In a Wild West park in southern Spain, a rock band called KILLER BARBIES is playing a bunch of shows. Many strange characters hang around, including a guy who claims to be Count Dracula. Then, a government official from Transylvania arrives - and in the back of her car is the glass coffin with the real Dracula. He is meant to be become a tourist attraction, but soon is back from the dead after listening to the Killer Barbies' tune `Wake Up'. He gets obsessed with Silvia, the singer of the Killer Barbies. Lots of necks and bites later, the vampire hunter Dr Seward comes into town to fight the evil undead. Unfortunately, Seward is blind and the villagers doubt that he is able to stop Dracula. But if he can't, who else could?
Well, you knew from the title it wouldn't be Shakespeare! But the movie has got a legendary director (Jess Franco) and three excellent veteran actors from the late 60s spaghetti westerns (Aldo Sambrell, Peter Martell and Dan van Husen) who raise the whole undertaking above the level of a normal rock band trash video. I must confess I am not a big fan of the kind of music that the Killer Barbies play. It sounds rather like tame pop than aggressive punk to me, but I still could sit the movie through without being bored for a minute. Silvia's skull bikini helped, too. The best fun moment was when one victim asked the vampire with her last breath: `Why are you such a bastard?', and Dracula replies: `I had an awful childhood!'
Just like in his 70s vampire movies like `Vampyros Lesbos', Franco is not afraid of showing a vampire with a mirror image, or letting him walk in the sunshine. Surprisingly for a Spanish director, his idea of a vampire was hardly influenced by the typical Catholic iconography. Franco's vampires are described as outsiders neither bound by a particular morality code nor weaknesses such as fearing the sign of the cross. This horror comedy works by the same rules as Franco's serious movies here, but unfortunately, the visual style doesn't come anywhere near. Especially towards the end, cheap video effects like the so-called solarisation don't really serve a purpose. The speed of the finale made me aware that the movie also had a couple of pacing problems in the middle, probably because Franco never was a comedian in the first place. Voting more than 5/10 would seem unfair to Franco's masterpieces such as `Virgin Among the Living Dead' therefore - although `Killer Barbys vs Dracula' is quite some fun!
