Blood of Dracula's Castle

source: Blood of Dracula's Castle

I am fond of Z-movies, including some by Al Adamson, but BLOOD OF Dracula'S CASTLE is not one of my favorites. As always, it is a great pleasure to watch (and listen to) John Carradine and some of the dialogs by other cast are also fun, but, overall, the movie is not very interesting. To begin with, it is somewhat lame for a 1969 release: yes, there are girls chained up in a dungeon, but they are not even very scantily clad; Dracula THE DIRTY OLD MEN for example had more exploitative imagery to offer. One noteworthy moment in this regard is a scene where two rats appear near the bare feet of the chained up girls and give the actresses apparently real unease. So is another scene where Robert Dix fondles a chained up girl with his knife! Dix is actually pretty good, I mean very believable, as a polished psycho. His relatively straight and high caliber acting contrasts with the camp humor of Alex D'Arcy as Dracula. Hey, I realize that the more I write about it, the movie may sound more interesting. Hmm.. Maybe the reason the movie is lame lies in the fact that it is actually a production from a few years back, possibly 1966 as the date on an on screen telegram indicates. I mean it was made before the Code was abolished (1968). A piece of disturbing film history: Co-producer Rex Carlton (who also wrote the script) had apparently invested in the movie by taking loans from the mob. When the producers couldn't pay the lab bill, a distributor bought the movie from the lab and Carlton committed suicide as this meant he couldn't pay back the mob.

There are castles in the United States, but not many, and even fewer that are homes to vampires, in this case The Vampire himself. There is a bit of a twist here because Count Dracula - who is using a different name - has a wife. They are living happily undead forever after until they experience a major glitch; they don't actually own their castle, and when the elderly owner dies, he leaves it to his nephew, a photographer whose future wife insists on living there, and that in spite of the isolation, apart from the bats in the attic and the rats in the cellar. There are also three mortal bad guys in the shape of the faithful butler, the servant, and an escaped psychopath who murders no fewer than three people on his way to the castle to meet up with the undead who had promised him eternal life. Then there is the little matter of the shackled damsels keeping the rats company in the cellar. Oh yeah, and vampires worship the Moon. There were snatches of humour early on, and the film would have played out better as a black comedy, but if you don't take it too seriously, there are worse things to do on a Tuesday night, like watching UK soap operas.

A young couple inherits an old castle but finds it already inhabited by a crusty butler, an obsessed killer and a couple of vampires, who kidnap and sacrifice young girls in order to live on. The Mill Creek version has absolutely one of the worst prints possible... finding a better one would improve this film fivefold. It might still be campy, but at least it would be watchable. It starts out happy, silly, with 1960s music, at some place called Marineland... just sort of doesn't set the mood at all. And despite some half-baked attempts to claim otherwise, this film has nothing to do with Dracula. And then there's either the interesting or silly idea that blood is "vintage" wine. Director Al Adamson is known for his "grade z" exploitation films, using actors who once had real careers (in this case, John Carradine). He also reuses footage, and I'm not surprised at all if that was done here (though it would be minor). The police dogs chasing the killer... when does it ever get to the point? That dragged on for a while... and the film finally picks up a bit in the third act. But by then, there's no saving it.

A photographer, Glen Cannon(Gene Otis Shayne) learns that his recently deceased uncle left him a California desert castle so he and fiancé model, Liz(Jennifer Bishop) take a trip there to check it out. A vampire couple, Count and Countess Townsend(Alexander D'Arcy & Paula Raymond) make their residence there and have a fresh supply of victims in the dungeon of the castle, chained to the walls by their massive dumb brute slave, Mango(Ray Young) and evil butler, George(John Carradine). Soon joining this wicked brood is a psychopath, Johnny(Robert Dix), having escaped from prison, who believes he kills at the urging of the full moon. Sufficed to say, Glen and Liz are in for a rude awakening when they visit, planning to break the news to the current residents that they will be occupying the castle once married..let's just say that the Townsends have other plans. Well, the story is coherent and the script(..penned by Rex Carlton, who not long after committed suicide)tongue-in-cheek(..and, to the cast's credit, well veterans Carradine, D'Arcy & Raymond, anyway, they quite understand what kind of hokey material they're dealing with). The castle sets(..particularly the walls)are crummy, but the exterior California location is rather attractive. While you will read about how this film was shot by well respected cinematographer László Kovács, there's really nothing much here, except a moody nighttime sequence where the Townsends and George sacrifice a female motorist, whose car broke down, to their moon god, Luna, by burning her alive while tied to a stake. I found most of this movie rather plodding and dull, accompanied by an overbearing score which attempts to ape the classic Universal pictures. B-movie director, John Bud Cardos(Mutant)was production manager and had a brief cameo of a prison guard pummeled to death by Johnny. Dix relishes his part as the nutjob with a devilish grin, with one memorable scene where he sends a stolen car(..containing the driver he knocked unconscious with a large stone)over a mountainous cliff while gleefully laughing as the man trapped inside screams in horror. There's this completely obligatory scene where Dix murders a girl in a bikini, by drowning her near a waterfall, while running from police and their hunting dogs. Hilarious effects mishap at the end where an ax is buried into the back of a villain and it's visible that the weapon is stuck into a plank-board just hidden on the inside of the person's shirt. I'm guessing Dracula's name was merely used to distribute the movie into more drive-ins. My favorite scene is early on as the Townsends and George celebrate "good blood" from a recently kidnapped victim.

This film is on a set of movies I bought for five dollars and the set is called Gorehouse Greats. Well I have watched nearly everyone of them so far and have to say the name of this package is a misnomer. None of the films have been particularly gory, though they have been entertaining to some degree. This one is not gory and is just a slow plodding movie that at times seems like it almost wants to be a comedy. The date on this movie says 1969 and the trivia says it is 1966, but the film looks like something out of the 50's. The cut they used is terrible, blue lines through almost the entire film. That could be forgiven if the film were not so boring. The highlight was the scenes at the sea park where you see a walrus and some dolphins and a really cool lift that elevates above the park and you can ride outside of it. Yeah, that was really cool and it out did the rest of this movie. The plot has a count and countess living in a castle that does not belong to them, but they lease. Well this dude has just inherited from his uncle and for reasons unknown he and his fiancé want to kick out the old couple who are more than willing to buy the place outright. Which if they had done so it would have most certainly saved them a lot of grief as the two in the castle have a secret. They also have the great John Carradine as a butler, a large hulking caretaker, and another dude who seems to go crazy when the moon is full though why this is even said is beyond me as they never really show it happening. Seriously, this film is only a bit better than "Manos the Hands of Fate". That movie was at least transferred better than this one as it had a good picture, heck if not for the sea world scenes and one female in a bikini I would say Manos was the better film. Just nothing here, not really a horror the count and his wife are so lame that it undercuts any terror and John Carridine adds nothing when his presence can usually help a movie at least a little. Here he only adds to the boredom.

When photographer Glen Cannon (Gene O'Shane) inherits an old castle, he decides to move in, along with his wife-to-be, bikini model Liz Arden (Barbara Bishop). Unfortunately, the property is currently occupied by Mr. & Mrs. Dracula (Alexander D'Arcy and Paula Raymond), their loyal butler George (John Carradine), a hulking caretaker called Mango (Ray Young), and an escaped killer named Johnny (Robert Dix), who may or may not be a werewolf—and they don't want to leave (not surprising considering the trouble they've gone to stocking their cellar with sexy young women as unwilling blood donors). Located in the middle of the Californian desert lies Shea's Castle, a faux-medieval monstrosity constructed in 1924 by a developer with far more cash than class; an unbelievably kitschy creation, the building proves the ideal locale for Blood of Dracula's Castle (1969), a tacky and tasteless piece of schlock from z-movie director Al Adamson that boasts an awful script, hammy performances, and dreadful dialogue, but which possesses a goofy charm that makes it hard to dismiss entirely. However, despite Adamson's rather tongue-in-cheek approach to the majority of the morbidity, and a general lack of concern for logic (the castle, surrounded by desert, is only a stone's throw from a beach!), there is also a noticeably mean streak that delivers several unexpectedly nasty moments, a few characters meeting surprisingly cruel fates, something that qualifies the film as more of a genuine horror experience than one might reasonably expect.

Blood of Dracula's Castle is best seen as a comedy rather than a horror movie. It is not particularly violent and has no real scares, but it definitely has a lot of laughs, many of them intentional. The film follows a young couple who inherit a castle with some rather interesting tenants. Alexander D'Arcy and Paula Raymond, who play the Count and Countess Dracula, make this movie. They make the vampires utterly charming, so much so that we end up rooting for them rather than the protagonists. Other than the occasional human sacrifice, what's not to like? John Carradine is also good as the couple's butler. The film is by no means perfect. The first half is rather meandering, and the characterization is basically non-existent. However, this is still good for a boring Sunday afternoon.

A young couple is overjoyed to discover they've inherited a castle and plan to move in right away. But first, they'll have to evict the elderly couple who have been renting the place for 60 years. What the young couple doesn't know is that this is no ordinary elderly couple. It's actually Count and Countess Dracula. How can a movie with Dracula, a giant hunchback named Mango (no, not that Mango), a serial killer named Johnny who is especially vicious when the moon is full, a crazed butler named George (played by John Carradine) who rants on and on about the Great God Luna, a dungeon full of women chained to the walls, and ceremonial sacrifices be bad? Well, this is Al Adamson we're talking about, so of course it's bad. For the most part it's just a hodge-podge of unrelated ideas thrown together whether it makes any sense or not. There's too much going on. And take the decision to have the Count and Countess Dracula behave like wannabe divas. In Blood of Dracula's Castle, Dracula can't even be bothered to get his own blood. He has George and Mango draw the blood from the women in the dungeon with a syringe and serve it to him and the Mrs. in wine glasses. What is this, Lifestyles of the Rich and Dead? Almost every aspect of Blood of Dracula's Castle is bad. The acting is horrendous. Alexander D'Arcy is the worst Dracula I believe I've ever seen. Name anyone else who ever played Dracula and I assure you they were more convincing. Also, the movie is a technical mess. The editing is incredibly sloppy. The girls in the dungeon are kidnapped in a lush forest. Yet every shot of the castle shows it to be in the middle of a vast desert. How is that possible? The sets are cheap. In one scene George is closing the lid of a coffin and it almost falls off. The continuity is terrible. Shoes appear and disappear from one scene to the next. And it goes on and on and on... With all that being said, the movie is not without a certain charm and some funny moments. Whether the movie was meant to be intentionally funny or not, it is. Much of it is entertaining in that "so bad it's good" sort of way. If you're into cheese filled 70s movies, you might some entertainment in this one.

Like many of the movies I've been writing reviews for, Blood of Dracula's Castle is part of a twelve movie boxed set from Mill Creek, a company that deals in very cheap (and sometimes public domain) films. The transfer isn't great. In fact, when I first started watching this, the screen was so completely covered with green lines (from wear) that it reminded me of The Matrix. Personally, though, I believe this adds to the aesthetic of the movie; something about the apparent age of the film makes it that much more enjoyable to watch. In some ways, this movie reminds me a bit of a 60's version of The Addams Family, as it features a sophisticated, middle-aged couple that lives in a rented castle and are quite open about their vampirism (or their being "the living dead," to be grammatically correct). In addition to a standard manservant (George, played by the great John Carradine), they also keep around an orange-skinned feral guy named Mango around, who roams the surrounding wilderness, hunting and capturing the bikini-clad young women who, for some reason, seem to be in abundant supply in this area. The young hotties are collected and contained in a dungeon, where they are harvested for their blood. Occasionally the charming vampire couple also let Mango have one of the babes for his own purposes, which are thankfully never shown or fully described. They also have a younger friend, Johnny, who is an open and quite charming serial killer who goes nuts when the moon is full. Enter into the picture a young couple, the incredibly condescending Glen and his fiancé Liz. They enter the scene because Glen has inherited the castle from some relative, and the two stumble around in a manner not unlike Scooby-Doo and the gang, slowly discovering the danger that surrounds them. It's actually very cute, in a campy sort of way. The dialog between the spooky castle residents and the innocent young couple is so corny, it could have been penned by Ed Wood himself. Okay, so the whole premise of this flick doesn't make a lick of sense. And the print the DVD was made from is terrible. And the crazy man-beast that everyone keeps talking about is named after a tropical fruit which does, of course, prevent him from ever being taken as a serious threat to anyone. It doesn't matter. What matters is this is good, cheesy fun for the whole family, if your whole family is plenty drunk.