Rating: 
Summary: Who let the vampire dogs out?
Review: Ah, those Communists; it's all their fault, you know. In Zoltan, Hound of Dracula, the forces of Communism unleash a mean, lean, killing machine in the form of a huge, fanged vampire dog on the good old USA. Sure, the film makes it look like it was accidental, but I have to ask: why was the Red Army going around blowing up holes all over Romania? There can be only one explanation: they were trying to find an ancient vampire tomb so they could bring a vampire back to life and enlist him in their cause. And that comrade who sacrificed his life for the cause? Clearly a ringer. Let's say I'm guarding a newly discovered Dracula family tomb when the earth starts quaking and a coffin slides out of the mausoleum onto the floor? Do I open the coffin? Do I then, seeing a stake projecting from the innards of the shrouded corpse inside, reach right in and pull the stake out just for the heck of it? No. Nobody would do that - unless they were acting under orders (or were just born stupid). What soon emerges from the coffin is a huge black dog (code name: Zoltan) who sates hundreds of years of blood hunger on his benefactor. The vampire canine quickly frees his old buddy, one of Dracula's servants, from another coffin, and the two reunited friends scurry off into the night. The servant is only a partial vampire; the sun doesn't bother him and he has no craving for blood; all he has is a fervent need to serve a master and a really silly expression on his face whenever he supposedly concentrates. Inspector Blanco, played by Jose Ferrer, knows all about the Dracula family, and he knows that the risen servant will go looking for a new master - and there is only one surviving member of the ancestral Dracula bloodline remaining (which is strange when you realize the guy has a son and daughter of his own), a perfectly normal human fellow named Drake living in California. Drake and his family have just begun a two-week camping vacation - it's not one they will soon forget. The family keeps being bothered by and eventually attacked by great big dogs, losing their own dogs in the process. Dracula's servant's master plan is to use his ever-growing number of vampire dogs to get the family out of the way and then take Drake's blood, thereby turning him into the Dracula heir and master he is seeking. The film completely goes to the dogs by the time Inspector Blanco finally finds Drake to warn him about the whole vampire thing. If you think your neighbor's dog barks loudly in the middle of the night, wait until you hear a constant cacophony of huge dogs whooping it up for a full half hour. This isn't a bad thing, though; I rather liked the way the dogs were used in this film, doing all of the dirty work for the weird undead servant. The ending of the film gets a little bit hokey, and then it gets even a little hokier, but I actually enjoyed this film a great deal. I must warn fellow animal lovers out there that some dog characters meet with an unhappy fate in this film. Worst of all, a litter of cute little adorable puppies gets dragged into the whole mess. Personally, I don't care what happens to human characters in horror films - the more gruesome the death, the more I like it. But to bring pain and misery to poor little puppy characters is hard for an animal lover like me to watch. You know, a number of really talented canine actors and actresses basically carried this movie on their backs; they acted their hearts out, looked more like fanged vampire killers than most humans ever do, and for what? For no credits whatsoever, that's what. Sure, the trainer gets his name listed; even the person who supplied the dogs gets to see his name up in lights; yet not one canine actor was given any credit in the making of this movie. You name the movie after a canine vampire, but you won't even list the dog's real name? Where is the justice in this? This is a good horror movie, and credit should be given where credit is due.
Rating:
Summary: Who let the vampire dogs out?
Review: Ah, those Communists; it's all their fault, you know. In Zoltan, Hound of Dracula, the forces of Communism unleash a mean, lean, killing machine in the form of a huge, fanged vampire dog on the good old USA. Sure, the film makes it look like it was accidental, but I have to ask: why was the Red Army going around blowing up holes all over Romania? There can be only one explanation: they were trying to find an ancient vampire tomb so they could bring a vampire back to life and enlist him in their cause. And that comrade who sacrificed his life for the cause? Clearly a ringer. Let's say I'm guarding a newly discovered Dracula family tomb when the earth starts quaking and a coffin slides out of the mausoleum onto the floor? Do I open the coffin? Do I then, seeing a stake projecting from the innards of the shrouded corpse inside, reach right in and pull the stake out just for the heck of it? No. Nobody would do that - unless they were acting under orders (or were just born stupid). What soon emerges from the coffin is a huge black dog (code name: Zoltan) who sates hundreds of years of blood hunger on his benefactor. The vampire canine quickly frees his old buddy, one of Dracula's servants, from another coffin, and the two reunited friends scurry off into the night. The servant is only a partial vampire; the sun doesn't bother him and he has no craving for blood; all he has is a fervent need to serve a master and a really silly expression on his face whenever he supposedly concentrates. Inspector Blanco, played by Jose Ferrer, knows all about the Dracula family, and he knows that the risen servant will go looking for a new master - and there is only one surviving member of the ancestral Dracula bloodline remaining (which is strange when you realize the guy has a son and daughter of his own), a perfectly normal human fellow named Drake living in California. Drake and his family have just begun a two-week camping vacation - it's not one they will soon forget. The family keeps being bothered by and eventually attacked by great big dogs, losing their own dogs in the process. Dracula's servant's master plan is to use his ever-growing number of vampire dogs to get the family out of the way and then take Drake's blood, thereby turning him into the Dracula heir and master he is seeking. The film completely goes to the dogs by the time Inspector Blanco finally finds Drake to warn him about the whole vampire thing. If you think your neighbor's dog barks loudly in the middle of the night, wait until you hear a constant cacophony of huge dogs whooping it up for a full half hour. This isn't a bad thing, though; I rather liked the way the dogs were used in this film, doing all of the dirty work for the weird undead servant. The ending of the film gets a little bit hokey, and then it gets even a little hokier, but I actually enjoyed this film a great deal. I must warn fellow animal lovers out there that some dog characters meet with an unhappy fate in this film. Worst of all, a litter of cute little adorable puppies gets dragged into the whole mess. Personally, I don't care what happens to human characters in horror films - the more gruesome the death, the more I like it. But to bring pain and misery to poor little puppy characters is hard for an animal lover like me to watch. You know, a number of really talented canine actors and actresses basically carried this movie on their backs; they acted their hearts out, looked more like fanged vampire killers than most humans ever do, and for what? For no credits whatsoever, that's what. Sure, the trainer gets his name listed; even the person who supplied the dogs gets to see his name up in lights; yet not one canine actor was given any credit in the making of this movie. You name the movie after a canine vampire, but you won't even list the dog's real name? Where is the justice in this? This is a good horror movie, and credit should be given where credit is due.
Rating: 
Summary: Zoltan, Hound of Dracula
Review: An interesting entry in the vampire legend, I think any horror fan should see this film. This movie has some genuine chills, and it makes you want to think twice before you leave the family pooch out at night. Reggie Nalder's performance as the undead slave and the eerie atmosphere of the film make it worthwhile to checkout.
Rating: 
Summary: This film is not for the faint hearted
Review: As a child I saw this movie and it has stuck with me ever since. ZTHOD is a horror movie taken straight off the Hammer Best Film rack. The idea that Dracula has a pet pooch that can strike fear into any person out for a late night walk is portrayed in a spine chilling fashion. Regardless of the acting quality, which is not bad for a Hammer production, the focus on Zoltan will keep you up at night wondering if the yorkshire terrier next door really will turn into a bat, fly through your bedroom window and have a three course meal on your neck.
Rating:
Summary: Badder than Cujo!
Review: I just discovered this gem, it is now a favorite horror movie of mine. If you like that 70's type of campy horror like I do, you'll love this one. The action is good and the dog is totally cool. The characters are pretty good considering the type of movie it is also. This a different look at Dracula movies that is not very well known.
Rating:
Summary: Pretty scary dog!
Review: I've watched this movie several times and never found it boring. To think of meeting a dog like that on a dark lonely street. Heck, I'd be scared in broard day light. Any horror fan would love this movie. Just don't watch it alone!
Rating:
Summary: Pretty scary dog!
Review: I've watched this movie several times and never found it boring. To think of meeting a dog like that on a dark lonely street. Heck, I'd be scared in broard day light. Any horror fan would love this movie. Just don't watch it alone!
Rating: 
Summary: Creature Of The Night
Review: plain bore with no redeeming values at all unless you enjoy listening to demonic barks or watching dog attack training techniques for fun
Rating:
Summary: What happens when vampyrism crosses species
Review: The movie opens with a beautifully detailed shot of some trees standing up against a blue sky, and when I zoomed in, the details were not lost so I guess the movie must have been shot on 35 mm. It's really not a bad movie but some of the scenes that serve to tie the movie together must have been lost when the movie was mastered onto DVD. When the camera pans down from the trees in full foliage - it is summertime - some guys dressed in Soviet uniforms flip a switch on a box and we see an explosion in the distance, and a cloud of dust rises up from the excavation site. Perhaps they were building a road in the area, perhaps they were trying to seek out the underground crypt where a vampire was reputed to be buried, we don't know for sure because some exposition seems to be lacking. In any case, discovering a way into the crypt, the soldiers descend into an elaborately detailed crypt with coffins sealed up in the walls around the tomb, and the camera hovers on the dimly lit inscriptions of characters like Mikhail Dracula, Igor Dracula, and a few others. They decide that it is an archaeological site, and it has to be protected from the locals. Later on, when the earth begins shaking in the middle of the night, coffins come tumbling out of the wall, and the guard grows curious and opens up a lid. Yep, no sooner does he see a wooden stake sticking out of a corpse than he foolishly takes it out, and a shape begins to swell up from within the burial shroud, and what do you know, it takes form and the guard just stands there. Even more shocking, a big, snarling, black dog jumps out of the coffin and kills the guard. Then there is a flashback to the days of the late 1700s when the dog was not a vampire dog, but just a normal dog. We see the dog barking at an intruder, and discover that it has scared a vampire away from a sleeping woman. But because the vampire is angry for being deprived of its meal, it turns into a bat and attacks the dog, sucking blood out of the dog's neck, and that is how the dog becomes a vampire dog. For one reason or another, the shopkeeper that owns the dog contracts vampyrism, too, and in short time they, as a pair, become faithful servants to their master, Count Dracula. So much for the flashback. The rest of the movie involves these two servants, fortuitously resurrected from death, coming to America, and traveling to California to reunite with the very last surviving representative of Dracula's lineage, a non-vampire named Drake, a practicing psychologist, off on a well-deserved vacation by the lake. This movie suffers from its poorly arranged musical soundtrack, not from its camera work, as the best music is saved for very the last part of the movie when the credits are scrolling down the screen. If I had to describe the music, I'd guess that the composer was just beginning to learn how to use a music synthesizer, and the organlike sounds - seemingly new to him - were overused and poorly arranged. I guess you'd have to be a vampire movie collector to buy this movie, or maybe you just liked the stunning Arlene Martell (the lady Russian commandant) who had a bit piece at the start of the movie (discussing with the inspector what is a new kind of vampire, one who is not completely a vampire, just someone who is "half-undead"). Although Arlene Martell had a very small part in this movie, lasting only 2 or 3 minutes long, she did manage to have her name listed on the credits in letters just as big as Reggie Nalder's. (Reggie Nalder plays the old and wrinkled shopkeeper from the 1700s.) Maybe Arlene Martell's background in television soap operas led to her bit piece in this vampire movie... And if you still can't remember who she is, she played Spock's wife on Star Trek. Finally, if this movie were to be improved in any way, the musical score would be completely thrown out and replaced with something more moving.
Rating:
Summary: men revive evil dog, dog kills men, the hunt for evil begins
Review: this film keeps with the tradition of how powerful and yet easily killed vampires can and should be. A stake is removed, thus freeing an evil dog from its eternal sleep. The dog is dracula incarnate, with an evil man to watch over it. No more vampires walking around in the daylight and fighting cruxifixes and stakes through the heart! Bring on the vampires that can be killed as easily as they themselves can kill!
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