and exposes the fragility of masculine authority and social order. The film's narrative and stylistic choices reveal a world where power and desire are ambiguous and constrained, reflecting broader structural and cultural uncertainties rather than offering simple ideological reassurance.