BLOOD OF DRACULA’S CASTLE (1969) ON THE TEXAS 27 FILM VAULT

Before MST3K there was … The Texas 27 Film Vault!

In the middle 1980s, way down on Level 31 Randy Clower and Richard Malmos, machine-gun toting Film Vault Technicians First Class hosted this neglected cult show.

Balladeer’s Blog continues its celebration of the program’s THIRTIETH  anniversary year.

ORIGINAL BROADCAST DATE: Saturday November 2nd, 1985 from 10:30pm to 1:00am.

SERIAL: Before showing and mocking the movie our members of the Film Vault Corps (“The few, the proud, the sarcastic”) usually showed and mocked chapters of old Republic or Columbia serials. For this episode a break was taken from Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe. Instead the 1977 Centron Educational short Halloween Safety was shown and mocked for its seasonal relevance.

Halloween Safety was eleven minutes long and is as much fun to riff on as such old shorts generally are. The killjoy Safety Czars at Centron do their best to drain as much fun from Trick or Treating as they can, although they never approach Sid Davis levels of paranoia.

The funniest part of the short is when the little girl is browbeaten by the narrator to change from her black witch costume (poor visibility for drivers) to an all-white witch’s costume, which, with the peaked hat and flowing robe makes her look like she’s auditioning for a role in The Littlest Klansman. Though the little black kid in whiteface is a close second.   

FILM VAULT LORE: Randy and Richard often joked that The Texas 27 Film Vault showed just about every movie with the word “blood” in the title. That’s nowhere near true, of course, but they did show a lot of them. Previously Balladeer’s Blog has reviewed Randy and Richard’s airing of Blood Freak, Queen of Blood and Blood Beach. There are a few more to come after this one, too, including Blood Orgy of the She Devils and the infamous bit where the local tv listings refused to run the title of the movie. (Hey, it was mid-1980’s Texas and Oklahoma.)

THE MOVIE: Blood of Dracula’s Castle was directed by Bad Movie icon Al Adamson and is a fun Monster Rally turkey for the Halloween time of year. The Texas 27 Film Vault also showed a few other Al Adamson anti-classics like Dracula vs Frankenstein and Vampire Men of the Lost Planet.    

Count and Countess Townsend are really Count and Countess Dracula using pseudonyms. The pair are played by Alex D’Arcy and Paula Raymond, though Jayne Mansfield was originally cast as the Countess but she died before filming started.

At any rate Dracula and his Countess use various deceptions to lure naive but nubile beauties to their castle in the Arizona desert (just go with it). Once there the ladies are chained up, whipped by their hulking, Frankenstein’s Monster- style slave Mango and drained of blood by their sinister butler George (John Carradine. Yes, again!).

The blood is then served to the ritzy Count and Countess in cocktail glasses because, why not? The Dracula clan are joined by Johnny (Robert Dix), their bloodthirsty werewolf friend who has just escaped from prison. In addition Carradine’s butler character heads up a moon-worshipping cult that’s into human sacrifices. 

When issues arise over the true ownership of the castle the weird menagerie try various murderous methods to keep their hideaway for themselves. Amid the usual Al Adamson histrionics, laughable special effects and a very odd song events unfold to their ridiculous – I mean horrifying – conclusion.   

IN THE NEAR FUTURE BALLADEER’S BLOG WILL PRESENT MORE TEXAS 27 FILM VAULT MILESTONES.

Be here to share the Film Vault Corp’s mission of “safeguarding America’s schlock-culture heritage”. 

FOR ADDITIONAL INFO ON THIS SHOW –https://glitternight.com/texas-27-film-vault/

© Edward Wozniak and Balladeer’s Blog 2015. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Edward Wozniak and Balladeer’s Blog with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.