Customer Reviews

Dracula Vs Frankenstein [VHS]

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(11)

 

 

I can remember even as a small child watching it and cringing, recognizing a bad movie before I knew what a bad movie was.

Two initial point of observation:

(A) The dork playing Dracula was the worst Dracula EVER. The Count from Sesame Street makes a more credible vampire, or maybe T.J. Hooker, Matt Houston, Mary Tyler Moore, or even the shark from Jaws. This Dracula eerily resembles King Diamond. I kept waiting for him to tear off with a verse from Abigail or Them. This version of Dracula is portrayed somewhat like a talking mime, complete with three inches of white grease paint, lipstick, and large raccoon-like black patches around the eyes. Additionally, Dracula is the only character in the movie with a built-in echo.

(B) Wow! Frankenstein's Monster resembles Frankenstein's Baked Potato. His face is a bloated, rotten, clenched mess in which features are only minimally identifiable. The Monster is atypically distinguished by the extra-small jacket, heavy shoulder pads, and block-mounted elevator shoes. The Monster's method of attack: Snarling and bellowing, the monster shoves and slaps his victims to death. There is no escape. You will die screaming, your eyeballs pummeled from their sockets.

The plot of this movie, such as it is, involves King Diamond, I mean Dracula, seeking out the modern day descendant of the original Frankenstein. Dracula is interested in having the modern day Frankenstein ply his mad scientist wares on Dracula's behalf. And apparently, for no other reason than to serve the movie title, Dracula wants to exhume the immortal remains of the Monster; fortunately, and conveniently, the Monsters just happens to be buried a stretch down the road in the local graveyard. But the wheelchair-ridden Frankenstein decides he doesn't want to take orders from Count Diamond, I mean Dracula---so Dracula grimly unveils his gigantic plastic-looking silver monster-ring and shoots a poorly-animated lightning bolt at the wall.

Yeah, that's what I thought, Frankenstein, now straighten up.

Mixed into the supernatural intrigue is the blonde woman searching for her missing hippy sister; unbeknownst to her, the sister has in fact been abducted by Frankenstein as test stock for Frankenstein's evil experimentations! The blonde woman is subsequently captured by Dracula and conveyed to Dracula's new lair, the local church (the chosen sanctuary for all vampires). Dracula intends to exsanguinate the blonde woman, but is rebuked when the Monster shows an interest in the captive. Dracula retaliates, brandishing his disproportionately large plastic fangs.

The fight is on, baby! The Thrilla in Salmonella. Tickets by the Boardwalk, just look for the little guy with the hat. Dracula, at approximately 6 minutes until sunrise, backs out of the church and fifty yards into the adjoining woods. He stands there trying to give his best onstage magician performance scary face while the gargling and growling Monster pushes and slaps at him. Dracula counters the attack by taking the Monster apart like a cheaply-stuffed doll. The Monster refuses to back down, persisting even when both arms have been dismembered and the Monster is no longer capable of his patented shoving/slapping attack. Dracula is ultimately forced to behead the Monster.

Suddenly, the sun is rising. Oh sweet Countess Bathory! Dracula breaks into a staggering half-hearted run, moving back towards the church entrance. Just as he makes to the steps, near to the structure's threshold, Dracula succumbs to the sun's destroying influence, going from runny make-up King Diamond, to ashy-face King Diamond, and finally to skull-face King Diamond. Man, he almost made it, and alas, had he done so, there might have been intriguing sequels such as Dracula vs. Milo, Dracula vs. The Legend of Boggy Creek, or even Dracula vs. Xanadu.

This is one Grade A, cheesy stinkfest of a film, as anyone should reasonable expect from Al Adamson, King of Gouda, as it were. I find myself curiously unable to summarize the 'plot', which very well could stem from a veritable lack of coherent story, but that's half the fun of these Grade Z classics, anyway. I do want to spend a moment here to about the qualities that make this a true prize for fans of the truly horrible monster movie genre, of which I count myself at the forefront.
Adamson didn't have much money when he made this film (obviously) so his strategy was simple: get one star and the remainder of the cast could be relatives, friends, street people, etc. In this case, poor Lon Chaney gets the nod to play the extremely cliche mute (and dumb) lab assistant to J. Carrol Naish, a wheelchair bound, garden variety mad scientist, who severs people's heads off and tried to bring them back to life. He is befriended by the worst Dracula EVER (Zandor Vorkhov), who I think looks like Frank Zappa on uppers. Dracula just happens to have a business proposition for Naish involving bringing Frankenstein's Monster back from the dead because he just happens to have part of the original monster lying around his house. Of course they do this with wires and electricity, and what emerges is a monster truly worthy of this Dracula, in other words, laughable. He appears to be the Sta-Puft Marshmallow Man with extremely bad acne, whose only real power is walking like Jimmy Cagney.

Into the mix come a few meddling kids, one of whom is on a search for her little sister (actually a prisoner of Naish) and a guy she brings along, who has the ugliest pants I have ever seen in my entire life. After showing us a gratuitous Nazi motorcycle gang rape scene thwarted by Lon's ax, and a wretched 'walk on the beach' scene with an unbelievably bad piece of music, none of which has any particular relevance to the rest of the film, we get back to the central story (as it were) by having the good guys (big sister and ugly pants guy) go to the freak show where Naish works. Eventually they confront Naish, who reveals the sister, and says a bunch of stuff about her making the exactly right kind of plasma (I'm actually a bit fuzzy on the science angle of all this, sorry.) A midget carnival barker enters the fray and drops Lon Chaney's puppy into the basement, which irritates Lon, so he falls onto an ax face first in one of the lamest 'special effects' I have ever seen. This is quickly followed by Naish getting a gun, but wheeling inadvertently into his own guillotine, where, of course, he gets his head chopped off. The movie then has people running around all over the place (kind of reminiscent of the laboratory scene in "The Wild, Wild World of Batwoman") and eventually Dracula ties the big sister to an oil refinery; ugly pants guy frees her by scaring off Frankenstein's monster with a sparkler; Dracula melts the ugly pants guy with a very bad special effect beam from his ring of evil; blonde girl, the monster and Dracula all run around in the woods a while, end up at an entirely new location where the monster and Dracula fight over the girl (at least that's what I believe was happening), the girl shrieks a lot, and Dracula runs through the woods some more to a church (?), where he collapses and is burned up by the sun. OK, any questions?

Yes, it is THAT kind of movie. I am sure that there are some subtle nuances that I didn't capture in the above summary, but you get the general idea. The movie was rated "GP", which was the direst precursor to "PG" (really), and doesn't really have what I would consider realistic gore, more like gruesome tastelessness. There is a very small bit of nudity (breast) on a 'patient' in the crazy doctor's lab, but that's really the only thing objectionable. Well, except for the plot, direction, production values, casting, and continuity, anyway.

If you like cheesy bad movies, it is hard to top Adamson, and this is one of his best (worst). I gave it four stars simply because of length. It is fairly long for this type of film (I didn't time it, but trust me, it is long, or at least feels that way) and drags in a few places, notably in the running around in the woods scenes. Also contributing to the loss of one star was the dreadful music video style beach walk montage sequence, which showed mostly waves and seagulls for about three years, I mean minutes, while excremental music was being played in the background.

If you like bad, and I mean really bad, movies, this is not to be missed.

This is one of the movies that I want for my birthday! I like the old horror movies starring J Carol Naish and Lon Chaney Jr. They are two of my favorite actors. Well, in this movie, it has loped heads and guts. I`m only allowed to watch G and PG movies so I wanted to check this one out.When Chaney and Naish made this film, they were down on thier luck in acting, so nutcase Al Adamson put them in this film. It also starrs his not so famous wife Regina Carrol.Back to the plot: When Dracula(Zandor Vorkov)comes to Castle Frankenstein, to help the doctor (Naish) out, recreating the monster ! There`s a miget man, a dance girl, a hammy dracula, and a marshmellow looking Frankenstein monster. At the end , they meet in a fight of fright as Dracula and The Monster Battle to the death. It has some pretty gory special effects, but counting on the low budget level.It is rated PG and is from VSV wich means very strange video.I hope you will buy this old LOW BUDGET CLASSIC from the horror director and prodcer AL ADAMSON. If this reveiw helped you at all, type in Al Adamson at the box where it says VHS and you`ll find other classics that he either stared in or made. ENJOY THE MOVIE: DRACULA VS FRANKENSTEIN !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I know this movie gets bashed alot for various reasons, however, I like this movie! Here is the closest thing ever made in color, in more recent times(1972) to the classic Universal Horror Monsters. Admittedly Zandor Vorkhov is not much of a Dracula, but hey, you got Lon Chaney Jr. and J. Carrol Nash(who appeared together in House of Frankenstein!) Angelo Rossettio(who starred along side Bela Lugosi in many a film) and music by a guy who did same for many Republic Serials! Even Forry Ackerman gets into the act! The machines used in the Frankenstein lab were also the original Strickfadden machines used in the classic Frankenstein films. Buy this video!

This movie defies description, but I'll try.

I recall watching this
schlockfest on "The Creature-Double-Feature" program, Saturday
mornings on Channel 56, Boston. The DVD adds all the bits deemed too
scary for the kiddies, and more besides (although rated PG, there is a
hint of bare breast in about two scenes).

The movie is really three
bad horror movies put together in a big blender. There's the
Frankenstien part, the mad doctor part, and the Dracula part, which
smash together into a big ball of mush.

The last surviving member of
the Frankenstiens works with a crazed Lon Chaney to butcher helpless
teens, then bring them back to life so he can extract some kind of
fear-induced serum murdered people produce.

Meanwhile, Drac is in
town, and snatches the body of the Frankenstien monster. He plans to
use Doc's serum on the monster, which will make Drac king of the
vampires, or something like that. Drac teams up with Doc Frankenstien,
and they use the monster to kill their enemies.

Doc has captured
the Judith's sister, and is using her to make his serum. When she
disappears, Judith tries to track her down. She gets slipped some LSD
in a biker bar, and then does a trippy hippie dance and meets up with
some stylin' hippies. They help her to look for her sister, while she
falls in lust with the head guru-hippie-guy. He becomes
action-hippie-guru-guy when it becomes time to battle Drac and Frank
(think Mannix crossed with Mike Brady after he got his hair
permed).

One of the most unique things about this movie, besides
monster vs. monster, is that Drac can fire heat rays from his
ring!

Dracula is played by the filmmakers' stock broker! Though no
Lugosi or Lee, he is strangely effective as a gotee-bearded
Drac! Forrest J. Ackerman (the writer who coined the shorthand term
"sci-fi"), cameos, and J. Carrol Naish plays Doc Frankenstien. Jim
Davis (Jock Ewing on "Dallas"), plays a cynical cop, and Russ Tamblyn
(Dr. Jacobi on "Twin Peaks"), plays Rico, the chief biker bad
guy.

Angelo Rossitto, who plays the carnival dwarf, will be familiar
to film fans. He appeared in the 1932 classic "Freaks" (1932), and
"Mr. Wong in Chinatown" (1939). Horror fans will remember Rossitto in
"The Corpse Vanishes" (1942), and "Scared to Death" (1947), both with
Bela Lugosi. He was also a regular on "H.R. Pufnstuf". His most famous
recent role was Master in "Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome" (1985)

Sadly, in later years he was forced to run a newspaper stand in
Hollywood because he could not make enough money in films to live
on.

The DVD is great, packed with extras, and nice interactive
menus. There's also an alternate ending where Drac drives a silver
hearse! It sounds (and is!), laughable, but on the other hand, what
kind of car would be a better Dracmobile?

Though hardly a classic,
the movie will gratify those monster fans who always wanted to Drac
and Frank fight it out.

Dracula Vs. Frankenstein was seen by me in a time where I looked forward to horror movies on the weekend on TV.

Most of the time, they were black and white and 30 or 40 years old (which to a kid might as well be 1000 years) and even the color ones had a certain "in a faraway time" feel.

So, one of the big surpirses of Dracula Vs. Frankenstein upon seeing it again was that it was pretty contemporary to the 70's. It didn't seem so at the time.

This movie is undeniably bad but it's bad in a way that you can sink your teeth into.

If over the top campiness is a talent J.Carrol Naish is sure acomplished at it. He played the mad scientist to the stereotypical hilt. Make no mistake, scenery chewing makes these film more fun and he did it well. It's unfortunate that the clicking of his false teeth were constantly heard on the soundtrack though.

Zandor Vorkov (his real name is Roger, a stockbroker I believe)manages to play Dracula with that same wonderful, juicy over the top and above campiness while managing to be a bit compelling. Since he was and isn't an actor by trade, I think this deserves some praise. While his look was all wrong (Think Frank Zappa with fangs and a goatee)he gave it his all and seemed to be enjoying himself.

Lon Chaney Jr. turns in his last performance as the crazy mute assistant of Dr. Frankenstein. It's a bit poignant to know that he was very ill during this movie and died soon after. In fact, his part was written as a mute since his throat cancer prevented him from speaking well.

The Frankenstein monster fares the worst. He's just there and not a part of the over the top zaniness that makes Dr. Frankenstein and Dracula so fun in this flick.

The film seems to have it's heart in the right place(I think it wanted to be a bit of a tribute to those great Universal horror films), but the fact that it was filmed over the course of four years and was heavily rewritten and refilmed by people that had never evolved beyond exploitation in the first place kept it from being anything close to a tribute.

Having the DVD gives some insight into the production as well as showing you an alternate ending (explaining why towards the end of the movie, Dracula's makeup and Frankenstein Monster look changes. It was filmed much later with another person playing the monster). It's a good look at the old ins and outs of B movie making.

The great Forrest J. Ackerman makes a cameo by the way (which opened the way to some nice coverage in his Famous Monsters mag).

If you take this movie in the spirit of nostalgic fun, you'll enjoy it. Bad movie fans will get a kick out of it too.

This movie is fun for the entire family. It features one of the greatest "drug-trip-sequences" ever captured on film, it has the last performance of the classic movie star, Lon Chaney. You've gotta love any flick that somehow packs bikers, classic monsters, hippies and a blond with a body and cleavage that won't stop all in one movie. I don't know how to exlain it better than this... the acting is bad, the directing is sub standard the effects are complete crap but it's still an excellent flick. duh, go buy it:)

Well, I knew going into this mess, I wouldn't be getting much out of it. At the very least a few hearty laughs, but nothing could prepare me for what I was about to see. A monster film!? YES INDEED! My title suggesting that Dracula looks like Jim Croce (maybe Frank Zappa?)is a stretch, but it made me laugh as I wrote it as my title blurb.....also the actor playing Dracula looks about as much like Dracula as if Jim Croce wore a cape and painted his face with white grease paint. :-D

I can not even imagine how someone sold this idea, but they did accomplish one thing, they ruined the good names of Dracula and Frankenstein forever! The film has it all, atrocious acting, horrible special effects and make up and above all, a ridiculous and tedious script! I must admit that the film was a little bit better than I expected ,partly because I was seeing it in HD on MGMHD network and of course it is unintentionally funny at times.

I'm going to skip to the funny part which is the battle between Dracula (who is covered in white grease paint complete with two inches of black grease paint around his eyes and vampire teeth he bought at the nearest 5 and 10 store) and Frankenstein(I know, I know Frankenstein's monster...lets just get this over with all ready!) Frankenstein looks like a cross between Mr. Potato Head and a Cabbage Patch Kid left at the city garbage dump for a decade. I skip to this battle because the rest of the film is just excruciating to watch, but at least the battle is hilarious enough to warrant a review. Dracula literally tears Frankenstein apart limb from limb just minutes before sunrise. Dracula then slowly burns to a deep crispy skeleton with obvious cut-aways every few seconds to change the prop Dracula to the next stage. While I can not recommend this film if you see this on your local cable channel like I did, then it might be worth checking out for a few laughs.

Where do I even begin with this???????????????????????????
I have been on a classic monster kick(thinks K.I.A.)and have been
watching the Universal,Hammer and Paul Naschy famous monsters.
Tonight I put in Dracula VS. Frankenstein and oh! MY! I have thought
I seen them all? This starts out with choppy bad editing of Dracula
(played by the famous ZANDOR VORKAV???)Leaving the cemetery
cut and I do mean CUT to a Las Vegas show(hey Vegas)with our
lead actress Regina Carrol(anyone?anyone?)performing a 50's
dance number for a audience who looks like they belong at
a Grateful Dead show then a Vegas show.Cut again to Dr.Frankenstein
played by the great actor but very feeble here J.Carrol Naish
who reads his lines from cue cards and has the best set of pure
white dental choppers you ever seen.But that's not it folks there's
more!!! We have the great Lon(have another drink)Chaney JR.
giving his all! The Frankenstein Monster in this has such a
lumpy face he looks like he has been french kissing a hornets
nest.We do however get the final battle between Drac and Frankie
and it's a doozy! Dracula wins(oh!c'mon like you really are going
to watch this..or better yet care)just to have the sun come up
at the time of victory.This movie is in the top 10 worst films
of ALL time.It really is that bad! Zandor Vorkov gets the award
for blinking his eyes the most in any motion picture...seriously
he blinks every time he speaks a word and with the prop guy
holding the cards he gets to say a mouthful in a incredible
non-performance. A plus in this is J.Forrest Ackerman who
at the time was the owner of Famous Monsters of filmland
magazine...So watch Dracula Vs. Frankenstein...IT'S A
REAL SCREAM....................."cough"

I THINK ANY FAN OF THE ED WOOD FILMS SUCH AS BRIDE OF THE MONSTER, PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE OR GLEN OR GLENDA WOULD ENJOY THIS HORROR SCHLOCK-FEST, DRACULA VS. FRANKENSTEIN, THOUGH EDDY WOOD DIDN'T HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH THIS HI-CAMP UNINTENTIONALLY FUNNY FILM.

LON CHANEY JR. STEALS THE SHOW THIS TIME OUT. HE IS HYSTERICALY FUNNY AS A DEMENTED MUTE/AX MURDERER, WHO SERVES A MAD SCIENTIST. THE MAD SCIENTIST IS PLAYED BY J. CARROLL NASH IN A WHEELCHAIR AND DRESSED LIKE COLONEL HARLAND SANDERS OF KENTUCKY FRIED CHICKEN FAME. THE MAD DOC ALSO RUNS A CARNIVAL SIDESHOW CHAMBER OF HORRORS. THERE IS ALSO A FUNNY MIDGET/HENCHMAN IN THE SERVICE OF THE MAD DOC.

I CAN ONLY DESCRIBE THE ACTORS WHO PLAYED COUNT DRACULA AND FRANKENSTEIN AS DUMB AND DUMBER. BUT THEY ADDED TO THE ZANINESS OF THIS STORY. I WILL ADMIT THAT ALL THE ACTORS WERE LOUSY BUT THAT'S WHAT MAKES FLICKS LIKE THIS FUN BECAUSE YOU JUST CAN'T BELIEVE WHAT YOU'RE SEEING UP THERE ON THE SCREEN, IT'S SO UNBELIEVABLE.

I HAD LOTS OF BELLYLAUGHS WATCHING THIS, IT'S WORTH HAVING. GET IT.