With the recent home video release of “Django Unchained”, The Master wanted to inflict upon me a terrible western. He was thinking of doing one of the many films to utilize the “Django” name, but a good chunk of them were at least decent. Hence why he settled on the cult classic, “Billy the Kid vs. Dracula”. You know, because when you think of westerns, you think of vampires. What’s next, will Jesse James meet Frankenstein’s daughter?
To be fair, the plot is plausible, as long as you suspend disbelief enough. Dracula is known to be immortal, so chances are he did embark on a quest for blood in the Old West. It’s even believable in the realm of fiction that he’d come face to face with the legendary Billy the Kid. It may be displeasing to some that he encounters a Billy that is renouncing his past in order to settle down and have children, but you take what you can get.
Count Dracula (John Carradine, being a good sport), who I don’t actually recall being named Dracula in the film, steals the identity of James Underhill (William Forest) so he can get close to his niece, Betty Bentley (Melinda Plowman). It’s not that they look similar, but that Betty never actually met her Uncle. Her mother was bringing him to meet her for the first time, as well as her fiancé, Billy the Kid (Chuck Courtney).
Except Billy isn’t going by that handle anymore. He’s renounced his gunman ways for love (and farming, I think). He now goes by William Bonney, which is good, as Betty’s mother wouldn’t have liked her daughter marrying a notorious gunman. Dracula himself doesn’t like it either, but only because he constantly gets in the way of the bloodsucking.
I’d actually like to praise William Beaudine for quickly getting to the plot. With films such as this, the main draw (in this case Dracula) usually doesn’t appear until late in the film. By then, you’re bored to tears and find his/her entrance implausible. Here, Dracula is present right away and dominates the screen. It’s a nice and welcome change of pace.
Too bad Beaudine doesn’t keep that momentum up. Once the story gets put into motion, the film moves at a snail’s pace. Even at seventy-four minutes, the film feels too long. There’s no reason Dracula should struggle in necking Betty. Sure, her vampire fearing maid sets up booby traps, but Betty quickly takes them down. This leaves her wide open on numerous occasions for a bloodletting, but Dracula never swoops in.
It’s not like Billy is constantly in the way. Most of the time he’s running around town searching for answers. While he doesn’t automatically assume Dracula is a vampire, he does find it fishy that Betty’s uncle survived a stagecoach attack while her mother did not. The excuse of them riding separately doesn’t add up either, as they were told they were hitching a ride together. Add in the fact that Dracula dresses like a vampire and his alibi crumbles at the seams.
Yet, both Billy and Dracula take their sweet time in taking action. Dracula seems more interested in playing uncle than actually feasting. At one point he seemingly takes delight in acting as her legal guardian and grounding her. Maybe he just always wanted to have a family. As for Billy, he wanders aimlessly too much and gets into fights with locals. It makes you wonder how much he actually cares for Betty.
On the grand scale of bad cinema, “Billy the Kid vs. Dracula” is low on the totem pole (that’s a compliment). While the title itself oozes mockery, it’s actually well acted and the direction, at first, is swift and to the point. Once the story gets put in motion is when it becomes a plodding bore. That gives it a bad rating, but not one you’d expect from this type of film.
Final Rating: C-