ZoltanHoundofDracula

Zoltan, Hound of Dracula (aka. Dracula’s Dog) (1978)

You know sometimes a movie is just so awesomely silly and bad that you just can’t help but love it. Or I suppose this might just be me, but I think that some of you guys might also be fans of bad movies. And my friends Zoltan, Hound of Dracula is a bad movie.

The movie opens up behind the Iron Curtain with an army unit uncovering a tomb after setting off some explosives. They leave a single solider to guard the thing, and of course mere minutes after everyone leaves an earthquake happens unleashing a vampire dog. Nope not kidding guys Zoltan, the title character is a dog! After making a meal of the solider Zoltan sets his master free. No not Dracula, but his former human master (we see this in a flashback) who is kind of a vampire, but not really. Instead of letting the many Dracula family members free that are in the crypt they head out to search for is ancestors. I know it doesn’t make any sense, but this is a vampire dog movie so you get what you get. Anyway they all end up in California, with an inspector from the old country in pursuit. They find the last descendent of Dracula (who has 2 children… so how is he the last descendent?) and try to turn him into a vampire. Good times.

Really this movie is full of plot holes. Why head to America when there are perfectly good Draculas (which in another unintentionally funny turn Draculas is used interchangeably in the movie for vampires) right there to bring back? For that matter why obsess on the elder Drake when he has 2 perfectly good children to turn into vampires? But guys this is one of those movies that you will have to turn off your brain and sit back and enjoy. After taking a while to get going the movie picks up speed and is a real blast. Though I’ll warn anyone that likes their vampire movies to be serious you might want to steer clear of this one. I mean the story and the cast are all playing it straight, but the first time you see Zoltan sneaking around for victims will crack even the most diehard horror fan up. Speaking of the cast they do a pretty decent job here. Familiar 70s low budget regular Michael Pataki is pretty good in the dual role of Dracula (flashbacks) and later his heir Michael Drake. But then I’ve always been a fan of Pataki since his other vampire movie Grave of the Vampire (with William Smith). Also adding some acting chops to the movie are veterans Reggie Nalder (Salem’s Lot) and José Ferrer.

The special effects here are just about what you would expect. That is of course silly, very silly. The makeup on the canine victims of Zoltan is nothing more than graying their coat and giving them extended canine teeth. Though I’ll admit seeing the vampire dogs running around is pretty damn funny. Other than that there really isn’t much to the effects in Zoltan. I mean to be fair this is clearly a lower budget movie, so I didn’t think that I’d see much more than this.

Bottom line is that Zoltan, Hound of Dracula is good clean silly fun. It has flaws and isn’t the most exciting movie that you will ever see. but there is an awesome 70s drive-in charm to the movie that appeals to me and that I had fun with. That said I doubt this will go on my list of movies that I’ll revisit anytime soon. Still it can be had cheap and is worth checking out.

2 ½ out of 4

reviewed by John Shatzer