You have to hand-it (the booby-prize) to the Bands. This was the final-film by the patriarch of this schlock-horror family, and it's hard to describe. Disaster just doesn't work here, and I think Albert Band knew he had a turkey-script, so he made-the-best of it. His 1950s psychological-thriller/horror, "I Bury the Living" is excellent, but this is...wow, pretty bad. So, when your backers (UK and Yugoslavian) don't want to pay the Bram Stoker Estate money for the rights to Dracula, what do you do? Exactly! You do a tie-in, with a story about DRACULA'S DOG. Yes, his dog. Yes, it's as absurd and ridiculous as you might imagine. There is even a scene where the dog is wearing a turtle-neck...and operating a hearse! The story--what little there is--begins with Russian (obviously Yugoslavian) soldiers dynamiting a hill. They accidentally uncover a tomb that holds Dracula's manservant (Reggie Nadler, who looks creepy out-of-makeup), and his doberman, Zoltan. Yeah, it's retarded, I know. Yes, the stupid-soldiers release the half-vampire, and vampire-dog, and the "fun" begins. A lot of the story revolves around some followers of Dracula trying to make one of his living-descendants a vampire (WTF?!). The writing is full-of-holes you could drive a semi-truck through. At this time, even Hammer knew when to give-up on Dracula, having extended it into the mid-1970s. But this film is hilariously-bad, so it is watchable for all the unintentional humor it pummels the viewer with.
I'm 100%-certain that this is the ONLY film in human-history to contain a flashback scene for a vampire-dog character. I nearly fell out of my couch--could this be?! Did I really see what I thought I saw? I had to rewind my DVD-player. Yes, it was real, and there was even more hilarity. To make it short: the dog returns to America (where one goes for "success"--yeah, bullshit) with Nadler and some vampirized-dogs to sink-his-fangs into the descendant of Dracula, making him a vampire. Still, Albert Band's son has directed films that are much-worse with his excrement-mill, Full Moon. The only noteworthy thing here is that Stan Winston did some of his earliest makeup here, but doesn't get to shine much. Oh yeah, and the dog "talks" too, telepathically with the Nadler-character. Sucks, and not like a vampire, but good for some yucks. Not scary, unless you look at it as how stupid people with too-much money can be, they paid for this.
I'm 100%-certain that this is the ONLY film in human-history to contain a flashback scene for a vampire-dog character. I nearly fell out of my couch--could this be?! Did I really see what I thought I saw? I had to rewind my DVD-player. Yes, it was real, and there was even more hilarity. To make it short: the dog returns to America (where one goes for "success"--yeah, bullshit) with Nadler and some vampirized-dogs to sink-his-fangs into the descendant of Dracula, making him a vampire. Still, Albert Band's son has directed films that are much-worse with his excrement-mill, Full Moon. The only noteworthy thing here is that Stan Winston did some of his earliest makeup here, but doesn't get to shine much. Oh yeah, and the dog "talks" too, telepathically with the Nadler-character. Sucks, and not like a vampire, but good for some yucks. Not scary, unless you look at it as how stupid people with too-much money can be, they paid for this.