Best movie of this year hands down!

Wonderful Movie

Thanks for the memories!

Best movie of this year hands down!

Captain Kronos – Vampire Hunter is written and directed by Brian Clemens. It stars Horst Janson, John Cater, John Carson, Caroline Munro, Shane Briant, Lois Daine and Wanda Ventham. Out of Hammer Film Productions, music is by Laurie Johnson and cinematography by Ian Wilson.Swashbuckling vampire slayer Captain Kronos (Janson) answers the call of his friend Dr. Marcus (Carson) to investigate the mysterious goings on in the village of Durward. Young women are being drained of all their youth, left at deaths door old and haggard. Aided by his trusty hunchbacked assistant, Professor Grost (Cater), Kronos' search for the truth takes him to the Durward family estate…One of the last great Hammer Horror movies, Captain Kronos – Vampire Hunter has done well to rise through the decades as a sort of culty camp horror classic. Initial plans were for it to hopefully kick start a series that would see Kronos fighting evil at any given place in time; Doctor Who with a sword and a taste for the ladies if you like. Clemens had some grand ideas for the movie, but was quickly brought down to earth when he was handed the production's paltry budget. Barely released in Britain with little to no publicity, and this nearly two years after the film had wrapped! Kronos has had to fight more than one battle just to get recognised. Thankfully the advancements in home entertainments have ensured it a deserved place in the upper echelons of Hammer's output.The film is a collage of genres, part horror, part comedy, part swashbuckler adventure and part saucy seaside postcard romp, but it all works so well in the pursuit of making the audience have a good time. The writing flips the vampire legend away from the norm, infusing the narrative with a new vampyric foe. This crafty sod can operate in the daytime as it drains not blood, but youth! As the genius Professor Grost tells us, there are many types of vampires, and different methods are needed to execute any of them on any given day. So this isn't a case of Kronos tracking down the guilty and using one of the trusty old methods used on Drac, oh no! Kronos and Grosty have to use trial and error to see what will work for this particular beastie. Wonderful!On his journey Kronos liberates a beauty from the stocks, poor Carla (Munro) was found guilty of dancing on a Sunday, she can count herself lucky it wasn't a stronger punishment. So cue mucho sexual shenanigans and barely concealed innuendo between the two pretty ones, with suggestive conversations about having each other and some fondling of the sword. Kronos will also waylay bullies, he has no tolerance for meat heads and cuts them down faster than Zorro ever could. This guy is a hero to the common people, an action man of substance and cunning guile, he likes to drink and toke, it's criminal that he didn't get his own series or sequels.Under scrutiny the low budget is evident, where bare minimum of set dressing for the interiors and extended exterior shots are a necessity, while you might be surprised to realise there actually isn't that many people in the story! But Clemens does a marvellous job with what he had to work with, really zipping it along and blending so many genre flavours with consummate ease. It's a shame this was to be his only film directing effort. He even gets sparky performances from his cast, managing to sexualise Munro without flashing the flesh and turning Janson's stiffness into one of the film's assets!Captain Kronos – Vampire Hunter, a ball of fun that sticks its tongue firmly into its pulpy bloody strewn cheek. 8/10

In the English countryside, bizarre murders have been occurring as some of the women in the village have been drained of their age and killed instantly. A local Doctor named Marcus (John Carson) calls upon a vampire killer named Kronos (Horst Janson) along with hump-backed assistant Grost (John Cater) to investigate these strange occurrences. They team up with lovely gypsy (Caroline Munro) as they fight this unique kind of vampire creature that drains youth/lifeforces/souls/energy instead of blood yet also turns people into soul-draining vampires.Brilliant and very original Hammer production! this is probably their second best movie besides "Horror of Dracula" and one of my favorite movies since i was a kid. What is really outstanding that it has a breath of fresh air over the tired same old bloodsucking vampire routine as instead it goes for the energy-draining psychic vampire routine told in vampire legends mainly in Asia to Japan where they have vampires of that sort. The movies "Sleepwalkers", "Lifeforce" and others besides this have told of this kind of vampire on the big screen. The vampires in this movie do cast reflections and can walk in the daylight, Grost even educates the audiences there is more than one species of vampire when there are other kinds of vampires in the world that have powers different than any of the Dracula kind and can be killed in any way.The performances are very good, it's loaded with action and charisma peppered with a few humorous moments and a new twist to the vampire legend. Miss Munro is lovely as usual and this film has a nice combination of vampire flick and swashbuckler all rolled in one. This movie was a major inspiration to the Blade movies, Van Helsing, Buffy The Vampire Slayer and even the Castlevania games.A must watch! it also teaches people there is more than one kind of vampire to hit the screen when there are other legends.

Prepare to be hammered by Captain Kronos, Vampire Hunter. He's a swashbuckling, brooding, silent type who cavorts across the countryside with his assistant, Prof. Grost, who is a hunchbacked sort of Dr.-Watson-Meets-Hephaestus. As you will learn well into the storyline, Kronos's family was attacked by vampires, so now he has to repay the "species" a thousandfold by hunting them down in the, well, dead of day, actually, and learning along the way that vampires are a varied species that must be snuffed in a multitude of ways as no one set of rules works for all of them(a nice twist).The score is adequate, and in some places, rousing. Acting is somewhat of "Horst of another color." Janson is tolerable as Cap'n Kronos, sometimes delivering his lines very well, other times you might groan. If I were to cast a remake, I'd lovingly place Dave Mustaine in the lead with John Hurt as his quasimodo-in-tow. Anyway, I know plenty of horror fans dig this film and there is a lot to be said for it 35 years later. Part of its appeal would lie in when you watched the movie, though. If you are a geezer like me and waited until you were older to see this, it certainly won't have the same attraction as it might for a kid in high school in the 70's. This is not to say it's a bad film or even really dated. You just have to be in the right mindset when you start watching or you'll end up being too critical. Personally, I'd have preferred more swordplay and a few more vampiric slayings. The swordfight in the cemetery is beyond pathetic and at least the cinematographer was able to clean up the shortcomings a bit with fast camera-work. However, the sword fight at the end is considerably better and will make up for the one previously derided.There are a bevy of beauties in the film, including the delicious Caroline Munro, so there's no shortage of flesh, although nudity is kept in the shadows. If you are a careful viewer, and I know you are, you'll spot the main baddie rather early on, but that doesn't necessarily spoil things. Perhaps the best thing about this movie is not so much the action or dialogue as the uber-creepy vampire moving about the countryside, mainly in the forests, donning a black shroud and sucking the youth out of the fair maidens. The fact the vampire's face is not shown until the end greatly helps the film, which has little in the way of effects or gore.Today, we have Van Helsing and the late-in-coming Solomon Kane as a sort of modern cinematic Captain Kronos, but that doesn't mean his character couldn't live on in more stories. I'm sure there are enough fans of this film to warrant his resurrection.

"My Family were Karnsteins!" Lady Durward reveals to her shocked children.In 1970 Hammer Films did the Vampire Lovers based on Joseph Sheridan LeFanu's novella Carmilla about the Austrian Vampire Noblewoman Carmilla Karnstein played superbly by German Actress Ingrid Pitt and her evil vampiric Satanic witchcraft loving family.Then in 1971 Carmilla is resurrected by the blood of a female human sacrifice played by Scandinavian Actress Yutte Stensgaard in the sequel To Love a Vampire to raise cain in a boarding finishing school and in 1972 Carmilla is briefly back again and makes a vampire out of a descendant in the film Twins of Evil and the descendant in turn makes one of his antagonist's twin nieces a vampire. In 1974 Captain Kronos Vampire Hunter now deals with Lady Durward nee Lady Karnstein who along with her late husband Lord Durward whom she made a vampire to keep their love alive drain the blood of young village girls. The vampires had two children when they were non-undead.The young two young adult children and the Doctor who was an admirer of the "once beautiful"Lady Durward and is the person who sends for Kronos are unaware that Lady Durward is responsible for all of it. This film is well acted (with the exception of Caroline Munro who was no great actress but a beautiful woman and a great scream queen of Hammer films)has great swordplay,dark hidden family secrets,great sets and witty double entendre. Ingrid Pitt by the way would have been perfect for Lady Karnstein Durward but Wanda Ventham was just as good in the role.This movie I recommend to anyone who is a vampire movie fan or a fan of Hammer films adaptation and sequels of Joseph Sheridan LeFanu's Carmilla.