THE VAMPIRE AND SEX (1969)

 There are 2 different versions of this movie starring Santo the silver-masked wrestling legend(who also plays a scientist here for some inexplicable reason). The one I viewed recently is the sexier nudity-filled cut. In this Dracula likes to pull down gals tops and inspect their large breasts before biting them on the neck. There are a bunch of sexy vampire women, super fake bats, time travel and gratuitous wrasslin' scenes to go along with the nekkidness. This is the 20th film(out of 52!) in the Santo filmography and certainly the sexiest!

 The original tamer version is titled SANTO IN THE TREASURE OF DRACULA and has been used on MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER before.

DAUGHTER OF DRACULA (1972)

  This one is the final chapter in Jess Franco's monster trilogy, which includes DRACULA, PRISONER OF FRANKENSTEIN and THE EROTIC RITES OF FRANKENSTEIN. It's also my least favorite of the three. It seems like with each film Franco was less concerned with any sort of actual plot and more interested in just filming whatever he felt like. There's lesbianism, vampirism, cameras zooming into pubes and a very inconsequential plot about a lady(Carmen Yazalde) who is told about the curse of her family being vampires. Franco himself has a pretty big role where he gets to show off his oddball version of acting and Howard Vernon plays our main vampire who's not named Dracula at all but instead Count Karlstein.  Pretty unique way of staking the vamps here (through the forehead!) and lots of atmosphere but still not up to the first 2 films in this sorta series. 

        Subtitles so small you need to have Superman's vision to read them!:

DARIO ARGENTO'S DRACULA (2012)

 Classic Italian director Dario Argebnto's last film and sadly his worst! It took me a few attempts to make it through this cgi-filled crapfest. Perhaps if this was made back in the 70s or 80s it wouldn't be so awful. There are some gory bits and some nice boobs on our vampire chick but of course everything is filmed so terribly it's hard to care. This is extra depressing considering the things Argento has done in the past. How a director could go from the visual style of something like SUSPIRIA to this flat-looking(if I didn't know any better I woulda sworn this was shot for Italian T.V. or something) garbage is beyond me. Also I have to note that there's a stupid giant praying mantis in this that Dracula decides to turn himself into. I think it's mandated by law that if you talk about this film that is the dumb thing that you're supposed to solely focus on. 

 Released in 3D under the title DRACULA 3D back when everything was coming out in 3D versions. I doubt the extra dimension helps much. As usual stick with the classics unless you really need to see everything done by once-great horror personalities. 

THE BRIDES OF DRACULA (1960)

 The follow-up to Hammer's 1st Dracula movie. In this one Dracula is already dead so we don't get any Christopher Lee returning instead we get a Baron Meinster(David Peel(not to be confused with the New York hippie singer David Peel)) as our lead vampire and a bunch of his lady-vampires. So I guess technically this should be titled THE BRIDES OF MEINSTER but who the hell is gonna watch that?  Anyway we do get Peter Cushing back as Van Helsing and since it's a Hammer film everything looks really great including the sets and the leading ladies. This doesn't really live up to the first film and doesn't get as sexy as the latter films but still a decent monster romp for a Saturday afternoon.

Paired on an unlikely double-bill with this film about the perils of teenage pregnancy!:

The other more rocking David Peel!:

THE CASTLE OF MONSTERS (1958)

 For some reason I always assumed this was a prequel to the similarly-titled Mexican monster-filled flick THE SHIP OF MONSTERS but it isn't at all. This one is more like the Mexican version of ABBOTT & COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN except that they replace the famous duo with only one moronic bumbling idiot named Clavillazzo. Most of the film is a pretty straight-on comedy until it finally ends up in a  castle chock full of south-of-the-border versions of famous monsters of filmland including a Frankenstein monster(who's also a very Lurch of THE ADDAMS FAMILY-like servant), a Wolf-Man, a very skinny Mummy, a Creature From The Black Lagoon, an ape-man and a Dracula(played by German Robles who stars in a lot of these early Mexi-horrors including the title role in the EL VAMPIRO series). While our main funny-man can get a little grating at times this is such a goofy oddity that it needs to be seen by monster-kids who want to see a fairly obscure monster mash-up.

Monster hijinks and stupid musical cues!:

DRACULA (THE DIRTY OLD MAN) (1969)

 Dracula, or Alucard as he's called here gets himself a Wolfman, or a Jackal-Man as he's called here, servant to get him some ladies for his blood drinking and sexual needs. So it's sorta like that Bela Lugosi movie RETURN OF THE VAMPIRE except this is way more of a softcore porn situation where our vampire villain has sex with, aka rapes, naked gals while still completely dressed using some weird, rarely seen vampiric powers. Also it's dubbed to make it a comedy giving Drac a very Jewish accent and also strangely giving one of the ladies here an old grandma voice.
 Apparently Woody Allen's first movie WHAT'S UP TIGER LILY?, made a few years earlier and similarly dubbed except a bit wittier, was enough of a hit that this was made along the same lines. It is pretty humorous for about half the movie then it starts to get a bit monotonous but still worth a look for lovers of obscure weirdness. Tits are bitten, Irving Jackal-Man gets in on the raping, women are insulted(or fat-shamed as all the sensitive types call it now) and it ends in a monster brawl.

ART!:

THE VAMPIRE HAPPENING (1971)

 This is sort of a way goofier/spoofier version of a Eurotrash horror flick along the lines of THE DEVIL'S WEDDING NIGHT. It's the story of a famous Hollywood actress(Pia Degermark) who travels to her ancestors castle in Transylvania. It turns out her great grandma is a vampire chick. It kind of meanders about for a while monks get bitten, sexy times are had, bad jokes are attempted and finally there's a big vampire party/orgy with Dracula(Ferdy Mayne), who uses a Batcopter to travel around and tells people to call him Christopher in an obvious nod to Christopher Lee. For a comedy it's not that terrible. Even if it's never actually funny it's also never actually that unfunny and just kooky enough that it evens itself out. While hardly an essential Eurotrash horror classic it's at least a mildly entertaining watch.






                       Known in Italy as 1/2 LITER OF RED FOR COUNT DRACULA!:

And known in Germany as BITTEN AT NIGHT?

KISS ME QUICK (1964)

 Nudie-cuties with monsters are my favorites! Sadly, besides this and HOUSE ON BARE MOUNTAIN, I don't think there were a lot more of them. This one concerns an alien who impersonates Laurel and Hardy and is sent to Earth to find a human female to take back to the planet Buttless. So of course he meets up with a mad scientist who just so happens to have a whole load of swinging 60s chicks for him(and us) to peruse. It's just a non-stop barrage of bad jokes, nekkid women, go-go dancing and some monsters show up from time to time. You get a Frankenstein who used to be a woman(this movie is so progressive!), a Mummy and Dracula. It's basically the film equivalent of an old-timey burlesque show. So if you like stupid campy humour, bumbling monsters, beehives to the ceiling and jiggling tits this is fantastic! For most people this would probably be a bit tiresome after a while. Luckily it's only a little over an hour long. AKA DR. BREEDLOVE OR HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LOVE

Hotty- Totty Girls!!:
 

Evis can dig it!:

BLACULA (1972)

                                  "That is the rudest nigger I've ever seen in my life."

 So this movie starts out with Prince Mamuwalde getting bitten by Count Dracula and holed up in his tomb. Then we jump forward 200 years or so to the 1970s where pimps and groovy soul musicians hang out at nightclubs. Lots of necks get bitten turning people into green-faced blood-slurping monsters. This is probably one of the better known relics of the blaxploitation era due to it's goofiness and it makes for a fun watch. The highlights are definitely a couple of appearances by a cool dude named Skillet(Jitu Cumbuka) who totally should have had more screen time. Thalmus Rasulala as the main hero is also pretty damn suave as he usually is in these types of films..
 Got a chance to catch a print of this last night on the big screen and even after many viewings both on TV and VHS it's still a good time.
 There was a sequel the next year with Pam Grier which, from what I remember, is just about as good as this one.

 

Known in Spain as BLACK DRACULA!:

KUNG FU FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE (1982)

 So the ghost of Billy Chong's dad shows up and tells him he's been murdered and to seek vengeance for him. You would think he coulda done that for himself being a ghost and all but I guess there's rules or something. Unfortunately the fellow who murdered him has a wizard/magician assistant so Mr. Chong employs a gang of other ghosts to help him in his quest for revenge. This leads to a big kung fu battle where Dracula shows up and fights for the bad guys. Then there's some bland sex scenes where a couple get their hearts cut out. Finally a bunch of prostitutes? throw washcloths? (sanitary napkins? towels?) at our wizard's face which messes him up. Sadly this description sounds a lot more exciting than the actual movie plays out since there's a lot of drag time in between anything of interest happening. I've tried watching this one a bunch of times in the past and without fail I either pass out from boredom or give up which is not a very good sign. Of course it doesn't help that every public-domain print I've seen of this is a real ugly looking pan-and-scan mess but even still I can tell this is no classic of the genre.
  Billy Chong did star in a similar movie called KUNG FU ZOMBIE in 1981 which I recall being slightly better and more entertaining than this one so maybe I should give that one another watch.

This trailer hates spelling words correctly!:

DRACULA (1931)

 I've heard a few people claim that this Spanish version of DRACULA, shot at the same time and on the same sets as the original, is the superior version and I can kinda see why they would say that. Right off the bat though Bela Lugosi is way better as the title monster than our Spanish fellow here, whose strange facial features kind of remind me of Andy Kaufman from time to time. The rest of the movie does seem to play a bit better, the ladies all dress a bit skimpier and even though it's about a half hour longer it seems to move more quickly than the original. Of course having seen the other DRACULA so many times this most likely just seems fresh in comparison and perhaps if I grew up with this other version I would think the opposite. Either way though it's worth checking out at least once for old-school monster kids.
 Supposedly this may have not been the only classic Universal monster movie that was shot this way and there might have been alternate Spanish version of others. If so none of those others seem to have survived but I sure would dig seeing a classic Spanish FRANKENSTEIN!

DRACULA (1931)

 While this has never been my favorite of the classic Universal monster movies, due to it's slow-moving action and stagey feel, it's such an iconic film, thanks mainly to the performance of Bela Lugosi, that even all the negatives are swept aside and it's historical significance shines through. Dwight Frye is also quite awesome with his signature laugh as the bug-eating servant of Mr. Dracula, Renfield.
 I was happy I got the chance to view this in an actual theater along with it's Spanish version last night and the main thing I realized in this setting is how quiet the film is. I mean besides the opening titles there's no soundtrack at all so the audience got to enjoy the sounds of the retarded Hollywood movie playing next door as well thanks to the piss-poor construction of your modern-day shithole multiplex theater. But even this couldn't take away from the experience of watching on of the most influential horror classics.


 

Re-release poster from 1947:

BUD ABBOTT AND LOU COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN (1948)

 This is my favorite Abbott & Costello flick and it's also probably the classic Universal monster movie that I've seen the most, due to it being played many Sunday mornings on TV back when I was a kid. The cast in this one is pretty sweet with Bela Lugosi as Dracula and Lon Chaney Jr. as The Wolf Man(also briefly the voice of Vincent Price as The Invisible Man). The only one missing is Boris Karloff, who Abbott & Costello would meet a year later in A & C MEET THE KILLER, but we do have Glenn Strange as The Monster(referred to as "Frankie" by Costello in what might be the first time in a film the monster is referred to as just Frankenstein??). While this is obviously a comedy the monsters are kept fairly true to their roots and never completely ridiculed the way I imagine most modern-day comedies would treat them. Memories of watching this film are so ingrained in my head that it's impossible to be very subjective about it but I feel very lucky to have been raised in an era when stuff like this was everywhere for free.




FANTASMAS!!:

Cool/weird-ass German poster!:

KILLER BARBYS VS. DRACULA (2001)

 I had been wanting to see this one for a while since I really liked the original KILLER BARBYS movie from 1996 which felt like Jess Franco's version of a SCOOBY-DOO episode, and I've rewatched it a few times over the years, so I figured this sequel would have to at least be halfway decent. Unfortunately it really isn't. By the 2000's Mr. Franco was stuck shooting super-duper low-budget shot-on-video stuff that really doesn't convey his artistic visions very well. I probably coulda saved a bunch of time and gotten just as much enjoyment out of watching a couple of Killer Barbies music videos since all the stuff wrapped around their performances is pretty pointless. There's a bald Nosferatu-type Dracula, Lina Romay runs around doing a Transylvanian accent and it's all played for giggles. Also this is one of the few Franco movies that doesn't feature graphic nudity or sex in it. You do get a few scantily-clad ladies including the lovely lead-singer Sylvia Superstar, lots of Eurotrashy rock music and a bunch of people getting bitten in the neck that you don't really care about. Stick with the first one for better sleazy Franco thrills.

 

DRACULA A.D. 1972 (1972)

 This is the 7th film in Hammer's Dracula series and while I like the idea of Dracula Vs. swingin' 70's British hippies, this movie, for the most part, is pretty dull. Many Hammer films are slow and talky and often the old-timey setting is pretty unexciting. This time they set it in the modern-day(1970's) so at least you get an acid-rock band and some partying acid-heads. The whole Dracula part though is so predictable and standard that it's really hard to get into the film on any level. It starts with a flash-back which wasn't in the previous movie(SCARS OF DRACULA) and then ends in a pretty similar way. Hammer couldn't have come up with something at least a little bit original here? Pretty disappointing despite the presence of Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, some super red blood and a couple of scantily-clad English birds including most notably the lovely Caroline Monroe.




 In Denmark this is known under the title VAMPIRE HUNTER HOTPANTS which might be one of the most amazing titles ever!:

   In some European countries this didn't come out until 1973:

DRACULA SOVEREIGN OF THE DAMNED (1980)

 This is a Japanese animated version of the 1970's Marvel comic book TOMB OF DRACULA. Now being a 70's kid I knew of TOD but I was more of a WEREWOLF BY NIGHT and superhero comics fan at the time. What little I do know of the Dracula comic though makes me think that this isn't a very faithful adaption of that character. In this film Drac comes to Boston, grabs himself a wife(who has super-powers for some reason), has a kid(who gets killed but then comes back as a superhero also) and fights against some vampire-hunters and Satan. Apparently Satan doesn't like relationships. As far as anime goes this is pretty standard-looking stuff but it's cool to see zombies and ghouls and vampires battling it out. AKA TOMB OF DRACULA and DRACULA. There was also a Frankenstein anime made around the same time based on Marvel's MONSTER OF FRANKENSTEIN comic that I haven't heard anything good about but I've yet to see it.

COUNT DRACULA'S GREAT LOVE (1973)

 Paul Naschy makes a better Wolf-Man than he does a Dracula. This makes sense since he played El Hombre Lobo so many times and the most famous vampire of all only this once. Also his body-type is more fitting for a raging, hairy monster than a blood-starved undead Count. This movie isn't a complete waste though. There is a considerable amount of blood-letting and naked boobs. The story doesn't always gel though. Like for instance why does Dracula have such shitty command of his subjects? Shouldn't he be able to kick their asses really easily, being the king of the undead and all that? Besides these strange battles with his vampire chicks and a roving lunatic(Renfield?) character the movie ends on a really silly note with Drac getting all suicidal with himself over his girlfriend. How goth! But as far as Eurohorror goes I guess you could do worse.
 This movie has a shit-ton of aliases including COUNT DRACULA'S GREATEST LOVE, DRACULA'S VIRGIN LOVERS, CEMETERY GIRLS, DRACULA'S GREAT LOVE, THE GREAT LOVE OF COUNT DRACULA and my favorite, CEMETERY TRAMPS.

Elvira digs it!(kinda/sorta):

HORROR OF DRACULA (1958)

 This along with CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN and all their various sequels ushered in a new era of monster movies which led to stuff like FAMOUS MONSTERS OF FILMLAND magazine becoming popular and THE MUNSTERS being a hit TV program. So these films are historically important and are basically remakes of the old Universal monster flicks but with some ultra-red blood thrown in and much more British-ness. As I kid watching these movies on TV I found the parts without Drac to be a real drag but now I can appreciate the building of tension and atmosphere a lot more. Christopher Lee portrays the title monster and while he's no Bela Lugosi he's certainly more athletic and cuts a pretty imposing figure. AKA DRACULA and DRACULA 1958
 There's a slightly longer Japanese cut that was released a couple of years back that I've yet to see.

NOCTURNA (1979)

While I am a big fan of the 70's as a decade in general I am not a huge fan of disco. I'm especially not a fan of bland generic-sounding disco and that's unfortunately what a lot of this stuff sounds like to me. This film is filled with stupid scenes of disco dancing and terrible music. In addition to this terror it's also a horror/comedy-spoof, one of the most dreaded of all sub-genres! As in just about every other spoof-type film no laughter is evoked by anyone with half a brain, just a realization that you are wasting your time watching anything like this. The reason I watched this and the only reason to watch this at all is to see the great Brother Theodore who wasn't in nearly enough films and isn't really in enough of this one either. He does get to give a speech and utter the classic line "where there is death, there is hope" so that's a plus in a film without much else going on to recommend it. In addition to Theodore, John Carradine appears as Dracula in an embarrassing performance uttering lines like "If I'm dead why do I have to pee-pee?". Lily Munster(Yvonne DeCarlo) plays his wife so at least they got to cash-in on their past glories.

THE DRAGON LIVES AGAIN (1977)

 This one has got to be one of the strangest examples of Bruce Lee-sploitation ever. If you described the plot of this movie to your average lame-brain civilian they would probably assume you were on some heavy psychedelics.
 OK, so, intermingling reality with fantasy, Bruce Lee(or in this case Bruce Leong doing his best Bruce Lee impression) dies and is sent to this underworld where he becomes friends with Popeye, The Sailor Man and The One-Armed Swordsman, from the kung-fu flick THE ONE-ARMED SWORDSMAN. There's a gang of bad guys consisting of Zatoichi, The Blind Swordsman, Clint Eastwood and James Bond(why all these heroic characters are now evil here I have no idea, but they are). This gang is led by a couple of fellows named The Exorcist, who has an unexplained French accent, and The Godfather. I guess in Hong Kong popular movie titles make for good names. They also pal around with Emanuelle from all those soft-core classics except here she has an English accent for no reason. If this isn't enough idiotic insanity Dracula shows up along with that Cobra Kai gang in the skeletons suits(who I think are supposed to be zombies?) and a bunch of mummies. Everyone does kung fu(usually very badly!) and it all ends with Bruce Lee floating away like a balloon.   
 You might think this is a movie for children, and I would too, except there's sex scenes and very ample boobs and almost complete nakedness on display. The whole thing reminded me of on of those crazy Turkish superhero films where copyright is no issue and even Spider-Man himself might be a murdering bastard. I was fortunate enough to see an actual film print of this last night in a theater and it surely made me question my sanity. I was also a little sad that I will probably never find another Brucesploitation film that will top this in the bat-shit wacky department. AKA DEADLY HANDS OF KUNG FU

The title sequence alone might be better than anything Hollywood has ever attempted: