Dracula Vs. Frankenstein

DRACULA VS FRANKENSTEIN (1971)

Producer Sam Sherman and Director Al Adamson made some of the coolest (albeit god awfully bad) B-Movies for the Drive In market in the 1960's and 1970's. Their distribution company, Independent International has since become legendary

Despite the fact the name of the film prominently mentions the presence of Dracula and the Frankenstein Monster, believe it or not, they weren't even in the original version of the film, but edited into it because the original film, a biker movie (!) was so awful that the producers decided to shift gears and turn it into a horror film. Needless to say, this brilliant decision created one of the loopiest horror films ever made.

A little bit of background: Independent International had a huge hit with a biker film called SATAN'S SADISTS in 1969. The biker movie craze had become huge after the release of EASY RIDER, THE WILD ONE and THE BORN LOSERS, but the success of SATAN'S SADISTS took the world by surprise as it did in excess of ten million dollars at the box office. A sequel was put into production called SATAN'S BLOOD FREAKS, but at some point either during production itself or in post production Adamson and Sherman felt the film was even beyond their usual standards for awful. Confused as to how to salvage the film, they came up with the brilliant idea of cutting Dracula and Frankenstein into the film and the incoherent mess that resulted is mind boggling.

The film was later promoted as BLOOD OF FRANKENSTEIN, but there was a problem with the laboratory developing the film and the lab refused to release it to the producers. So, instead of the planned 1970 release, there was a delay of a year and a half and when it did come out, it was released as DRACULA VS. FRANKENSTEIN where it played on a double bill with FRANKENSTEIN'S BLOODY TERROR, the film that was substituted to theaters a year earlier to fulfill BLOOD OF FRANKENSTEIN'S theater bookings that could not be met when the lab pulled its power play.

The plot of the film has a woman searching for her missing sister who has been murdered by an axe wielding Lon Chaney Jr. in order to aid J. Carrol Nash (as Dr. Duray and Dr. Frankenstein using names from both scripts!) with his super blood serum. The locals suspect the local bike gang as the villains and their menacing presence is merely random scenes from the original version of the film. Dracula shows up and tells Duray he knows he is really Dr. Frankenstein and he needs him to use the blood serum to bring back the Frankenstein Monster in order to create a race of super Frankenstein Monsters that will take over the world. Heard enough?

NONE OF THIS MAKES ANY SENSE WITHIN THE CONTEXT OF THE FILM!

Yet, I think I have seen this nonsense 20 times having first caught it on TV in the early 1980's and later in the late 1980's watching it on the old Super Video VHS release. The film was weird to watch on Saturday Afternoon TV because it was such a radical departure from the black and white horror movies that aired on TV in those days. (Similarly, the color film COUNT YORGA VAMPIRE (1970) was wild stuff to view on Saturday afternoons as well, although COUNT YORGA was an excellent film, while this silliness is just a weird surreal trip through cinema insanity!)

The DVD release contains cool commentary from producer Sherman as well as the very weak original ending that was wisely re-shot into the crazy ending where Dracula, well, for those who did not see the film yet, let's just say Dracula does some really cruel things to the Frankenstein Monster in conjunction with the ending.

I guess you could make the (under) statement that this film is definitely not for everyone, but those who totally dig weird and wacky horror films may end up getting a kick out of this crazy patchwork horror movie. Some may wish to use the skip button and just watch the monster mayhem in order to avoid getting a headache trying to figure out the bizarre (non) plot.

Five Stars on the Weirdness Scale.