? In 1872, Count Dracula and his nemesis Professor Van Helsing clash atop a runaway coach in Hyde Park, London. The carriage careens, and the vampire is partly impaled by one of the wheels. In the ferocious struggle, Van Helsing manages to drive the wheel deeper into Dracula’s chest, staking him. The effort costs Van Helsing his life as his wounds prove fatal. A follower of Dracula arrives, gathers Dracula’s remains, and a few days later buries them near Van Helsing’s grave at St Bartolph’s Church.
A century later, in 1972, Jessica Van Helsing, a descendant of the occult expert Lorrimer Van Helsing and of Dracula’s old foe, and Johnny Alucard, who bears a striking resemblance to Dracula’s former disciple, join a group of young hippies. Alucard convinces Jessica and the others to attend a now-abandoned, deconsecrated church—St Bartolph’s—for a Black Mass ceremony. There, he performs a brutal ritual on one of their group, Laura Bellows. Jessica and the rest flee in terrified disbelief, but Dracula is resurrected and Laura’s body is found later, drained of blood. The Metropolitan Police launch a murder investigation headed by Inspector Murray.
The case leads Inspector Murray to explore occult explanations, and he interviews Lorrimer, who is shaken by the unsettling details he uncovers. He slowly pieces together that Alucard—Dracula’s name spelled backward—is a devoted acolyte of Dracula and that the Count has indeed returned. Meanwhile, Alucard abducts another of Jessica’s friends, Gaynor Keating, to St Bartolph’s, where she is killed by Dracula; Alucard volunteers to become a vampire himself. The vampiric Alucard then slays a passerby and lures Jessica’s boyfriend, Bob, to a Chelsea café they frequent, where Bob is turned into a vampire.
As Lorrimer is away, Bob makes his way to the Van Helsing residence and persuades Jessica to join him at the café, where she is captured and taken to Dracula. With the help of one of Jessica’s friends, Lorrimer tracks Alucard to his flat and engages him in a tense battle. In a desperate turn, Alucard accidentally kills himself with running water in the bathroom shower, a grim irony that foreshadows the coming confrontation.
Back at St Bartolph’s, Lorrimer discovers Bob’s dead body—killed by sunlight before he could rest—while Jessica lies entranced, under Dracula’s influence, as the Count plans to convert her into a vampire. Lorrimer rigs a trap beneath the graveyard, a pit of stakes waiting for Dracula’s nocturnal return. They clash in a final struggle beneath the stars; Lorrimer seizes a silver knife and stabs at Dracula, only for Jessica, still under Dracula’s spell, to pull the weapon free. As they exit into the night, Lorrimer hurls holy water at Dracula, burning his hands and sending him tumbling into the deadly pit. Dracula’s body crumbles into ashes, and the spell over Jessica is broken. In a quiet, tender moment, Jessica embraces her grandfather as the screen lingers on the final line: Rest in Final Peace.
