Billy the Kid vs. Dracula

*

Oh, dear. This one is just right for the IMDb Horror Board's November Turkey Challenge, an annual event where boarders watch as many rotten apples as possible in a competition that asks people to remain masochists for over a month. I feel sorely in agony as I watch John Carradine trapped in this slog. William Beaudine, the director of this, was about to meet his end a few years later (1970) but before his career was over, he had two dogs left to posit on the cinematic universe.

In perhaps the worst casting choice I could ever imagine for Billy the Kid, Chuck Courtney sleepwalks through his part and has zero charisma. In fact, he's an absolute bore. I can't fathom what made him the right choice for the part during the casting process. And to treat Billy as some "golly gee" fresh-faced "reformed" outlaw who doesn't look the part of a notorious gunslinger feared by many does this film or the character a disservice.

And then there's the ass-kicking Billy gets by a rival over a job at the ranch of his squeeze, Betty (Melinda Plowman). The rival even kicks Billy's hat in the air after vanquishing him to add sting to the defeat. It is flat out embarrassing. The treatment of Carradine's vampire (Dracula isn't mentioned in the film!) as if he can walkabout during the day then later talk about how he needs to rest kind of toys a bit with the vampire as if those who made this film weren't all that versed in the character's tropes. The bat flying about all the time, with Carradine showing up on occasion to hypnotize female victims (this red light used by Beaudine when Carradine does this is laughable), looking mighty aged and tired compared to his youthful vampire in the Universal films that helped to develop him into a horror icon (of sorts), this "the old vampire passes through the wild west" crossing of genres was kind of an example of where the actor's career was heading unfortunately. One year later he shows up in Hillbillys in a Haunted House which tells you all you need to know about the descent his career takes.

Carradine's vampire takes the identity of Betty's Uncle James, and he immediately starts to enforce his will on all involved. The immigrant hired help who realize James is the vampire biting throats (including their lovely relative), Billy being replaced (albeit very momentarily by Bing Russell) by his rival, and Betty getting locked up in her room (she's not "of age" yet). Soon the vampire takes a bite out of Betty, planning their "marriage" as he sets up shop in a silver mine.

I wish I could say this was a good, campy time as its title might have you believe. It is just a chore to sit through. Billy the Kid is colorless and wimpy, Carradine has bags under his eyes and looks like a magician in how he's costumed. He tries to (I guess; I'm not sure of his sincerity or if this was a knowing spoof of the character) convey menace and ferocity (when an old lady, a nurse in the town, points a mirror at Drac, he responds by barking at her!) but it is sadly lacking.

The color added to this film, to me, might do it little favors, as the Dracula roaming about during the day just ruins his night stalking routine horror fans are so accustomed to. This plays fast and loose with the vampire lore. The score is very much of the traditional method one might attribute to Gothic horror. The silver mine set is unconvincing in color. Perhaps Carradine wouldn't look so old had the film been in B&W.

What drew a scriptwriter into the idea of Billy the Kid up against Dracula anyway? If you draw on a vampire and fire upon him, the bullets do no good. If he engages in fisticuffs, the vampire will overpower him. What does Billy do? In the film's funniest scene, Billy hurls a gun at him which knocks him down, allowing him to use a knife and rock to stake the vampire. Why a bat flies about even though Dracula is on the ground of the cave is anybody's guess.

Billy and Betty, the sheriff (who had arrested Billy until the nurse tossed him his gun while in jail much to the sheriff's dismay) and nurse of the town will confront the vampire in the mine and leave all happy and smiling. The end (a pleasant sight for yours truly).

This isn't the worst film ever made as some might moniker it. It is just a dull failure that tries to do something different with a real life person mystified by history and a character of literary fiction based on a historical figure. I wish Carradine's Dracula was actually potent but he's just a relic that reminds us of what had become passe. Billy the Kid has no real reason to be in the same movie with a vampire anyway. It might have had a chance if made with tongue in cheek. This film doesn't and the results are mediocre and disappointing.

I will say this. There's one really good scene that has Natives reacting hostilely when one of their own is bitten by Dracula, believing the whites in the stagecoach attacked her. Hopping on their horses and soon besieging the stagecoach, all that is left are dead bodies on the ground as Dracula surveys the damage and his own handiwork the cause of their demise. It has a tragic quality to it and comments on Dracula's trail of death he often leaves behind. He is a scourge.