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Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Blood of Dracula's Castle

Now when I first purchased the Gorehouse Greats collection, I had certain expectations in mind. Up until now, the movies I have watched have been bad, but nothing worth writing home about. Blood of Dracula's Castle is exactly what I expected from an old horror movie. It is a terrible movie and I absolutely love it.
To begin with, the quality of the film itself that they used to make the DvD was just awful. There are burns in the film and bright green and blue vertical lines in half the scenes. It sort of looked like some sort of laser prison. I am not complaining, this just adds to the feel of the movie. It's what Tarantino and Rodriguez were trying to replicate with Grindhouse.
The opening scene is of a brutish man dressed in the manner of aa medeival peasant chasing a woman around a forest as the credits roll. He eventually captures her and we see that he is supposed to be some sort of monstrous type guy with really weird make-up that makes him look like he has a sever skin disease. After the opening credits we go to a very fifties-ish Sea World kind of place where a woman, a model, is being photographed by her fiancee, a photographer. IT keeps showing clips of random sea world animals like dolphins and seals and sort of reminds me of one of those fifties documentary/propaganda films about everyday American life. I also noticed that the price of admission was 50 cents for adults and 25 cetns for children, and I find this hilariously dated. I mean, hell there isn't even a keystroke to make that little "cents" symbol anymore, because that is absurdly cheap. Anyways, so the photographer, a Mr.Glen Cannon (awesome name by the way), gets a letter informing him that his uncle has died and left him the family castle. This plot was parodied on Futurama once if I recall. However, the catch is that there is a couple already living in the castle, who used to pay Glen's uncle rent. What Glen doesn't know is that they are *gasp* vampires! We find this out in the next scene which has the monster skin disease man, who is hilariously named Mango bringing the girl he captured at the beginning to a dungeon filled with several other attractive women. Geroge, the vampire couple's butler rewards Mango by letting him take one of the other women back to the Mangocave, where he presumably ate/raped/had a tea party with her. We then learn that these women are actually just a backup supply of blood for the vampires, the Count and Countess Townshend. Their primary supply comes from another of their servants, a man named Johnny The Homicidal Maniac. No, not that Johnny The Homicidal Maniac. Unfortunately Johnny is currently in a mental institution. Luckily he bribes a guard to let him knock him out and escapes. We then cut to a scene where the vampires find out about their new landlords and we learn they sleep in coffins. How Cliche. Meanwhile johnny is on the run from the guards at the mental institute and their dogs! They chase him deep into the wilderness, where Johnny comes across a random woman in a bikini sitting in the middle of a shallow river. Not a quiet, relaxing river, it was fucking rocky rapids with no one else around. Johnny proceeds to pick her up, take her to a different part of the rapids, and drown her. That's what she gets for sunbathing in the middle of the fucking woods. Johnny then follows the river until he loses his pursuers and comes across a man fixing his car. He kills the man, takes his gun and jacket and takes off in the car. Soon he comes across a hitchhiker. Not wanting to pass up the opportunity to murder someone for no reason, he stops, allows the man to approach the car, and shoots him in the head. Then, to add insult to... well, murder, he eats the lunch the guy had with him. Finally he makes it back to the castle where he has a very expositiony conversation wtih George about how they all worship Luna, the moon goddess. Johnny even claims that the full moon is what makes him kill people. Even though the last people he killed, he killed in broad daylight. We then cut to the happy couple, arguing in an extremely obnoxious manner about some inane bullshit on their way to their new castle. Apparently Lis, the model, has decided that they should live in the castle and so they are going to evict the Townshends. They arrive and we see the exterior of the castle, which actually looked to me more like a ranch. They had horses and everything. I guess if it is made of piles of grey stone and has crenellations, it is a castle. The couple goes inside and meets the vampires and explain that they are kicking them out. The Townshends then tell them how fucking retarded trying to live in a castle with no electricity filled with rats, spiders, and who knows what else is. However, Liz wants it, and what Liz wants, Liz gets. Jesus Christ Glen, grow some balls. So while Glen and Liz go check out their bitchin' new castle, Johnny and the Townshends discusss what is to be done and talk about the finer points of vampirism. Glen and Liz spend the night in the castle and are awoken by the tortured screams of young women being tortured. The enxt day they ask Johnny about it and he assures them that it is merely "Toucans". What? Toucans? They live in a fucking desert. Then again, they live in a castle, in a fucking desert. Glen decides to investigate anyway and discovers the dungeon full of women. He and Liz are then captured by the Vampires and their henchmen. Glen valiantly tries to fight his way to freedom by barreling headfirst into Mango's gut. Sadly this does not work out too well for him. Glen and Liz get locked up until that night and the vampires tell that if they do not sign the castle over to them, Liz will be sacrificed to the moon. To demostrate their point, that night they all head out to an altar, including the other prisoners for some reason, and sacrifice the woman from the opening by burning her alive. Glen agrees to sign the castle over and so they head back. However, as he is about to sign he suddenly grabs Johnny's gun and kills him. Since these vampires are apparently vulnerable to bullets, Glen now has the upper hand. He goes downstairs to free the other prisoners and encounters George, wielding a pretty badass whip and morningstar combo. Glen manages to defeat him and free the prisoners. He then goes upstairs and guns down the vampires. Seriously? They died that easy? Well, actually they turned to dust and bats flew out of their shirts, never to be seen again. And so it seems that Glen and Liz are victorious! But wait! Mango! Mango, seeing that everyone he has ever known is now dead, picks up George's morningstar and chases down Glen and Liz for vengeance! Glen tries shootign him but bullets are useless against the mighty Mango! Glen then tries ineffectually tossing the empty gun at Mango, as if a thrown handgun will succeed where several bullets to the chest have failed. Despite being incredibly slow, Mango somehow catches up to them, knocks out Glen, and takes Liz to be sacrificed at the altar. As he is covering her with gasoline, Glen sneaks up behind him and finds an axe that is lying in the bushes for some reason and lodges it in the piece of wood clearly visible in the back of Mango's shirt. He then pours gasoline on the monster, activates soem fire effects on his body, and kicks him off a cliff, where he spontaneously transforms into a crappy mannequin before hitting the ground. These are seriously some of the worst effects I have ever seen. I give this movie a 4 out of 5 for entertainment, and a -6 out of 5 for technical skill.

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