5/10
Gothic horror, Californian style.
10 February 2013
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.
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