Billy the Kid Versus Dracula

Plot synopsis:
When Franz [Walter Janovitz] and Eva [Virginia Christine] Oster's daughter Lisa [Hannie Landman] is killed by Dracula, the Osters swear to fight this menace. Dracula shows up again in the guise of Uncle James Underhill [John Carradine], newly arrived in town to help out at the Double Bar B Ranch. Dracula has assumed this identity because he is smitten with Betty Bentley [Melinda Plowman], niece of the real James Underhill. Fortunately, Betty's boyfriend is retired gunslinger Billy the Kid [Chuck Courtney]. Billy gets suspicious of the gruff and heartless Underhill and starts to poke around. He invites the Osters to move onto the ranch and care for Betty. Mrs Oster bars the windows with wolfbane until Betty decides all this vampire stuff is silly. Billy talks to the town doctor who advises him to get Underhill before a mirror. If he casts no reflection, he's vampire.Underhill starts to throw his weight around. He fires Billy and drives the Osters out to the bunkhouse. Billy kills a previous foreman in self-defense but gets jailed anyway. Betty begins to awaken with bites on her neck. When Underhill comes to take Betty back to the ranch, the doctor holds up a mirror and sees no reflection. Sure now that Underhill is a vampire, the doctor springs Billy from jail and the three of them (Billy, doctor, and Sheriff Griffin [Roy Barcroft]) pursue the vampire and Betty out to the abandoned mine where Dracula has his coffin stored. The sheriff tries unsuccessfully to shoot Dracula, so Billy throws a gun at Dracula's head and knocks him out. While Dracula is on the ground, Billy stakes him with a kitchen knife. [Synopsis by bj_kuehl]

Tags: revenge

Review:
MORD39 RATING:  ** out of  ****Okay, we know that this is a silly premise with an elderly John Carradine in the Count Dracula role, but as far as "bad" movies go, it's definitely much more fun than most other trash.
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.
Still in all, you get a lot of the always wonderful John Carradine, playing Dracula yet again, and even better, his main nemesis isn't actually Billy the Kid, but instead Mrs. Olsen from the long ago Folger's coffee commercials!!!
Roy Barcroft (everyone's favorite "bad guy" in almost all of the Rocky Lane movies), Bing Russell (yes, Kurt's daddy), Harry Carey Jr. with only a few lines early in the film, his mom, Olive Carey,(remember her from "The Searchers"?) as the town Dr., and a few others whose names won't ring any bells but whose faces are instantly recognizable to anyone who has ever seen a Western or a Cop movie/TV show.
As viewers noted: a red light is focused on Carradine's face for the "scary" moments, bats are flying courtesy of obvious, visible wires, editing concerns change story continuity repeatedly(guess it all wasn't done in one shot), the actors seem to have been propped up in many instances giving some of the most wooden performances I have ever seen, and then there is the storyline and its inane dialog - tattooing every Western cliché and then even adding a few you wouldn't expect nor should expect.
This movie has Dracula, Billy the Kid, John Carradine, a vampire test, Dracula cruising about by day, and so much more fun that you really need to see it to believe it..
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.
The movie has several hilarious lines, such as when Carradine growls "Where can I find this backwoods female pill slinger?" referring to the female doctor portrayed by Olive Carey, and "Oh God, the vampire test!" uttered with all seriousness by Virginia Christine, more well known as the Folger's Lady in the coffee commercials of the 1970's.When Carradine turns into a vampire a red light is shown on his face...no fangs, nothing but this weird red glow and his eyes about to bug out of his head.
It may have also been his worst performance as Dracula, a role he had assumed more than than any other character he portrayed in his illustrious career (at least six times in films and twice on TV, according to his IMDb filmography.) That being said,it's still not half bad as a B western-horror movie.
It may be odd to see a vampire in the old West, but maybe he was looking for Frankenstein's daughter to help her take on Jesse James, the movie which veteran director William Beaudine released just before this one (JESSE JAMES MEETS FRANKENSTEIN'S DAUGHTER.) Ironically, this was the last film Beaudine made in a career that lasted from the silent films he made four decades before with Mary Pickford, to a series of Bowery Boys flicks, then on to a string of memorable TV shows like SPIN AND MARTY, RIN TIN TIN and LASSIE.
Sure, the vampire may appear in daylight and the means chosen for dispatching him is something other than a wooden stake, and Billy the Kid would be the last cowboy to give up gunslinging glory to become a sheep puncher for anyone, but this is a Hollywood film after all, so don't expect much accuracy in either historical or literary rendering.
The rubber battery-operated bat, the horrible dialogue and irritating characters (especially the German/Austrian immigrant lady), and especially the obscure placement in time of the film: the 1800s town set; Billy's 70s style ranch house--complete with bead curtain!; even the hallway above the early 1900s saloon which I think was a hallway at the movie studio.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Billy The Kid Versus Dracula is cited by many (including the man himself) as the low-point in the career of John Carradine.
Seen in the spirit of the poverty-row horrors and westerns of the thirties and forties (of which director William Beaudine is no stranger), it's actually pretty entertaining.Also, it's a lot of fun to see Carradine reprising his role as Dracula, from Universal's House Of Frankenstein and House Of Dracula, a role that launched his career in horror movies.Don't miss the hilarious climax where Billy the kid beans old Drac in the face with a shooting-iron!.
Too bad the movie really blows.Dracula (John Carradine) is (for some reason) in the West.
"The West's deadliest Gunslinger against the World's most diabolical Killer!"--Ad Line.This is one TERRIBLE feature!I first learned about this dud (movie?) in a Winter 1966 issue of Monster World magazine (a lesser companion magazine to the more popular Famous Monsters of Filmland) which gave both Billy the Kid Vs. Dracula and its co-feature the lamentable Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter considerable coverage (Ouch!).
When I discovered that John Carradine was cast as Dracula being a naive kid at the time I foolishly thought that it might be a pretty exciting film (after all John Carradine DID make a very good Count Dracula in the Universal Pictures classics House of Frankenstein and House of Dracula both of which I had seen on television).It's not the idea of a legendary monster coming to America which is the problem here (it had been capably done before in The Mummy's Tomb, The Mummy's Ghost, The Mummy's Curse, Son of Dracula, Revenge of the Creature, The Return of Dracula, etc.) but this Kiddies' Matinee Frightfest is SO inept and amateurish completely lacking any sense of the appropriately spooky atmosphere, mood or directorial verve and cinematic mastery on the part of William "One Shot" Beaudine.John Carradine's sickly, frail looking and dentured Count Dracula is just TOO old (despite the slick brilliantine hair dye job) and his intended "bride" the bland, wide-eyed teen Betty Bentley (lamely portrayed by the untalented Melinda Plowman) is just TOO young for the aged, supernatural Grandpappy (a true odd couple!).
This Dracula is able to freely go about during the daylight hours, he drinks whiskey (Olde Red Eye?), his deportment and delivery of dialogue completely lacks any genuine continental bearing or aristocratic flair and Carradine's campy, creaky performance of the Count is much more akin to a cheating, unscrupulous gambler from Baltimore circa the mid-1800s rather than a dignified nobleman from Transylvania.It is a sad commentary that Mr. Carradine (a truly fine character actor) was humiliatingly relegated to this kind of unworthy trash in his later film career particularly when one recalls some of his great work in films like Stagecoach (1939), Drums Along the Mohawk (1939), The Grapes of Wrath (1940) and The Return of Frank James (1940) to name but a few.
released later the same year as Billy the Kid Vs. Dracula.Bullets don't affect the Vampire yet when Billy the Kid hurls his empty six-shooter at old Drac's noggin he actually knocks him out and how about that absurdly dumb visibly string-operated rubber bat poorly utilized in those scenes where this hilariously bobbing and wobbly contraption flutters out-of-sight behind a conveniently stationed bush followed by an obvious "break" in the filming after which Dracula immediately pops out from the same obstruction thereby attempting to imply that the bat has somewhat discreetly transformed itself into Dracula .Lastly dig those numerous, unsubtle red lighting effects projected onto Count Dracula's leering (and bleary-eyed) visage.
The Chauvinist!As a historical footnote this outrageous, Poverty Row travesty came out at the height of the Batman (ABC 1966-68) craze on television!A couple of things that I will say about Billy the Kid Vs. Dracula to its credit (and Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter) is that it was actually photographed in COLOUR (next to John Carradine's salary the colour film and lab processing was most probably the film's second highest or perhaps single highest cost expenditure) and reliable Republic Pictures serial villain Roy Barcroft is cast in an atypically sympathetic role of Sheriff Griffin (maybe HE should have played Dracula instead?).Actually if you are really interested in a GOOD Horror Western film than check out Curse of the Undead (1959) starring Eric Fleming, Michael Pate and Kathleen Crowley which is a much better effort.
It's available through MCA-Universal Home Video.Billy the Kid Vs. Dracula was commercially issued on home video (along with its co-feature Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter) in the mid-1980s through Embassy Home Video (Embassy Pictures theatrically released both films) but has long since been discontinued (I happen to have both which I bought on sale--REAL CHEAP!).Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter has been recently released again on home video through the MGM-United Artists "Midnight Movies" series so I think it's a reasonable assumption that Billy the Kid Vs. Dracula will also be made available once more (just what the World really needs).Thankfully there were no similar follow ups like The Daltons Against the Wolf Man, Cole Younger Meets Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde or Johnny Ringo Vs. the Invisible Man......Hmmmm!.
John Carradine portrays quite the mean spirited Dracula in this flick, calling an elderly doctor a "backwoods-female-pill-slinger" (HAHA:) One of the funniest things about this movie is the editing.
Silly is the key word in BILLY THE KID VERSUS Dracula: the clash of genres could have been interesting - as Count Dracula, ostensibly originating in the middle-ages and being able to turn into a bat, would have no real problem showing up in the Old West - but this is exploitation fare pure and simple and no attempt to contrast the wildly diverse cultures is made, except from the caricatured portrayals of two superstitious immigrants.
Talking about his Dracula portrayals in the Universal movies of the 40's Carradine said "I played him as evil as possible."  This vampire is certainly evil; to satisfy his bloodlust he kills an Indian maiden and sets off the massacre of the passengers of a stagecoach while he escapes.
Despite the ludicrous premise laid out in its title, "Billy the Kid Versus Dracula," of a historical Western gunfighter battling a supernatural, bullet-proof vampire from a Victorian-age gothic horror novel, the film isn't so bad that it's good, and it's not good enough to be other than bad.
Final clash between Billy the Kid and Dracula, that last just few moments, is one of shortest, most efficient and funniest fighting scenes in movie history.
Traveling through the American frontier, Count Dracula arrives in a small frontier town where he poses as an uncle to target a young woman to be his bride, and once the discovery of the switch is made her boyfriend sets off to find the vampire before he is able to make her his bride.This one was entertaining enough to warrant a watch and had some good moments.
And the tile of the film says Dracula for drawing power - makes sense to me.If you liked this film then check out the companion film Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter (1966) also starring John Carradine.
John Carradine who played Count Dracula in two of Universal Pictures finest Gothic horror films, House Of Dracula and House Of Frankenstein gets a third go around as the vampire Count from Transylvania in Billy The Kid Vs. Dracula.
I guess it just comes from spening too many sleepless days not in your native soil.The end of Dracula leaves a lot to be desired here as well.John Carradine who in my opinion appeared in more junk movies than any other actor looked pained during this film.
Carradine confided to me, in his later years, that while making this picture, he truly believed that " Hollywood had turned its back on him." Like it's companion piece, "Jesse James Meets Frankenstein"(1966) this movie enjoys an unwarranted cult following..
We know he will ultimately fail, but right now he has his hands full with Count Dracula, played by horror movie legend John Carradine.
Billy the Kid Vs Dracula is one of those B-List movies that sounds silly, but could had work if written better, had a bigger production, or had a good director under it.
The film revolves around the eponymous ex-outlaw Billy the Kid (Chuck Courtney) trying to save his girlfriend, Elizabeth Bentley (Melinda Plowman) from Dracula AKA James Underhill (John Carradine) whom impersonating as her uncle.
It's gets worst when you find out that his main nemesis isn't actually Billy the Kid, but a bad German accent old woman, Eva Oster (Virginia Christine) who knows Dracula's real identify.
I like how Bullets don't affect the Vampire yet when Billy the Kid hurls his empty six-shooter at old Dracula's head.
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.
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.
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!
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.
The first being "Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter,' the second being this piece of junk, "Billy The Kid Vs. Dracula." Billy The Kid (Chuck Courtney)is apparently reformed (Just like Jesse James in the Frankenstein film), and engaged to marry sweetly Elizabeth (Melinda Plowman).
The movie "Billy the Kid versus Dracula" is 73 minutes of celluloid madness that mixes a horror and western theme and get's an imitation comedy out of it.
"Sparrows" director William 'One-Shot' Beaudine's final feature film "Billy the Kid Versus Dracula" pits the notorious outlaw against the infamous fangster in a life and death struggle over a young bodacious babe in the old Southwest.
Of course, like Billy the Kid, Dracula is just a name in the title that has little direct bearing to the Carradine vampire.
John Carradine, who played Dracula in two Universal films in the 1940's, returns to the role 20 years later and is far too old to be believable as the seductive count.
Chuck Courtney, an actor of dubious talents, is Billy the Kid who battles Dracula for the soul of Dracula's intended mate, Melinda Plowman.Looking as if it was videotaped, not film, it is badly paced and simply stupid, laughable in the one scene which could have made a difference, a brief affect showing Plowman's body being picked up in a mirror with Carradine growling like a bear at the woman who exposes him.
The two films--"Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter" and "Billy the Kid Versus Dracula"--served as a perfectly well-matched double feature, both in name as well as subject matter.
Chuck Courtney's attempt at playing the famous gunslinger, Billy, was decent, but you cant expect a high quality actor in a movie like this.
The film also contains some fistfights that are also entertaining.Billy the Kid Vs Dracula was released back to back with another Weird west flick, Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter which also pitted a famous historical figure against a famous monster.