Dracula's Dog (1978)

Must See Movie...

Just perfect...

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

The Russian Army (who don't have Russian accents in this movie, by the way) are busy blasting, and they unearth the crypt of the Dracula family line. Also among those bones entombed are those of Veidt Schmidt (Reggie Nalder), the Counts' ghoulish slave, and Veidts' faithful canine companion, Zoltan. The bodies of Veidt and Zoltan are resurrected, and they travel to America in search of the Counts' last living descendant. That turns out to be family man Michael Drake (Michael Pataki), who's gone on a camping trip with his wife (Jan Shutan) and two kids (Libby Chase, John Levin). Drake will receive assistance from an intrepid Van Helsing type named Inspector Branco (Jose Ferrer), who tails the villain and his dog to L.A. Before too long, Zoltan has sunk his teeth into the necks of a few of the canines in the lake area, creating a pack of vampire dogs.Admittedly, this is a fairly novel twist which the filmmakers exploit for all that it's worth. (Although there was also a vampire dog in the 1940s horror picture "The Face of Marble".) "Dracula's Dog" is low rent, to be sure, with less than stellar acting. Ferrer is just picking up a paycheck, Pataki really isn't cut out for family man type roles, and Nalder is required to basically stand around, most of the time. He either smiles for the camera repeatedly with that uniquely unhandsome face of his, or communicates telepathically with Zoltan. Also appearing are two other character actors with great faces, Simmy Bow and JoJo D'Amore, as fishermen in the area, and the sexy Arlene Martel as Russian Major Hessel. It's the dogs that come off the best, unsurprisingly.This viewer did enjoy the decent electronic music score by Andrew Belling and the cinematography by Bruce Logan. There is also some wonderful gore devised by Stan Winston. Directed by Albert Band ("I Bury the Living"), this movie does get one thing right: the animal attack sequences, supervised by old pros Karl Lewis Miller and Lou Schumacher. These, at least, are done with skill, accompanied by rapid fire editing by Harry Keramidas. One moment has Pataki in a car besieged by killer canines, prefiguring the story "Cujo" by a few years. (See also "The Pack", made around this time.)Minor league fare, but it may work for dedicated fans of animal attack horror. The final minute or so is both cute and sad at the same time.Dog and puppy lovers may find some moments to be hard to take.Six out of 10.

I had an old VHS of this so I thought today is the time to watch it again after 10 years. Plot The Count had Zoltan as a familiar to do his bidding when he gets the chop, Zolty get resurrected 100 years later. Then with another of Dracs buddies they go to the US of A to get the last in the line of Dracs to become the Drac head of the family. Very much in the way you could resurrect the godfather, now there's a thought. Thoughts There are various scenes where Zoltu and his pals attack. They are well handled and its an enjoyable and quite scary movie in parts. However, this is the tenuous movie in respect to the Count Dracula that Bram Stoker wrote in 1895.

A group of Russian soldiers discover the tomb of the Dracula family, and one of them foolishly removes the stake from the body of Dracula's dog Zoltan, and in which the dog raises Dracula's servant/original owner too. Needing to find the last of their master's bloodline, they end up travelling to California to discover their descendant Michael Drake and his family are going on holidays in the woods. Wanting to convert him they follow the family there, and transform dogs in the area into vampires to get the task done, but Inspector Branco has arrived to inform Michael about his problems.How about that! Fun assured? Well not of the intentional kind or even camp, but this trashy and completely static b-flick makes for a lightweight and brainless distraction. You got a meaningful flashback… from Zoltan, Dracula's dog, so we could see what a lovely dog he was before being bitten by Dracula. Yeah that's a sight to see. Actually there's quite a bit of Zoltan biting dogs and the unexpected traveller, so don't be looking for the any bathing beauties to be bitten on the neck. When we cop a grin from the dogs there are nice dental work on show, oh and the glowing eyes of pure evil was a super touch. Terrifying! I'm sure you'll think this sounds whacked! But no there's far more to share. You like puppies? Cute puppies? How about Dracula puppies? Yeah dog lovers beware. The dog's master (amusedly played by Reggie Nalder) looks likes a stunned mullet as he communicates telepathically with his mean looking mutt Zoltan, and this is quite rib tickling. This is just the cream of the crop too. A junky, and quite limited production (which is directed by Full Moon founder Albert Brand) comes across being rather grizzled and glum. The inventive concept, which is dreamt up by Frank Ray Perilli, is quite an unusual one, but it can't seem to sustain the idea and it soon becomes terribly old. There isn't enough to hang a story off it and too many holes open up. The stiff script and stuffy performances ( Michael Pataki really does grate away) added to unwanted crinkles too. Jose Ferrer doesn't seem to be putting a whole lot into his haggard performance, however he still comes off reasonably well. The dogs are the ones who out-perform their fellow co-stars. Brand might seem like his on cruise control, but he does construct some atmospheric moments within the brooding woodlands, and there are one or two intense build-ups. However most of it is downright silly to be effective, like the dog attacks involving obvious puppet work. The make-up effects are minimal and basic, and Stan Winston was part of the FX team. The photography is colourless and the hovering score hits all the generic notes with a blunt sounding synthesizer.Watchable, but a long way from good.

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.