Billy the Kid Versus Dracula

Billy the Kid Versus Dracula (1966)

*** (out of 4)

Billy the Kid (Chuck Courtney) has settled down and is now working on a ranch where he has fallen in love with its owner Elizabeth (Melinda Plowman). 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. THis here was obviously meant to be camp and with WIlliam Beaudine behind the camera they managed to get the movie in the can in five days. Who would have thought that all these decades later that the film would still have a nice little following among bad movie lovers?

For my money this here is one of the greatest bad movies ever made and it's entertainment value is pretty much off the charts. The only bad movie that comes closer to such entertainment is PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE so these two really are the kings of their sub- genre. What makes this film so entertaining is the fact that everyone is taking it pretty serious. The cast are all extremely serious and they're treating these events as if they were in a serious drama.

The one exception is Carradine who appears to know this is pure camp. He's simply wonderful here and you can't help but call this a great comic performance. I mean, look at an early scene where he's in a bar and a girl with her parents have accused him of being a vampire. He says "a vampire" and take a look at his eyes as he says the line. Pure camp. The actor was a very smart man and a terrific actor who took roles like this to take care of his children. 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. I'd also argue that the entire film is just about as entertaining as something like this could get. The horror elements are all rather silly as is everything else about the film but it has a certain innocent charm that really comes across.

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. At the very least, it's miles and miles better than its totally boring companion piece, JESSE JAMES MEETS FRANKENSTEIN'S DAUGHTER.

Carradine is deliciously sinister as Dracula, and the story does flow nicely. No awards given here, just a fun afternoon matinee item that is FAR from Carradine's "worst" film. The actor himself often referred to this movie as the lowest of his career, but this was probably because the outlandish title stuck in his mind.

If you want to see truly UNWATCHABLE John Carradine garbage, there are literally DOZENS worse...ASTRO ZOMBIES and GALLERY OF HORROR to name but two.

This film has a lot to offer for those of us who love bad movies. 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. John Carradine, following his scripted eye cues very closely ("open eyes real wide"), gives hickeys and utilizes his amazing ability to stop the film and move off-camera. Chuck Courtney wears the same shirt throughout the entire film (costume budget woes, I imagine) and manages to knock out Dracula by tossing his gun at him! Oh yeah, and Carradine's red-faced "I'm horny!" look is priceless, even without the red flashlight. A true gem.

This is uttered by Virginia Christine (the alluring Anaka in 1945's THE MUMMY'S CURSE) when Melina Plowman tells her that her "uncle" casts no reflection in the mirror. Another pithy line of dialogue, one you'd never expect the legendary vampire to make, is (to his "niece") "Marry a notorious gunslinger? I won't hear of it!" Carradine as Dracula comes across as merely a crochety, vaguely sinister, eccentric uncle with an elitist attitude against immigrants. The actor frankly seems in his, uh, cups, but do you blame him? On the other hand, Chuck Courtney brings a surprising believablity and bantamweight handsomeness and likability to Billy the Kid; he looks somewhat like Audie Murphy, which also helps. Melinda Plowman as Dracula's object of lust, looks like one of those Noxema girls from the 1960's t.v. ads for that skin cream. The strings on the shlocky flapping rubber bat are clearly visible, oh, what joy! 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. The old female doc is played straight, and there is something appealing about the dusty, Hollywood/old Wild West 101 atmosphere, with its pleasantly juvenile shootin', fightin' and ranchin' atmosphere, oddly made more pleasant by the juxtaposition of the silly and cheesy vampire-comes-to-town-to-stir-up-the-locals story. This movie is best enjoyed either in a "matinee" time frame, say around 2 p.m. on a Saturday afternoon, or at 2 a.m. that same night.

If you're looking for a good Horror-Western then you've come to the wrong place. However, if you are an afficianado of stiff, stagey, stodgy drive-in material then there is much here to entertain. John Carradine hams it up royally, rolling his eyes and barking his lines like he's a silent film star who's just been told he's got to make the transition to talkies...and he gives it everything he's got as he prowls about the Wild West resplendent in top-hat and cape. His face glows red every time he spots a girl he fancies; he even has a red-duvet on the vampire double bed he keeps in the abandoned silver mine that is his lair, should he get lucky, which seems unlikely seeing as he looks older even than the undeadest undead man. Watch out for B-Western legends Harry Carey Jnr. and Roy Barcroft, enjoy the wholesome sixties-chick heroine, ignore the tired convolusions of the plot, try and forget that the whole thing is entirely devoid of creepy atmosphere. Good fun for cheese fans.