Zoltan, le chien sanglant de Dracula

A European vampire-tomb is unearthed by an explosion, releasing a Renfield-type minion of Count Dracula(Reggie Nalder) and his loyal bloodsucking canine named Zoltan. With a vampire-expert professor hot on their trail, they travel to America in search of the last Dracula descendant, a suburban family man unaware of his frightful ancestry.

DRACULA'S DOG is assembly-line drive-in fodder, but for a Crown International Pictures release, a bit tidier a production that one might expect. Amidst the intermittent belly laughs, a few scenes actually manage to bring on the chills. The casting of Reggie Nalder is beneficial, as well...his lizard-like mug glowing in the moonlight could send any man running for the hills.

5.5/10...a perfect flick for youngsters having Saturday night sleepovers.

Blending the vampire and creature feature themes, Albert Band's "Zoltan" is a haunting filmscape canvassing Dracula's faithful undead servant Veidt Schmidt (Nalder) and bloodhound named Zoltan, awoken from their eternal slumber to locate Dracula's last known descendant (Pataki) and restore the undead dynasty. Pataki is on vacation with his family and two German Shepherds when Detective Jose Ferrer arrives to deliver the bad news.

Routinely panned as a monumental lemon, I have no trouble enjoying the creepy performance of the tight-lipped, scar-faced Nalder, his dialogue delivered telepathically as he commands the dutiful Zoltan (a savage looking greyhound) to execute opposition to their mission. Pataki is virtually a bewildered bystander as Ferrer has to convince him that not only is he the last adult descendant of Count Dracula, but that his lineage want him converted to undead status. Arlene Martel has a small supporting role as one of the foolish uniforms who exhume the long-dead vampires in the film's prologue, while some viewers might also recognise Simmy Bow and JoJo D'Amore in a humorous cameo as a pair of ill-fated fishermen.

Suspenseful at times (e.g. Ferrer and Pataki holed up in the log cabin while the pack terrorise them throughout the night), "Zoltan" is a novel twist on the Dracula theme and not, in my opinion deserved of the criticism - it's clearly a B-movie, yet technically well constructed with a moody atmosphere, some gruesome shocks and downright entertaining.

Depending on your country of origin, there are two titles by which you might know this film. In the U.S. it's called Dracula's Dog, which just sounds silly. In the U.K it's called Zoltan Hound of Dracula, which just sounds crap. Quite fitting, really, since crap and silly are perfect adjectives for this film!

The story concerns some Russian soldiers who dig up a tomb containing descendants of the Dracula family, including a coffin occupied by a dog. The dog comes to life and, with a servant friend, makes its way to America in search of the last living Dracula ancestor, Michael Drake.

The story is unintentionally funny throughout. The cuddly puppies that are supposed to be terrifying spring to mind as a perfect example of everything that's wrong with the picture. The actors give wretched performances, clearly more interested in collecting their pay cheque than the material they've been given to work with. Ferrer in particular should be ashamed of himself for slumming his talents in such a banal project. Dracula's Dog is a dog of a movie, hilariously awful from first minute to last, and one of the few films that truly must be seen to be disbelieved.

It's kind of weird and I certainly did not expect this but I simply enjoyed watching this movie. It was all some good fun for the genre buffs and as an horror- and part of the Dracula franchise it's a quite original movie with a different approach.

This is certainly a B-movie but surprisingly enough you don't really see this back in the movie its look. The movie is way more horrible with its unintentionally funny dialog and silly plot holes and other stuff that just doesn't really make sense.

As ridicules as the main concept might sound, it actually is the strongest point of the movie. The evil dogs really play a big and significant role in the movie and I really think they did a great job with using the dogs as the main ingredient for the movie its horror. The movie is filled in which the dogs get to do their evil stuff and attack the human characters. They used some great animal trainers for this movie, fore the dogs really become characters in the movie that act out their scenes. Still it's a bit funny to hear the dog's their howling and barking, since it obviously got done by a human voice.

I can certainly understand why people would call this a bad movie, since yes well, the movie just isn't truly standing out with a good story, or great dialog and characters. However when you are into this genre, you'll see that this movie is actually one of the more entertaining but also original ones, even though it just isn't all done that very well.

Always a weird sight to see once great actors turn up in these sort of movies at the end of their careers. It happened to quite a lot of actors that were big and well known in the '40's and '50's. Big name that appears in this movie is José Ferrer, who once received an Academy Award for his role in "Cyrano de Bergerac" and starred in many more great and well known movies of the '40's and '50's. He plays the sort of Van Helsing role in this movie, though he seems to be more like the Sam Loomis character from the Halloween movies, of which the first one got released during the same year as this movie. This movie still got released a few months earlier though, so I don't think this movie did actually get 'inspired' by that movie. Also a good role is being played by Reggie Nalder, who is perfectly cast as a servant of the old count, who has rising from the grave. Nalder looks as if he had rising from the grave himself and he looks halve death to be frank. He still lived for another 13 years though after this movie and actually reached a respectable age of 84. He just looked much older, sicker, close to death, pretty much for most part of his career. Pretty much how Peter Cushing looked like from the '70's on, like halve a skeleton, halve man.

I really liked watching this movie, despite of all its all too obvious weaker elements.

7/10

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This film is great. Dog lovers should get a kick out of this movie. Seeing Zoltan lick his chops after biting both humans and fellow dogs is worth a chuckle or two. The Reinfeld-type character is probably the ugliest human being I have ever seen. Michael Pataki, seen in many more horror films such as "Grave of the Vampire" puts in another B-movie "performance." Jose Ferrer is simply there to pick up a paycheck. The dog that plays Zoltan is the second best actor in the movie. Overall, if you don't expect too much you won't be let down. Definitely a gem in the "so bad it is good" genre. Check it out while downing a few beers. You might enjoy it.