Dracula vs. Frankenstein

Rating:
Summary: WHAT A VIEWING COINCIDENCE!
Review: Mike Savary, I too used to watch Creature Double Feature on WLVI Channel 56 Boston, MA (from Lawence, MA) back in the 1970's every saturday afternoon. I saw this film then and I now have the DVD. The scenes are rather lengthy but to me that gives it more story. Acting is good, cinematography is really clear enough for viewing though it could be clearer. Long but satisfying audio commentary explaining much of the production.

Rating:
Summary: Grade A Garbage
Review: My feelings regarding this film were always ambivalent. I saw it at a child and loved it. However, as I've aged, my attitude towards it is more complex. I'm a distant relative of J. Carrol Naish (a point of pride with me; for those whose only exposure to him is this film, catch him starring with Bogart in "Sahara.") and I've loved Lon Chaney since childhood, so there's something painful in watching this film as an adult and seeing the ignominious circumstances these 2 legends ended their careers in, considering the artistry they had both been capable of (for those whose only image of Chaney is as "The Wolfman", catch him in "Of Mice And Men"). Also, I'm not one to indulge in the trend of elitist contempt towards the low-budget films of the 60's and early 70's. "Golden Turkeys" indeed. Silly, laughable cinematic atrocities? Perhaps, but there's nothing worse, in my opinion, than the insulting multi-million dollar pablum that Hollywood currently purveys ad nauseam. I'll take "Frankenstein's Daughter" over "Gigli" any day of the week. At the very least, Al Adamson had the passion of a true fan of the old-time horror movies. No, this isn't Karloff's "Frankenstein" or Laughton's "Island of Lost Souls." It's not even "Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things." But if you're willing to watch it in the spirit in which it was made, and you've fortified yourself with several bottles of beer, it can be diverting, escapist entertainment. Surely that has to count for something in this bleak day and age.

Rating:
Summary: Bad movie - Great fun!
Review: Ol' Franky and Drac just can't seem to get along in this one. If I had to wear make-up like that I'd be cranky too! All in all, it was fun to watch. The acting was bad,..., the women were, well, let's just say they're well built, but that's it, and poor Lon Chaney was overweight and looked like he was ready to keel over at any moment. Also, the fight between the monster and the cops has to go down as the worse screen scrap in history, oy! So what was good about this clunker? I can't really say. Maybe I'm demented. Maybe I just miss watching old movies that were harmless yet fun. I do know that if you want sit down on a Friday night and watch some real stupidity, then this movie's for you. They just don't make movies like this anymore.

Rating:
Summary: The Worst, The Saddest, The Dumbest
Review: The only way I can explain all the five star reviews under me is that it's the same guy reviewing over and over again. Don't waste your time. I love the old Universal films, as flawed as they are. This film isn't even fun in a so-bad-it's-good kind of way.

Rating:
Summary: This IS 2 movies!
Review: The particular cover displayed under this (Frankenstein vs. Dracula) title is not the mopvies with Lon Chaney jr. and J.Carroll Naish-a decent flick itself, but I refer you to the other reviews on that one.
This one, which appears to be mislabeled on this site, stars Michael Rennie as an alien ("Klaatu" from "The Day the Earth Stood Still"). He takes over the body of an earth scientist, and steals the bodies of Dracula, Frankenstein, The Mummy, and the Wolfman (All with changed names). Dracula and Frankenstein never lay eyes on each other, but the Wolfman takes down the Mummy and Frankenstein (after being flung around by both of them-he just gets lucky). Dracula is too wimped out for my taste (he actually gets his ass kicked by a cop-I mean literally gets his ass kicked). The alien plan to revive the great monsters to help them take over the world ends of course in disaster. All around, this is at best a B-movie, and a damn good one. They rip off scenes from older movies like "Frankenstein meets the Wolfman" and "House of Frankenstein". This is pretty fun, it's in the same series of foreign films as "Werewolf Shadow" and "Fury of the Wolfman".

Rating:
Summary: IT'S TRASH, BUT GOOD TRASH......FOR WHAT IT'S WORTH
Review: This film is directed by Al Adamson, a god awful director (since murdered in the mid '90's) who made one interesting film....this one. It was made in spits and spats over several years, although you can't really tell, with the late great J Carrol Naish & Lon Chaney Jr in their last pitiful roles. Naish is so old and sick he had to "act" in a wheelchair. But at the end of the day, all I really remember, boys, is Regina Carrol, Adamson's busty wife, who I suspect wouldn't look "great" in an extreme closeup, but she has a sort of porn star appeal (God rest her soul, she too has since departed this mortal coil), as she takes LSD, as she dances....as she sings! It a shocking, cheap mess, a great antidote to the extravagent Phantom Menace. No great shakes, but I've never been bored watching it, and what else do you want?

Rating:
Summary: This movie rminds me of watermelon bubbleicious gum.
Review: This is about Dracula and he has to fight Frankenstein. There are also murderous mad scientists in cahoots with Dracula and its up to Regina "freakout girl" Caroll to save the day. I dont know why the two legendary monsters fight but they do.Thats enough with the story though because it is hard to express such a high-calibur screen play in mere words.I like this movie because it is one of the finest pieces of cinema ever made. It is full of meaning and you can truly relate to the sorrow and misery that the characters must endure. Russ Tamblyn (1 time oscar nominee)gives the best performance of his career as a tough biker. The lines and story are truly thought provoking and inspiring. Al Adamson was a genious and after seeing this movie every one is sure to agree.

Rating:
Summary: Talk About a Piece of Stinky Gouda.
Review: This is one Grade A, cheesy stinkfest of a film, as anyone should reasonable expect from Al Adamson, King of Gouda, as it were. I find myself curiously unable to summarize the 'plot', which very well could stem from a veritable lack of coherent story, but that's half the fun of these Grade Z classics, anyway. I do want to spend a moment here to about the qualities that make this a true prize for fans of the truly horrible monster movie genre, of which I count myself at the forefront.
Adamson didn't have much money when he made this film (obviously) so his strategy was simple: get one star and the remainder of the cast could be relatives, friends, street people, etc. In this case, poor Lon Chaney gets the nod to play the extremely cliche mute (and dumb) lab assistant to J. Carrol Naish, a wheelchair bound, garden variety mad scientist, who severs people's heads off and tried to bring them back to life. He is befriended by the worst Dracula EVER (Zandor Vorkhov), who I think looks like Frank Zappa on uppers. Dracula just happens to have a business proposition for Naish involving bringing Frankenstein's Monster back from the dead because he just happens to have part of the original monster lying around his house. Of course they do this with wires and electricity, and what emerges is a monster truly worthy of this Dracula, in other words, laughable. He appears to be the Sta-Puft Marshmallow Man with extremely bad acne, whose only real power is walking like Jimmy Cagney.

Into the mix come a few meddling kids, one of whom is on a search for her little sister (actually a prisoner of Naish) and a guy she brings along, who has the ugliest pants I have ever seen in my entire life. After showing us a gratuitous Nazi motorcycle gang rape scene thwarted by Lon's ax, and a wretched 'walk on the beach' scene with an unbelievably bad piece of music, none of which has any particular relevance to the rest of the film, we get back to the central story (as it were) by having the good guys (big sister and ugly pants guy) go to the freak show where Naish works. Eventually they confront Naish, who reveals the sister, and says a bunch of stuff about her making the exactly right kind of plasma (I'm actually a bit fuzzy on the science angle of all this, sorry.) A midget carnival barker enters the fray and drops Lon Chaney's puppy into the basement, which irritates Lon, so he falls onto an ax face first in one of the lamest 'special effects' I have ever seen. This is quickly followed by Naish getting a gun, but wheeling inadvertently into his own guillotine, where, of course, he gets his head chopped off. The movie then has people running around all over the place (kind of reminiscent of the laboratory scene in "The Wild, Wild World of Batwoman") and eventually Dracula ties the big sister to an oil refinery; ugly pants guy frees her by scaring off Frankenstein's monster with a sparkler; Dracula melts the ugly pants guy with a very bad special effect beam from his ring of evil; blonde girl, the monster and Dracula all run around in the woods a while, end up at an entirely new location where the monster and Dracula fight over the girl (at least that's what I believe was happening), the girl shrieks a lot, and Dracula runs through the woods some more to a church (?), where he collapses and is burned up by the sun. OK, any questions?

Yes, it is THAT kind of movie. I am sure that there are some subtle nuances that I didn't capture in the above summary, but you get the general idea. The movie was rated "GP", which was the direst precursor to "PG" (really), and doesn't really have what I would consider realistic gore, more like gruesome tastelessness. There is a very small bit of nudity (breast) on a 'patient' in the crazy doctor's lab, but that's really the only thing objectionable. Well, except for the plot, direction, production values, casting, and continuity, anyway.

If you like cheesy bad movies, it is hard to top Adamson, and this is one of his best (worst). I gave it four stars simply because of length. It is fairly long for this type of film (I didn't time it, but trust me, it is long, or at least feels that way) and drags in a few places, notably in the running around in the woods scenes. Also contributing to the loss of one star was the dreadful music video style beach walk montage sequence, which showed mostly waves and seagulls for about three years, I mean minutes, while excremental music was being played in the background.

If you like bad, and I mean really bad, movies, this is not to be missed.

Rating:
Summary: DRACULA VS FRANKENSTEIN
Review: This is one of the movies that I want for my birthday! I like the old horror movies starring J Carol Naish and Lon Chaney Jr. They are two of my favorite actors. Well, in this movie, it has loped heads and guts. I`m only allowed to watch G and PG movies so I wanted to check this one out.When Chaney and Naish made this film, they were down on thier luck in acting, so nutcase Al Adamson put them in this film. It also starrs his not so famous wife Regina Carrol.Back to the plot: When Dracula(Zandor Vorkov)comes to Castle Frankenstein, to help the doctor (Naish) out, recreating the monster ! There`s a miget man, a dance girl, a hammy dracula, and a marshmellow looking Frankenstein monster. At the end , they meet in a fight of fright as Dracula and The Monster Battle to the death. It has some pretty gory special effects, but counting on the low budget level.It is rated PG and is from VSV wich means very strange video.I hope you will buy this old LOW BUDGET CLASSIC from the horror director and prodcer AL ADAMSON. If this reveiw helped you at all, type in Al Adamson at the box where it says VHS and you`ll find other classics that he either stared in or made. ENJOY THE MOVIE: DRACULA VS FRANKENSTEIN !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Rating:
Summary: Trash-o-rama Horror, '70s Style!
Review: This movie defies description, but I'll try.

I recall watching thisschlockfest on "The Creature-Double-Feature" program, Saturdaymornings on Channel 56, Boston. The DVD adds all the bits deemed tooscary for the kiddies, and more besides (although rated PG, there is ahint of bare breast in about two scenes).

The movie is really threebad horror movies put together in a big blender. There's theFrankenstien part, the mad doctor part, and the Dracula part, whichsmash together into a big ball of mush.

The last surviving member ofthe Frankenstiens works with a crazed Lon Chaney to butcher helplessteens, then bring them back to life so he can extract some kind offear-induced serum murdered people produce.

Meanwhile, Drac is intown, and snatches the body of the Frankenstien monster. He plans touse Doc's serum on the monster, which will make Drac king of thevampires, or something like that. Drac teams up with Doc Frankenstien,and they use the monster to kill their enemies.

Doc has capturedthe Judith's sister, and is using her to make his serum. When shedisappears, Judith tries to track her down. She gets slipped some LSDin a biker bar, and then does a trippy hippie dance and meets up withsome stylin' hippies. They help her to look for her sister, while shefalls in lust with the head guru-hippie-guy. He becomesaction-hippie-guru-guy when it becomes time to battle Drac and Frank(think Mannix crossed with Mike Brady after he got his hairpermed).

One of the most unique things about this movie, besidesmonster vs. monster, is that Drac can fire heat rays from hisring!

Dracula is played by the filmmakers' stock broker! Though noLugosi or Lee, he is strangely effective as a gotee-beardedDrac! Forrest J. Ackerman (the writer who coined the shorthand term"sci-fi"), cameos, and J. Carrol Naish plays Doc Frankenstien. JimDavis (Jock Ewing on "Dallas"), plays a cynical cop, and Russ Tamblyn(Dr. Jacobi on "Twin Peaks"), plays Rico, the chief biker badguy.

Angelo Rossitto, who plays the carnival dwarf, will be familiarto film fans. He appeared in the 1932 classic "Freaks" (1932), and"Mr. Wong in Chinatown" (1939). Horror fans will remember Rossitto in"The Corpse Vanishes" (1942), and "Scared to Death" (1947), both withBela Lugosi. He was also a regular on "H.R. Pufnstuf". His most famousrecent role was Master in "Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome" (1985)

Sadly, in later years he was forced to run a newspaper stand inHollywood because he could not make enough money in films to liveon.

The DVD is great, packed with extras, and nice interactivemenus. There's also an alternate ending where Drac drives a silverhearse! It sounds (and is!), laughable, but on the other hand, whatkind of car would be a better Dracmobile?

Though hardly a classic,the movie will gratify those monster fans who always wanted to Dracand Frank fight it out.