Billy the Kid Versus Dracula

With a title like this movie has, it's obvious that the film's creators had no great pretense--they KNEW they weren't making Shakespeare! However, despite the stupid title and a very low budget, the film isn't quite as bad as it sounds. It really isn't good, but at least the actors and director tried to make a film that is reasonably watchable, as they played it straight throughout--as if they expected people to actually watch and respect a film called BILLY THE KID VERSUS Dracula.

John Carradine plays the Count, though it seems that the writer had never seen a vampire movie before, since so much in this film violates popular vampire lore. For example, here Dracula walks around during the daytime, does not sleep in a coffin, his face magically lights up in red when he's hypnotizing people and wolves-bane drives him away--as if he's the wolf-man! And, as far as acting goes, Carradine was the worst of the actors in the film--looking more like the Devil and over-acting throughout. The Dracula he plays in this film is considerably different than the one he more subtly played in HOUSE OF Dracula and HOUSE OF FRANKENSTEIN. While the cape and top hat and bright red bow might have fit into these two earlier vampire films, here he just looks pretty stupid out West--especially when no one even questioned this flamboyant attire.

As for the plot, the old vampire shows up, inexplicably, in the West and meets up with an amazingly civil and law-abiding Billy the Kid. Mr. The Kid is in love with a cute lady but she is also the focus of Dracula's lust. In the end, they battle it out (of course) in a rather limp conclusion--it's one of the most anti-climatic ends in monster history.

All in all, this is a bad movie but not the type that you'd enjoy watching (like PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE). It's more the type that just makes your brain hurt due to its ineptness and dull script.

This is uttered by Virginia Christine (the alluring Anaka in 1945's THE MUMMY'S CURSE) when Melina Plowman tells her that her "uncle" casts no reflection in the mirror. Another pithy line of dialogue, one you'd never expect the legendary vampire to make, is (to his "niece") "Marry a notorious gunslinger? I won't hear of it!" Carradine as Dracula comes across as merely a crochety, vaguely sinister, eccentric uncle with an elitist attitude against immigrants. The actor frankly seems in his, uh, cups, but do you blame him? On the other hand, Chuck Courtney brings a surprising believablity and bantamweight handsomeness and likability to Billy the Kid; he looks somewhat like Audie Murphy, which also helps. Melinda Plowman as Dracula's object of lust, looks like one of those Noxema girls from the 1960's t.v. ads for that skin cream. The strings on the shlocky flapping rubber bat are clearly visible, oh, what joy! Right from someplace like "Eddie's House of Horrors" on Hollywood Boulevard, probably where they also got that shiny big red bow for Dracula.

Another source of delight is the wide eyed, dopey, open mouthed look of stupefaction and wonder on the young German girl's face as she realizes who Carradine is. The old female doc is played straight, and there is something appealing about the dusty, Hollywood/old Wild West 101 atmosphere, with its pleasantly juvenile shootin', fightin' and ranchin' atmosphere, oddly made more pleasant by the juxtaposition of the silly and cheesy vampire-comes-to-town-to-stir-up-the-locals story. This movie is best enjoyed either in a "matinee" time frame, say around 2 p.m. on a Saturday afternoon, or at 2 a.m. that same night.

Billy the Kid Versus Dracula (1966)

*** (out of 4)

Billy the Kid (Chuck Courtney) has settled down and is now working on a ranch where he has fallen in love with its owner Elizabeth (Melinda Plowman). Her uncle (John Carradine) shows up to pay her a visit and soon Billy realizes that he's really COunt Dracula.

If you go into a movie called BILLY THE KID VERSUS Dracula and take it serious then you really need to take a long, deep look at your life and wonder why you take things so seriously. THis here was obviously meant to be camp and with WIlliam Beaudine behind the camera they managed to get the movie in the can in five days. Who would have thought that all these decades later that the film would still have a nice little following among bad movie lovers?

For my money this here is one of the greatest bad movies ever made and it's entertainment value is pretty much off the charts. The only bad movie that comes closer to such entertainment is PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE so these two really are the kings of their sub- genre. What makes this film so entertaining is the fact that everyone is taking it pretty serious. The cast are all extremely serious and they're treating these events as if they were in a serious drama.

The one exception is Carradine who appears to know this is pure camp. He's simply wonderful here and you can't help but call this a great comic performance. I mean, look at an early scene where he's in a bar and a girl with her parents have accused him of being a vampire. He says "a vampire" and take a look at his eyes as he says the line. Pure camp. The actor was a very smart man and a terrific actor who took roles like this to take care of his children. It's clear he knew he was making a low-budget horror movie and he's just making it fun.

Beaudine actually makes this look like an actual Western and the film comes off as a real production and not just some cheap film. I'd also argue that the entire film is just about as entertaining as something like this could get. The horror elements are all rather silly as is everything else about the film but it has a certain innocent charm that really comes across.

I actually stayed up late to watch this one night. How could I resist a title like "Billy The Kid Versus Dracula."

Not only was it incredibly historically accurate, but Dracula was very well played by John Carradine. I was thankful that it was shortly followed by another treat with "Jesse James meets Frankensteins Daughter."

The fact that someone actually green lighted this movie is the most horrifying thing around.

I will say, it is worth the watch just for the final showdown between Billy and Dracula. After firing about six shots into Dracula, Carradine stands with the most sinister of stares only to be belted squarely across the nose with a gun that Billy throws across the room. The quickness and "Doh!" factor almost makes me think John Carradine wasn't acting. It is a little too realistic (something not characteristic of John Carradine's acting). I was laughing myself to tears when I saw that.

If you want a good laugh, stick around to the end.

If you're looking for a good Horror-Western then you've come to the wrong place. However, if you are an afficianado of stiff, stagey, stodgy drive-in material then there is much here to entertain. John Carradine hams it up royally, rolling his eyes and barking his lines like he's a silent film star who's just been told he's got to make the transition to talkies...and he gives it everything he's got as he prowls about the Wild West resplendent in top-hat and cape. His face glows red every time he spots a girl he fancies; he even has a red-duvet on the vampire double bed he keeps in the abandoned silver mine that is his lair, should he get lucky, which seems unlikely seeing as he looks older even than the undeadest undead man. Watch out for B-Western legends Harry Carey Jnr. and Roy Barcroft, enjoy the wholesome sixties-chick heroine, ignore the tired convolusions of the plot, try and forget that the whole thing is entirely devoid of creepy atmosphere. Good fun for cheese fans.