Billy the Kid versus Dracula starts late one night in the Old American West where a family of European immigrant's are sleeping in the open, Eva (Virginia Christine) & Franz Oster (Walter Janovitz) manage to scare Count Dracula (John Carradine) off before he bites their daughter Lisa's (Hannie Landman) neck. The following day & a stagecoach picks Dracula up from the side of the road, inside brother & sister Mary Bently (Marjorie Bennett) & James Underhill (William Forrest) tell Dracula about their niece they are visiting, Elizabeth (Melinda Plowman) & show him a photo. Dracula takes a shine to Elizabeth & decides he wants her by his side as one of the undead, I guess he's just sort of lonely at the moment. Dracula kills a native Indian girl & in retribution her tribe attacks the stagecoach & kills all inside, apart from Dracula of course. Dracula ends up at the town of Wilksbury & poses as Underhill so he can stay at his Ranch with Elizabeth, however Dracula didn't count on the fact that Elizabeth's current boyfriend is the notorious gunfighter William 'Billy the Kid' Bonney (Chuck Courtney) whose suspicions are raised when the immigrant's point Dracula out as a Vampire Lisa is mysteriously killed that night & cattle keep turning up with they're throats cut open, William believes that a Vampire may be at work but will he figure it out in time to save Elizabeth...
Directed by William Beaudine I thought Billy the Kid versus Dracula was a fairly fun film to watch if your in the right frame of mind. The script by Carl K. Hittleman mixes the unlikely genres of horror & western, it's not exactly a marriage made in heaven either. The whole film is extremely silly in feel & tone, I doubt anyone these days would take any of it seriously for a second & that's one of the problems as the script takes itself very seriously. However, to it's credit at only 70 odd minutes long at least it's short, it's never boring & it has a certain entertainment value about it. The character's are dumb, not much is made of the fact that Count Dracula is a Vampire, sure he has fangs & drinks blood but he walks around in the daylight & seems more interested in drinking the blood of the local livestock than the pretty young girls. Also what about Billy the Kid? This guy is far to polite & caring for me to even consider the possibility that he was a hard as nails ruthless murdering gunfighter, 'would you like sugar in your tea Elizabeth?'. And what about Sheriff Griffin (Roy Barcroft)? He sure is one understanding decent bloke, being held at gunpoint amongst other things he can still keep his sense of humour & just 'do the right thing' in any given situation.
Director Beaudine does an OK job, the film has a bright gaudy colour scheme to it, did Cowboys really wear pastel coloured shirts? The sets are all very stereotypical & quaint, it's like an exact representation of what the West would've been like had it been picture perfect. Sure, there's a few rotten eggs about but everyone else are pretty decent blokes who help strangers & give seemingly random people jobs & free rooms for the night, ya right.
I'd have imagined Billy the Kid versus Dracula was a pretty low budget film, in fact I'm sure of it. To be fair it looks OK, it has nice bright colourful cinematography, the sets & locations are a little 'Hollywood' but it has decent production values & is better made than you might have thought. One area of criticism that Billy the Kid versus Dracula can't escape is in the special effects department, the rubber bat the filmmakers use looks totally pathetic & surely one of the worst ever committed to film! Carradine apparently called this his worst film, I'd have to disagree with old John boy on that I'm afraid. The acting is rather flat & no-one puts much effort in.
Billy the Kid versus Dracula is a rare breed of film that tries to mix the horror & western genre, there's plenty of horses, gunslinging, macho posturing & fights, Saloons, ranches, concerns over cattle together with Vampires, neck biting, turning people into the undead, rubber bats, & a strange red glow that engulfs Carradines face every so often for no apparent reason so when I think about it it's not entirely unsuccessful at what it sets out to do. Personally I can't call it a good film but I didn't think it was too bad either, worth a watch if your looking for something a bit different.
Directed by William Beaudine I thought Billy the Kid versus Dracula was a fairly fun film to watch if your in the right frame of mind. The script by Carl K. Hittleman mixes the unlikely genres of horror & western, it's not exactly a marriage made in heaven either. The whole film is extremely silly in feel & tone, I doubt anyone these days would take any of it seriously for a second & that's one of the problems as the script takes itself very seriously. However, to it's credit at only 70 odd minutes long at least it's short, it's never boring & it has a certain entertainment value about it. The character's are dumb, not much is made of the fact that Count Dracula is a Vampire, sure he has fangs & drinks blood but he walks around in the daylight & seems more interested in drinking the blood of the local livestock than the pretty young girls. Also what about Billy the Kid? This guy is far to polite & caring for me to even consider the possibility that he was a hard as nails ruthless murdering gunfighter, 'would you like sugar in your tea Elizabeth?'. And what about Sheriff Griffin (Roy Barcroft)? He sure is one understanding decent bloke, being held at gunpoint amongst other things he can still keep his sense of humour & just 'do the right thing' in any given situation.
Director Beaudine does an OK job, the film has a bright gaudy colour scheme to it, did Cowboys really wear pastel coloured shirts? The sets are all very stereotypical & quaint, it's like an exact representation of what the West would've been like had it been picture perfect. Sure, there's a few rotten eggs about but everyone else are pretty decent blokes who help strangers & give seemingly random people jobs & free rooms for the night, ya right.
I'd have imagined Billy the Kid versus Dracula was a pretty low budget film, in fact I'm sure of it. To be fair it looks OK, it has nice bright colourful cinematography, the sets & locations are a little 'Hollywood' but it has decent production values & is better made than you might have thought. One area of criticism that Billy the Kid versus Dracula can't escape is in the special effects department, the rubber bat the filmmakers use looks totally pathetic & surely one of the worst ever committed to film! Carradine apparently called this his worst film, I'd have to disagree with old John boy on that I'm afraid. The acting is rather flat & no-one puts much effort in.
Billy the Kid versus Dracula is a rare breed of film that tries to mix the horror & western genre, there's plenty of horses, gunslinging, macho posturing & fights, Saloons, ranches, concerns over cattle together with Vampires, neck biting, turning people into the undead, rubber bats, & a strange red glow that engulfs Carradines face every so often for no apparent reason so when I think about it it's not entirely unsuccessful at what it sets out to do. Personally I can't call it a good film but I didn't think it was too bad either, worth a watch if your looking for something a bit different.