Too much of everything

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties.

It is encouraging that the film ends so strongly.Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a particularly memorable film

This is one of the best of its genre from the mid to late sixties. It's campy, the acting ranges from great to laughably mediocre. The special effects are very low budget, to the point of being humorous. But the story line is good, except for the mysteriously absent signs of Johnny being a werewolf. It has so many beautiful women and the men are quite handsome(except Mango, of course & I kept seeing Chris Kattan in my mind every time they said his name!) I have this on Amazon Prime and will probably watch it again. And again. I really did enjoy the time spent.

"Glen Cannon" (Glen Otis Shayne) is a photographer who suddenly receives a telegram saying that a rich uncle has died and left him a castle in the desert of California. Definitely wanting to check it out he and his fiancé "Liz Arden" (Barbara Bishop) decide to drive there and inform the people who are renting it that they will have to leave. What they don't know is that the renters just happen to be "Count Dracula" (Alexander D'Arcy) and his companion "Countess Townsend" (Paula Raymond) and neither of them have any intention of leaving. Now rather than reveal any more of this movie and risk spoiling it for those who haven't seen it I will just say that the concept was somewhat interesting but it suffered from too many characters and subplots which caused a lack of overall coherence. Likewise, it also didn't have the necessary action or Gothic feel which most fans of the genre expect to see. Even so it had some attractive young ladies like Vicki Volante (as "Ann") and the aforementioned Barbara Bishop as some compensation for the rather vapid plot. But it wasn't enough. Accordingly, I give the movie a rating of below average.

So there I am, watching the opening moments of what obviously is going to be a clunky mish-mash of horror movie clichés (complete with John Carradine), when the Count finally makes an appearance, and Oh My God, it's "Bob Boxbody", (Alex D'Arcy) the actor from "Horrors Of Spider Island" (thanks to Mike Nelson and the robots from MST3K)!! And there's "Johnny", the poor guy from some crappy Frankenstein film, and of course, John Carridine himself.Here's the kind of movie it is: for almost the entire duration of the movie, there are three women chained up on the wall in the "dungeon" and two of them (the extras) never get a single line, poor things. They're just there as window dressing. (Actually, I tell a lie - one of them gets to yell "LOOK OUT" to the hero at the climactic struggle near the end. She's terrible.) And yet, in spite of the whole "women in chains" and "vampires feasting on the blood of young virgins" theme, and in spite of the fact that the movie wastes nearly 10 minutes watching Johnny kill various people as he evades a manhunt after his escape from prison,the movie is somehow bemused and kind of softened and gentle around the edges. I think this is mostly because the Count and his bride are depicted her as being quite genteel and decorous in their habits, and so there is less of the usual sense of relish and glee in the suffering of the young victims that most movies of this type rely on. Instead,it's all got a feeling of "Well, sorry about this, but we need our morning livener, after all. George, would you do the honors?" It also helps that the heroic young couple who get caught up in the events in the castle are likable and attractive in a grainy 70 film stock kind of way.There are even some amusing war-of-the-sexes lines of dialog scattered here and there. And while the couple may be pretty dumb, they are portrayed as being happy and proud to be with each other.Anyway, if you watch this one hoping to be frightened, or titillated, you'll probably be disappointed. But there are worse ways to warm up for Halloween.

My overblown rating for this is due to nostalgia value: this is one of the first horror movies I can ever remember seeing and is close to my heart in a way that is more fitting for a record album than a movie. I've gotten to know every cadence and beat, line of dialog, musical cue and gesture. This film has been a part of my life, thanks in part by how clever local TV programming directors back in the 1970s would often produce their own weekly Creature Feature Monster Movie Matinée horror movie block.For some reason this one got around a bit more than others, I was familiar with it from a very young age and we'd get it two or three times a year, right along with "The Black Cat" (1934), "Conqueror Worm" (1968), "Count Dracula" (1970). This one was the vampire movies with the big hunchback, and my greatest intrigue as a kid was to wonder just what was inside of Mango's little house underneath the paper mache stairs. I still wonder about it sometimes.The film is a classic study of American kitsch, so delightfully out of step with the Haight-Ashbury influenced psychedelia years during which it was produced (1967) and ultimately released (1969) to what must have been baffled audiences. Al Adamson movies are always a matter of acquired taste but I know people who remember seeing this film whenever describing the scene where the guy pushes the car over the cliff and walks away munching on a sandwich.Its somewhat ineptly made but all of it endearing, right down to the confusing issue of whether Robert Dix's Johnny is a werewolf or not. He is in the expanded television print* and I remember seeing it once or twice, though as far as I am concerned its even more fun with him just being a maniac who gets riled up during the full moon.And this is John Carradine as I will always remember him, George the Butler, a practicing Satanist (or whatever he practices) who brings his employers chilled Bloody Mary's with real blood promptly at 4:30, and never forgets the need to reward Mango for bringing them fresh girls. The rewarding Mango scene is the highlight of the movie for me. You can't help but wonder what he'd do to a girl if he got one, and it ain't pretty.The movie deserves a better reputation than its gotten. It's not THAT bad, and there's some actual talent involved with the production in the form of cinematographer Lazlo Kovaks and "Star Trek" contributor Jerome Wexler amongst the production staff. They even shot some of the outdoor sequences by the same rock where Captain Kirk fought the Gorn. Golly!One curious thing that always impressed me about the movie is how it makes this little community of monsters living in the desert just south of Malibu seem so normal and contented. Sure, Mango is a big shuffling grunting cannibalistic muto, but by golly he has a place here in this household and people who care about him. By contrast, the young couple who inherit the castle come across as shrill, shallow, narcissistic idiots who wish to heartlessly break up the happy nucleus. It appears that what Mr. Adamson was saying is that the monsters are us.9/10