Dracula's Dog

1978 "There's More To The Legend Than Meets… The Throat!"
4.4| 1h30m| R| en
Details

A Romanian vampire-hunter tracks Dracula's servant to Los Angeles, home of the last of his line.

Director

Producted By

Crown International Pictures

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Trailers & Clips

Also starring Jan Shutan

Reviews

Hellen I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much
Cebalord Very best movie i ever watch
Deanna There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.
Staci Frederick Blistering performances.
Paul Andrews Zoltan, Hound of Dracula starts in Romanian as the local there seems to be blowing holes in the ground for no apparent reason, while doing this seemingly random act of environmental vandalism they unearth an ancient tomb belonging to the Dracula's. They post a soldier there to guard the tomb until a further more detailed examination can be made, that night one of the coffins open & the soldier is stupid enough to remove a wooden stake from whatever it is embedded in & before he know's it a Vampire Dog named Zoltan has returned to life & bit his throat out. Zoltan then pulls the stake out of his master's remains, his name is Veidt Smith (Reggie Nalder) & is servant to Dracula who is long since dead. Feeling unwanted & lonely Veidt travels to California to find Michael Drake (Michael Pataki) who is the last living blood relative of Dracula, using the vicious Zoltan he plans to turn Drake into a Vampire like his ancestor & serve him for all eternity...Originally released as Dracula's Dog this American & Italian co-production was produced & directed by Albert Band, this Dog of a film really should be taken away & put down humanely as it's absolutely terrible & I had a hard time getting to the end. Everything about this lousy film is terrible, I had heard of the film before but thought it would be better. I don't know why but I always imagined it to be a period Gothic horror film featuring Dracula himself set in Transylvania in a big stone castle like Hammer Studios were making at their peak but I was wrong, I was very wrong as Zoltan, Hound of Dracula features Vampire Dog's & is set in some woods near Los Angeles. The idea of a Vampire biting another person & turning them into a Vampire is standard horror film stuff but a Vampire Dog that bites other Dog's turning them into Vampires is just weird & is as ridiculous & absurd as it sounds. It's hard to keep a straight face during the majority of Zoltan, Hound of Dracula with it's terrible attempts at tension & scares along with the barest of stories that drags on & on, throw into that a funny & utterly predictable twist ending (I kept saying out loud 'What about the puppy! What about the puppy!') in which a cute little puppy is meant to be scary as it has plastic fangs & glowing eyes. The character's are awful especially Drake who believes everything Inspectoir Branco tells him about Dracula & Vampires without questioning it, from bit part campers to Drake's wife & kids who disappear totally from the film about two thirds of the way through to Veidt Smith whose only motivation is to be a servant to Dracula. Hasn't this guy heard that slavery has been abolished? Why can't he just be his own man? Why can't he just enjoy his life with Zoltan his Vampire Dog? Why can't he & Zoltan just settle down somewhere in Romania & live happily ever after with some dignity & self respect? Why does he want to be a slave to Dracula? He may be evil but he has human rights too you know. I mean would Dracula even pay him a decent wage for his services? I doubt it. The guy's not much of a conversationalist either, I don't think he says anything to anyone during the whole film except Zoltan who he can talk to telepathically, seriously & Zoltan understands every word he telepathically says. At just over 80 odd minutes long Zoltan, Hound of Dracula drags & is very boring with not much going on. Also, has anyone else noticed that Michael Drake is constantly referred to as the last blood ancestor of Dracula yet he has two children of his own?Another big problem with Zoltan, Hound of Dracula is how seriously it takes itself with no attempt to ham things up a big & deliver on it's absurd title & premise. All we want is to be entertained & have a bit of fun while watching a film & Zoltan, Hound of Dracula fails miserably at this basic requirement. The direction is stiff & at times laughable, the Dog's on show are obviously tame & well trained so the attack scenes often look more like the Dog's are trying to play with people rather than rip them to shreds. Constant scenes of docile looking Dog's walking around with plastic fangs & glowing eye's is as silly as it gets. There's not much gore, a guy has his neck bitten, a few Dog's are staked through the heart & a camper is bitten by Zoltan but little else. Director Albert Band later went on to form the likes of Empire Pictures & Fullmoon Productions with his son Charles Band.Filmed on what must have been a low budget the effects, music & production values are all average at best, isn't it unusual how the Romanian army all speak perfect English & with Americn accents? The acting is not great, Oscar winner José Ferrer is slumming it while Michael Pataki looks likes he's there for the money & nothing else. Pataki also starred in the much, much better Vampire film Grave of the Vampire (1974) several years prior.Zoltan, Hound of Dracula is terrible, it really is & I found it pretty hard to make it to the end. It's a complete Dog of a film that sure be put down, it would be a mercy killing. Not recommended apart from the hilarious Vampire puppy at the end which is genuinely quite funny.
Boba_Fett1138 It's kind of weird and I certainly did not expect this but I simply enjoyed watching this movie. It was all some good fun for the genre buffs and as an horror- and part of the Dracula franchise it's a quite original movie with a different approach.This is certainly a B-movie but surprisingly enough you don't really see this back in the movie its look. The movie is way more horrible with its unintentionally funny dialog and silly plot holes and other stuff that just doesn't really make sense.As ridicules as the main concept might sound, it actually is the strongest point of the movie. The evil dogs really play a big and significant role in the movie and I really think they did a great job with using the dogs as the main ingredient for the movie its horror. The movie is filled in which the dogs get to do their evil stuff and attack the human characters. They used some great animal trainers for this movie, fore the dogs really become characters in the movie that act out their scenes. Still it's a bit funny to hear the dog's their howling and barking, since it obviously got done by a human voice.I can certainly understand why people would call this a bad movie, since yes well, the movie just isn't truly standing out with a good story, or great dialog and characters. However when you are into this genre, you'll see that this movie is actually one of the more entertaining but also original ones, even though it just isn't all done that very well. Always a weird sight to see once great actors turn up in these sort of movies at the end of their careers. It happened to quite a lot of actors that were big and well known in the '40's and '50's. Big name that appears in this movie is José Ferrer, who once received an Academy Award for his role in "Cyrano de Bergerac" and starred in many more great and well known movies of the '40's and '50's. He plays the sort of Van Helsing role in this movie, though he seems to be more like the Sam Loomis character from the Halloween movies, of which the first one got released during the same year as this movie. This movie still got released a few months earlier though, so I don't think this movie did actually get 'inspired' by that movie. Also a good role is being played by Reggie Nalder, who is perfectly cast as a servant of the old count, who has rising from the grave. Nalder looks as if he had rising from the grave himself and he looks halve death to be frank. He still lived for another 13 years though after this movie and actually reached a respectable age of 84. He just looked much older, sicker, close to death, pretty much for most part of his career. Pretty much how Peter Cushing looked like from the '70's on, like halve a skeleton, halve man.I really liked watching this movie, despite of all its all too obvious weaker elements.7/10http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/
MARIO GAUCI I'd always been interested in checking out this title – even if it always promised to be a goofy and highly improbable variation on the Dracula legend. The opening crypt sequence features any number of hilariously named members of the infamous vampire family…and, then, Zoltan itself (oversized fangs and all) emerges from inside a coffin!The plot is quite simple-minded: Dracula's dog (actually, this film's original title) revives sinister-looking but mute vampire acolyte Reggie Nalder so that they can go to America in search of their new master – but the latter is actually determined to (pardon the pun) bury his past and, wisely, has changed his surname to Drake! An Inspector from the old country, Jose' Ferrer, follows in pursuit – but even he has a tough time persuading current vampire descendant Michael Pataki (his statement that he ought to sue the makers of previous Dracula movies is amusing, but would have undoubtedly worked better had this particular entry been somewhat better!) of the danger to his life and soul. That said, a lot of weird crap has been happening during the Drake family's would-be relaxing camping trip – mostly revolving around the two Alsation dogs they brought along and their cute puppies! It's rather amusing to see a plethora of canines getting vampirized as opposed to people – so much so that, at times, it feels like one's watching an antropomorphic rendition of the Bram Stoker chestnut! Adding to the inescapable feeling of absurdity here is a cheesy score; the twist ending, then, is entirely predictable but also incredibly daft. Besides, the numerous close-ups on Nalder's scarred features for ostensibly eerie effect seem merely pointlessly morbid to me! Ultimately, the film is redeemed somewhat by a couple of intense attacks by the pack of vampire hounds towards the end – one with Pataki and Ferrer inside a cabin and the other on the former's car (in which he's sheltered) – as, otherwise, I'd have rated this even lower!
sol- A different sort of twist on the Dracula tale, the premise nevertheless wears thin by the second half, and overall the film is not too good either, despite having a degree of eeriness to it. The cheap special effects are hardly special, the dialogue is full of dud lines, and the quirkiness of the plot gives way to some awkwardly goofy silly moments. The dogs are the main aspect of interest here, better trained than what one would expect. Still, that is not quite a good enough reason to watch it. Some of the music is effective, and overall it is a bearable watch. It is a very trashy film and not at all very good, however it is still okay viewing if one is in the mood for some B-grade horror fluff.