Within the million or so (give or take one or two between ‘A’ and ‘Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis’), one such word packs the wallop of a speeding bullet – ‘NO’! There are interesting values in the word ‘NO’ from self-care awareness, boundary setting provocations, prioritization of identity, energy saving establishments, and overall safe well-being; yet someone seemed to have forgotten to give a copy of Webster’s Dictionary to the infamous legendary screen-legend John Carradine, who is a criminal for uttering the word ‘YES’ to over three hundred and fifty films throughout his career! From the beautiful remnants of Monument Valley in John Ford’s Stagecoach to the seaside foggy hills of Joe Dante’s The Howling (let us not forgive and forget his dreadfully semi-lucrative career with the renaissance man-ster of cinematic muckery Jerry Warren), nothing can top the sheer audacity of the ‘YES’ that escaped (practically ran from) Carradine’s lips when he agreed to star in the western/horror/camp rust-in-the-dust cult classic Billy the Kid vs. Dracula, the answer to the mortal question “What would happen if a historical figure met a fictional figure in the wild, wild west (eat your bleeding heart out Gore Videl!)?”
Carradine was always going from project to project, with the process to cash the check often taking longer than the frames he was actually on screen, but good for him. It takes a lot of guts (and according to records, a lot of alcohol) to go from working alongside Academy Award-winning legends like John Wayne and Charles Laughton to making such dreck as Warren’s Frankenstein Island and Howard R. Cohen’s Vampire Hookers (talk about a movie that double sucks for your bucks). For a man who was once quoted as saying, “I’ve made some of the greatest films ever made—and a lot of crap, too,” can we judge him for starring as Count Dracula in a weekend-filmed western made for twenty-five thousand dollars? The answer (and word of the day) is ‘YES’! Pushing aside the fact Carradine had played Dracula three other times (for the likes of Universal’s House of Frankenstein and House of Dracula, but also in the disco-dancing-darkly-disturbing Nocturna) and burying the idea (like a coffin), this film was made back to back with another western-pain-in-the-neck cult classic Jesse James Meets Frankenstein’s Daughter (talk about a chop job). It’s hard to see the man who swashbuckled alongside Captain Kidd and cried during the injustices of Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath wear fake fangs and prance around in a cape so red it makes Superman shield his eyes (from the movie itself and not Carradine’s impressive jawline). In fact, the production was so bad that Carradine once remarked he didn’t even remember filming it (not that drinking had anything to do with his foggy brain) and was also quoted once saying, “I have worked in a dozen of the greatest, and I have worked in a dozen of the worst. I only regret Billy the Kid vs. Dracula. Otherwise, I regret nothing.” A film stuffed in a cheap coffin lined with regrets from the cast and crew, the movies does do one thing right by not taking itself too seriously, seeming to bring the audience along for a rootin’ tootin’ good time in an idea that the only word that could truthfully describe it is ‘original’ (although ‘cheesy’ would also be accepted in an auto-correct situation).
A six-shooter western horror extravaganza (more like a blank-shooting anti-climactic bonanza), Billy the Kid vs. Dracula harkens upon the love’s labour’s lost of Bram Stoker’s immortal classic in which Count Dracula must find true love to keep living. Traveling outside the familiar lands and hills of his beloved Transylvania, the count finds himself wandering the deserts of California in search of blood (to terrorize y’all’s neighborhood matinee). As he travels by stagecoach by night, he runs into the ageless beauty of Betty, a ravaging beauty who steals the count’s heart and mind. But there is one little tiny hangup: she’s the fiancée of the wanted son-of-a-gun himself, Billy the Kid! Making sure not to be noticed (’cause why would any cowpoke in their right mind read a book enough to know who the Count is in the 1890s?), the Count disguises himself as her deceased uncle (although she doesn’t know this for some reason). However, immigrants fresh from traveling from the old country are wise to the hijinks of the batty uncle and warn that he is a vampire trying to suck the life out of their party (talk about a guest that really bites hard). Will Betty let her uncle play the role he can sink his teeth into, or will our fiery pistol of an anti-hero save the day by killing the vampire and riding into the sunset (which would also kill the vampire if you think about it)?
Stampeding your way at a blood-curdling seventy-four minutes, and directed by William Beaudine (who, through his almost one hundred and eighty film career, worked with such legends as Mary Pickford, W.C. Fields, Bela Lugosi, and, of course, Carradine), these films were the last he would lens before finishing a lengthy career in the garlicky field of television directing. You can find this on most streamers, from being gunned down and buried in the Public Domain Hill Cemetery (where you can get a lot of bootleg copies). So, the next time someone uses some big fancy New York City (NEW YORK CITY?) words like ‘cinephile’ in describing your particular taste in films, just assure them they will be quite ‘tranquil’ when you pop in the ‘rotted’ VHS of this ‘uncanny’ classic, because unlike others who say ‘NO’ to watching ‘dreck’ like this, you are not afraid to yell ‘YES’ and overcome your ‘cinephobia’!
