{"id":4977,"date":"2024-10-08T20:15:46","date_gmt":"2024-10-08T20:15:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=4977"},"modified":"2024-10-12T20:50:18","modified_gmt":"2024-10-12T20:50:18","slug":"draculas-dog","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/10\/08\/draculas-dog\/","title":{"rendered":"Dracula\u2019s Dog"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Dracula\u2019s Dog<\/strong> (aka Zoltan: Hound of Dracula) (1978)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Crown International\/Horror\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 90 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (violence, scary moments)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Albert Band\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Frank Ray Perilli\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Andrew Belling\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Bruce Logan\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: June 1978 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Michael Pataki, Reggie Nalder, Jose Ferrer, Jan Shutan, Libby Chase, John Levin, Arlene Martel, Cleo Harrington, Simmy Bow, JoJo D\u2019Amore.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: N\/A<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: *<\/p>\n

\u00a0In retrospect, as a dog lover, I probably shouldn\u2019t have watched a movie called Dracula\u2019s Dog<\/strong>. On the other hand, as a bad movie lover, I\u2019m not about to pass up such a gloriously terrible title. As it turns out, it\u2019s the best thing about the movie.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Personally, I don\u2019t enjoy the sight of animals being tortured or killed which is why I\u2019ve only seen a couple of the infamous Faces of Death movies. In Dracula\u2019s Dog<\/strong>, Zoltan the vampire dog turns a couple of his fellow canines into four-legged bloodsuckers with wagging tails. This means that, invariably, they will all end up with stakes through their hearts. I may be a gorehound, but even we have standards and cruelty to animals crosses that line.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Aside from that, Dracula\u2019s Dog<\/strong> really isn\u2019t all that good a movie, not even by the low standards of bad exploitation flicks. Directed by Albert Band (Ghoulies II), best known as the producer of such low budget fare as Metalstorm (1983), Troll (1986) and TerrorVision (1986), it starts out fine but goes downhill fairly quickly. Once the action relocates from a remote Russian village to L.A., it kind of sputters and stalls. It commits the cardinal sin of becoming boring. Dumb, I can handle. Boring and dumb, that\u2019s another story.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Like I said, things start out okay as what looks like WWII soldiers uncover the Dracula family crypt. One poor guy is left to guard the place which can only spell trouble for him. Sure enough, a sudden earthquake hits and shakes loose a coffin which contains the body of \u2026.. that\u2019s right, Dracula\u2019s dog. He sees the body has a stake through the heart and stupidly pulls it out. Revived from his 200-year nap, Zoltan makes short work of the guard then opens another coffin that was shaken loose. It contains the body of his master, an innkeeper named Veidt Smith (Nalder, Dracula Sucks). In what can only be described as a variation of fetch, he pulls the stake from his master\u2019s chest and revives him.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The thing about Veidt is that he\u2019s sort of a vampire. He can walk in daylight and doesn\u2019t crave human blood. What the pair needs is a new master, somebody from the Dracula clan. There\u2019s only one surviving descendant and he lives in L.A. under the name Michael Drake (Pataki, Halloween 4) with his wife and two kids. So, Veidt and his faithful mutt jump on a ship to the US with Inspector Branco (Ferrer, Dune) in hot pursuit. Dr. Drake (he\u2019s a psychologist) is taking his family on a two-week camping trip with their two dogs and a litter of puppies. Naturally, Veidt follows them and sics his evil dog on them in an attempt to turn Drake into a vampire. I think you can probably see where this is all going.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Dracula\u2019s Dog<\/strong> sounds a lot more fun than it really is. I know I shouldn\u2019t expect too much from a movie by that name, but I would hope it would at least be somewhat compelling in the way the best bad movies are. Even Ferrer doesn\u2019t breathe much life into it. However, it does leave me with many questions. For one, why does everybody insist that Dr. Drake is the last surviving descendant of Count Dracula? What about his children? Aren\u2019t they at least half-Dracula? Doesn\u2019t that count? How about this? Why do the opening scenes appear to take place around WWII while the scenes in California take place in present day 1978? In one scene, Drake\u2019s daughter is looking for a lost puppy when she encounters Veidt standing next to his car, a black hearse. Doesn\u2019t she know about \u201cstranger danger\u201d? She asks the creepy-looking guy if he\u2019s seen her puppy. Gee, why doesn\u2019t she just ask for a ride in his hearse and a piece of candy while she\u2019s at it? The dude looks like something out of a horror movie; you don\u2019t ask him for help!<\/p>\n

\u00a0Thinking about it, Dracula\u2019s Dog<\/strong> is somewhat laughable. But that\u2019s only in hindsight. It\u2019s not that funny while you\u2019re watching it. Actually, it\u2019s not so much watching as it is enduring. I don\u2019t find the sight of a dead puppy entertaining, I find it upsetting. And that\u2019s my Achilles Heel. I love dogs too much to enjoy something like Dracula\u2019s Dog<\/strong>. You know that Zoltan will attack a lot of innocent dogs and they\u2019ll all have to die. Not my cup of tea! On the upside, at least I can now brag that I watched\/endured a movie called Dracula\u2019s Dog<\/strong>. By the way, wouldn\u2019t that title look cool on a marquee? Aside from that, this exploitation flick is literally a dog.<\/p>\n

\"\"
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Dracula\u2019s Dog (aka Zoltan: Hound of Dracula) (1978)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Crown International\/Horror\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 90 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (violence, scary moments)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Albert Band\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Frank Ray Perilli\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Andrew Belling\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Bruce Logan\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: June 1978 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Michael Pataki, Reggie Nalder, Jose Ferrer, Jan Shutan, Libby Chase, John Levin, Arlene Martel, Cleo Harrington, Simmy Bow, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4984,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4977","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-b-movies","category-horror"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Draculas-Dog-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C349&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4977","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4977"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4977\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4985,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4977\/revisions\/4985"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4977"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4977"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4977"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}