When we heard that Hammer’s House of Horror had teamed up with Shaw Bros’ House of Kung Fu on a Dracula martials arts crossover, we had to check it out. Too bad it didn’t really live up to the concept. This was Hammer’s last Dracula film, and it’s easy to see why.

Episode 172, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Horror Movie Review Podcast

Todd: Hello and welcome to another episode of 2 Guys and a Chainsaw. I’m Todd.

Craig: And I’m Craig.

Todd: This week we’re doing a film that I found online. I had never heard of it but it sounded like a lot of fun because it is a mashup. Is that what the guys call it these days?

Craig: I guess so.

Todd: A mashup between 2 very, very famous studios, Hammer Horror Studios in England, which did all the Dracula movies and they were basically our house of horror for the 60s and 70s and the Shaw Brothers and the Shaw Brothers are still going going strong but they were especially during the 60s and 70s and 80s Hong Kong’s premiere movie studio doing lots and lots of kung fu films. And so somebody’s bright idea in 1974 at Hammer was, hey because kung fu movies are so popular, why don’t we take 1 of our most popular franchises, Dracula, and go over   there and make a Dracula slash Kung Fu mashup. And that’s the movie we have. It’s called The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires. Also known by its alternate title in the United States, the 7 brothers and their 1 sister meet Dracula.

Craig: It’s like it’s like 7 brides for 7 brothers except for like 7 evil vampires meet 7 brothers and their sister.

Todd: Or in the case of this film, it’s like 2 brides for 7 brothers. Oh man, where to begin with this movie? This is actually the last in the line of Hammer Dracula films. This started in 1958, I believe, with the horror of Dracula starring the inevitable Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee. Peter Cushing always playing Van Helsing and Christopher Lee always playing Dracula. Up through this final film where Christopher Lee, I think probably took 1 read of the script, decided, that’s not my cup of tea, and bailed on the production, which is just as well because he   wouldn’t have had much of a role in this anyway. But Peter Cushing decided to stick it out and plays Professor Van Helsing 1 more time. Although I guess it’s debatable whether this is actually the Professor Van Helsing from the earlier movies or not.

Craig: Yeah it’s a little confusing to me. I guess apparently in this movie he’s actually playing a descendant of his earlier character? I don’t know.

Todd: Well, that’s what people say because otherwise it makes no sense because he actually died in 1 of the earlier films. This movie is supposed to take place years after that, But he’s the same dude. I mean he’s professor van Helsing right he references encounters with Dracula So it almost seems like a little bit of a retcon for it to go back and say oh no No, this is just a relative even though it’s certainly not ever referenced in the movie at all. He doesn’t reference another, oh my brother or anything like that, you know, my uncle,   my brother, yada yada yada. There’s none of that. His son’s in this movie, which is interesting. But yeah, that’s it. So anyway, the timeline’s all whacked. I don’t think they ever really cared too much about continuity with these movies anyway. But yeah, there are a lot of problems actually with this movie making sense, which may be why it wasn’t a big hit.

Craig: Maybe 1 of the reasons. I don’t know, I was a little bit disappointed because I’ve actually, sadly, never seen any of these Hammer Dracula films. I’ve definitely seen… Oh my word. Christopher Lee, you know, I’ve seen him in character, in stills, and maybe in some brief clips, but I’ve never actually seen him as Dracula.

Todd: I cannot believe this.

Craig: I know. And anytime you see, you know, lists about, like, who is the best Dracula, he’s always very high on the list, if not at the top of the list. So I was a little bit disappointed. But you’re right, in this movie it wouldn’t have made much difference anyway because Dracula in his true form only appears for the first 5 minutes and then the last 5 minutes.

Todd: Yeah, really tacked on, to be honest. The whole movie’s kind of tacked together

Craig: in a very tacky way. Well, and apparently, as you said, this was the last 1 in the Hammer series, the last Dracula film in the Hammer series, I think there were like 9 of them or something. They did approach Christopher Lee, they wanted him to do it, but he turned it down. And apparently, I guess maybe the 1 before this, they had really had to convince him to come back. And the guy that they cast in this film John Forbes Robinson in the prior movie they had already cast him thinking they weren’t gonna be able to   get Christopher Lee back and at the last minute Christopher Lee decided he would do it, and so they used him. So this guy they used at the last minute. Well, I don’t know, in this film, Christopher Lee just, I read that, yeah, he read the script and He just wasn’t interested.

Todd: John Forbes Robertson is a pretty accomplished British actor. He did a lot of television and a number of movies and we haven’t seen it yet, but there’s a Tobey Hooper film called Life Force. He plays in that. That would have been like About 10 or 11 years after this 1 So, you know, it would be interesting to see I personally think he’s a pretty bad Dracula in here. In fact, he’s even dubbed By another actor. I know he was furious when he found that out

Craig: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I don’t know. I mean there’s not even really enough to judge him on. I mean, all you can judge him on really is kind of the look. You know, he doesn’t really have much to do, which is unfortunate. It’s a cop-out, really. The whole thing seemed to me that they wanted to make a Kung Fu movie and it’s like they just kind of wanted to tie in a Dracula story as a gimmick, really, more than anything. It could have just not been Dracula. You know, it could have been anybody. It could have been   an independent story about Chinese vampires. The whole Dracula thing just kind of seemed tacked on kind of for name recognition. And, I mean, whatever, that’s fine, but kind of lame, really.

Todd: Yeah. And… It comes across as lame.

Craig: You know, I know that in the 70s especially, maybe the late 60s too. There was a huge market for these kung fu movies. I mean, they were really popular. There was a big audience for them. I kinda don’t get it. I don’t know. I mean, yeah, it’s fun to watch, you know, these choreographed fight sequences and stuff. But when that’s the entire substance of the movie, I found myself just… Tuning out. Yeah. And just waiting in the interim for the fight scenes. Like, ugh, okay, story, story, story. Okay, fight scene.

Todd: Yeah.

Craig: And the fight scenes were fun. I wouldn’t say they were amazing. They were typical. They’re what I would expect from a 1970s kung fu movie.

Todd: You know, there are a lot of good kung fu movies out there. This is definitely not 1 of them. It all feels a little phoned in to be completely honest. Even the fight scenes themselves, like you said, or… Well, I don’t know, maybe you said it or maybe you were saying something else, but they’re not particularly entertaining Yeah, I don’t think that they’re very dramatic or really that exciting They have all the requisite parts, you know a bunch of people doing a bunch of fancy moves and there’s some nice bit of blood and gore. It’s all   kind of cheap but that’s generally how a lot of these films were. I think the thing that makes any action film, whether it’s kung-fu or action at all, work. And what makes fight scenes fun and interesting and tense is that the stakes. Yeah, yeah. You have to care about the characters. They have to be people that you really want to see the outcome and you’re hoping that this isn’t going to be their demise or this isn’t gonna really set them back. And that’s the thing, you know? And in this movie, it just, it never really establishes   these stakes. At least not convincingly. It just blows through everything so quickly and tries to kind of tack some character into these people, but they’re just too many people.

Craig: Yes. Yes.

Todd: I was even thinking about this like the Ninja Turtle so so Because it’s a little set up that way. I guess we better jump in a little bit and start talking about the plot It starts out 1804 Transylvania. We get a scene with a Chinese guy and probably hiking up the mountain to Castle Dracula. He goes in there, he wakes up Dracula, and basically starts to talk about that he is the king of the vampires in China, something like that, That there are 7 vampires there and they have been beaten back by the community or the   town that they’re in and he’s asking for Dracula’s help to resurrect them and bring them to their full glory. And Dracula’s like, well, you know, normally I don’t leave my castle. Yeah.

Clip: Yet, you can serve me, Khan. As long as you   order me, I can do anything. I have no respect for you.   I need your mortal coil. I need the form of your miserable carcass. I need your vile image. No. I will not tolerate any of this! No! This earth again, freed from these walls, freed from this mausoleum. I will return to your temple, in your image, Ka. I will recall the 7 golden vampires as my own host, tools of my vengeance on mankind. 1

Craig: way or another, within these first 5 minutes, the traditional Dracula that we know turns into this other

Todd: Chinese kung fu guy and… Your typical wuxia kind of long wispy black goatee mustache thing and half bald on top with the long black hair it’s it’s very very stereotypical

Craig: yeah and and from then on Dracula is in that form and he’s always there kind of behind the scenes to kind of like, I don’t know, guide or inspire these 7 Chinese golden vampires, but Like he just doesn’t really have much to do. Like he just kind of hangs out in the temple and like gives them words of encouragement before they go out to fight.

Todd: Like that’s. He’s a cheer, he’s a coach, he’s their coach.

Craig: Yeah, he is. And that’s kind of. Sensei. Yeah, that’s kind of all

Todd: it is. I give this word Japanese movie. Well, and he does that for a hundred years because we fast forward to 1904 in Chungking, which I think is actually like a supposed to be Chongqing, which is what we would call it now. And that is a region and kind of in the southwestern part of China. It’s very mountainous, it’s pretty remote, but it’s known for having really, really spicy food. That’s all I know about it. I’ve never been there.

Craig: Well, it sounds lovely.

Todd: Spicy food and beautiful women. Those are the 2 exports of Chongqing, apparently. Yeah.

Craig: I love me some spicy food, so…

Todd: I love me some beautiful women.

Craig: Yeah, so then it’s 19…oh, whatever it is, 4 or whatever, a hundred years later, and Van Helsing is lecturing… Van Helsing Senior, there’s 2. There’s the older 1 played by Peter Cushing, and then his son who, whatever, I don’t remember, he’s got his own name, Leland. He’s lecturing to these Chinese academics. He’s talking about like this legend, right? The academics are like, you know, they scoff at him like, oh, we don’t believe in this silly traditional lore. We’re academics, la la.

Todd: Give us some credit.

Craig: Yeah. And there’s 1 guy there who approaches him afterwards. You know, like you said, the stakes aren’t that high because you don’t particularly care about the characters. Like this 1 guy that approaches him basically approaches him and says, I’m 1 of 7 brothers and we also have a sister and our ancestors come from the village that you’re talking about and the village has been decimated by these vampires. I don’t even really understand what their purpose is. Do they want to reclaim the village? Do they want to kill the vampires out of vengeance? Is there something else   at stake? I didn’t even really get it. Well, the story, the legend is told in flashback.

Todd: 1 thing this movie does pretty well, and Roger Corman’s films do the same, and Hammer films do the same, is It’s almost like when they’re writing a script, they go through the script and they’re like, okay, every 10 pages there needs to be some blood, some gore, some boobies, whatever going on. And so there’s a good deal of flashback in this movie, even at very odd moments, just to sort of fulfill that requirement. And so while he’s telling the story, it flashes back to the legend. The legend basically is that in this village there was a   farmer who approached this pagoda which is up on the hill overlooking the village and kind of surrounded by a graveyard. At the same time that these 7 vampires that were, you know, Dracula… I don’t know if it’s supposed to be the same moment that Dracula’s finally resurrected them all or something or if it’s just 1 of their regular ceremonies. He went up and sneaks into the pagoda and we got to describe the scene because you see the scene quite a bit. Yeah. Inside this pagoda, around the perimeter of it in the inside, are these sort of   mummified looking gross vampires. Yeah. They have like a golden eyepiece over their eyes and they, from their necks hang these golden medallions that are big. They look like bats. They’re bat shaped. And then I guess the rest of them is kind of hairy. Like sometimes they look like gorillas, but I think it’s probably just what they’re wearing.

Craig: Yeah, like they look like they’ve been buried. I don’t know, they’re like kind of half decomposed. It’s an odd costume, and like I couldn’t tell if it was makeup or a mask because their eyeballs look weird too and the whole time I was thinking how do they see like you know like not not the vampires the actors like

Clip: because it

Craig: looks like their eyes are behind these weird eyeballs. I don’t know. But yeah, anyway, they have some ceremony. And I did like, it’s a cool set piece, You know, it’s inside the pagoda and there are like 7, for lack of a better word, kind of like slabs or almost like medical tables surrounding this big blood pit and All of the slabs are kind of angled so that you can imagine if these women, and there are like 7, I assume, virgins, I don’t know, foregoing by lore, but 7 women in various stages of undress, strapped to these   tables and boobies. It was kind of weird to see boobies in an old movie like this I was a little surprised. Mmm, but whatever they look nice.

Todd: What? You got to see more more of these hammer film

Craig: And it’s some sort of ceremony going on, and I don’t even remember what happened.

Todd: Do you? Well, that’s a good point. No, the ceremony’s going on, and at about the time it’s going to start and Dracula’s overseeing it all, this farmer bursts in and tries to untie 1 of the women. That doesn’t go so well because 1 of the vampires wakes up and runs after him. In the process of the fight, he tears off of its medallion, which starts him smoking from the point where he tore it off, like his life force is leaving him or something. Not enough to kill him right away, but he runs away and then Dracula   guy summons all of the undead armies from the graveyard around so we get a lot of this sort of bursting out of the grave scenes of these Chinese undead coming complete all with their weapons. I guess they were all buried

Craig: with their weapons. Yeah, they look hilarious. The zombies, like they’re all in virtually identical costumes. And again, it’s some sort of mask over their face. Skull looking mask, kind of a half skull thing. But they all look exactly the same and when they move, it’s like they skip.

Todd: Like they skip around. That’s a reference because, you know, and this is not by any means a traditional Chinese vampire movie by far. But there is a tradition of Chinese vampires and they’re like former priests or something. They wear very distinct outfits. They all kind of look the same. They have blue skin and fangs and they hop. Like they literally hop. Almost comically so. And they have these things on their forehead that if you tear them off that’s kind of how they die. So there’s a tradition of this and vampires are hopping. That’s just what it   is over here. And so I thought it was kind of a nice touch that they included that in a more subtle way than in your traditional Chinese vampire movie when they are like literally bouncing like kangaroos all

Clip: over this world. Well it

Craig: was a little jarring to me because I’m not familiar with that tradition. I mean now that you explain it, it makes sense. But I was like, oh weird, skipping zombies, that’s odd. And they all are virtually identical, and I swear that some of them weren’t even actors, they were just like the costume on a stick, right? Didn’t you think so? I think you’re right.

Todd: Yeah, especially in some scenes definitely. Like they just

Craig: put the costume on a broom and like bounced it up and down. I know, it’s funny.

Todd: It’s true, it’s totally true. But you know, there is a sense. Now, this isn’t a frightening movie, but I think odd things like that do have a certain way of kind of unnerving you a little bit. Yeah. And that aspect of it, I think, was 1 of the few things that made these creatures just a little more unnerving than they would have been otherwise. I don’t know, maybe I’m just giving it a little too much credit,

Craig: but that’s how I felt about it. Maybe a little too much, but yeah, I mean, it was something that you noticed, and you’re right, I mean, It’s not scary in any way. I really kind of thought that maybe if I were 8, I would have thought this movie was really cool. Because there’s fighting and boobies and a little bit of blood here and there. I could imagine myself as a child catching this on a Saturday afternoon on cable or something and kind of thinking it was pretty cool. I don’t know, you know, I really tried to   appreciate it for what it was, just because it’s so left field of what I would typically enjoy. But it just, it wasn’t that great. And a big part of it is because these 7 brothers, like, I can’t pronounce any of their names, and I hate to be, you know, that terribly American, Midwestern, ethnocentric guy, but they all kinda look the same,

Todd: and… Well, they’re dressed the same. I mean, they do kinda look the same. I mean, you know, this is why I liken them to the Ninja Turtles.

Craig: Right. Well, that’s the thing, that’s what distinguishes them is their fighting styles. Some of them have knives and some of them have those big, I don’t know, kung fu sticks. I don’t know what Donatello had. You know? And, 1 of them

Todd: has a mace. Yeah, there you go. Shoots a bow and arrow, yeah.

Craig: Yeah, and a bow and arrow. And like they’ve got different things and they’ve got different skills. But because there are so many of them, like I said, there’s kind of the 1 who’s kind of the representative for all of them. But even he doesn’t have much character. The only thing that kind of distinguishes him from apart from the others is that he is their mouthpiece. He’s the

Todd: only 1 who talks. Yeah.

Craig: Yeah. And he has, I guess what you would call a romance with the 1 Caucasian woman. I think she’s supposed to be from the Netherlands or something, Scandinavian. Vanessa, and she’s like their patron. She’s fascinated with Van Helsing. She meets them at some posh meet and greet at the university after he speaks and she talks to Van Helsing Jr. And he says, you know, my dad is interested in this legend and she’s like, oh, well, I’m a big fan of your dad and I’ve got a bazillion dollars, so.

Clip: I’ll finance the trip to this village on 1 condition   and what is that that   you take me along too I think   a vampire hunt sounds exciting Mrs. Barron it is quite out of the question a woman couldn’t possibly make such a hazardous trip we’ll be going to unknown territory areas that are unmapped and the countryside abounds with robbers and brigands   I know I also have to leave

Craig: And then she ends up kind of, it’s like, I feel like they really try to push that they’re having a romance, but it’s really just kind of like firtive glances and walking off together. Yeah. Like, her and the 1 lead brother. And then Van Helsing Jr. Then also has that same kind of furtive glancing, walking off together, sharing 1 brief kiss romance with the 1 Chinese sister.

Todd: Yeah, it’s this sort of movie idea that if you get men and women together, for any length of time, they’re gonna have to pair up at some point.

Craig: They even comment on it at 1 point, like, you know, the Chinese brother and the Caucasian lady walk off together and Van Helsing Jr. Is like, romance springs up in the oddest places. And then like the Chinese sister walks by and he looks after her and Van Helsing Sr. Is like, yeah, it sure does. Like. It’s so dumb. It’s really silly.

Todd: Well, and it borders on, I don’t know, it’s a little weird too because I got a, I’m really riding the line with this movie in this, in the way that films, especially from this era that are produced and made by Westerners, play up the exoticism of the East,

Craig: you know?

Todd: And Eastern women and their delicate flowers. And then, you know, it tries to do something different here where, I mean, But it’s not trying hard enough and it certainly still commits those sins. Like she’s done up, she’s got her makeup, she looks gorgeous, you know.

Craig: She’s in a beautiful kimono. Yeah, it is very stereotypical and it is very like, oh yeah, like the exotic East. But the thing that I liked about the sister character is even though she was very kind of, and she was very beautiful, the actress who played her was gorgeous. The thing that I liked about her was that she kicked ass. When they would do the fight scenes, the brothers were so kind of indistinguishable from 1 another and she was not Because she was the only woman and she totally held her own in those fight sequences when   they were fighting like the legions or whatever. She was tough. Now Eventually she did get captured and became the damsel in distress, which is a little bit disappointing, but up until that point, you know, she was a tough broad and I

Todd: liked that. That’s true, but then again it gets undercut by these interstitial scenes.

Clip: You’re like a beautiful porcelain kitten. And suddenly you’re a fighting tigress. It’s incredible. It   displeased you? So it amazed me.

Todd: They put a party together to go with these brothers at first they don’t want to go van Helsing is like oh you know what this costs a lot of money these kinds of things But because Vanessa is there and she has loads of money and she’s supposed to be this woman who’s a little fearless in this regard, even though that’s really uneven as well. She really ends up playing the damsel in distress, sitting around doing nothing during these

Craig: fight scenes.

Todd: So it’s like they’re trying to play her up initially as a bit of a strong feminist kind of woman, a little forward thinking. They can’t, it’s like they just can’t bring themselves to actually do it. Yeah, yeah, it’s true. So she had these lines where it’s like, oh, you know, a tough woman who can hold her own, and then all she’s doing is cowering in the corner where everybody else is fighting and becomes the victim 2 or 3 times.

Craig: To be fair though, that’s all the white people in the movie. No, that’s a good point. All the white people in the movie just stand back and watch while the Chinese folks do all the fighting.

Todd: Well, they might wave like a torch around

Craig: or something. That’s something else I was going to say. Like, young Van Helsing will get in there and fight a little bit. But 1 of the things that I was really disappointed and I would be interested to see how he’s portrayed in the other Hammer films, senior Van Helsing in this movie is worthless. Like, absolutely worthless. He can’t fight to save his life. The best thing that he can do is wave a torch around. Like that’s all he can do. And any time.

Todd: It’s funny because, no I was just gonna say it’s funny. They film those scenes like through fire. They’re always a little obscured. Like they’re like, we know this guy is so lame, all he can do is wave this torch around, but maybe if we film it through some fire, nobody’s gonna notice.

Craig: Yeah, like, he’s just constantly, like, getting backed into corners, and it was pretty pathetic. You know, when I think of Van Helsing, I think of, you know, this badass vampire slayer and I get that even within the context of the movie, he’s supposed to be advanced in years. I get it. But it just kind of neuters him as a hero. He’s not really heroic at all. Ultimately, spoiler alert, in the end, he kills Dracula almost by accident and super fast. Like, the climactic final scene between Van Helsing and Dracula lasts about 3 seconds. It’s really, really   lame. But we can get there later. They go off on this expedition and then that’s really kind of all it is. Like okay we’re going to go, okay we’re going, first some bad Chinese guys who are mad that they didn’t get to seduce Vanessa show up and we fight them. Big fight, big fight. Okay well we defeated them And then we move along, move along. Oh, zombies, fight, fight, fight. Like, that’s the bulk of the movie, is this journey to get there. And then they

Todd: have these, so it’s like I said, you know, every 10 pages there’s gotta be a fight or a flashback to a fight or, you know, somebody’s telling a story about the legend or even just in this case of this campfire scene that I was getting to. For no real reason we’re getting flashbacks to, and I don’t know if it was flashbacks, it was supposed to be something that had recently happened, of these vampires leave their pagoda and go down into that town and basically slaughter all the people and drag a bunch of women away so that   they can strap into those tables and, you know, suck their blood. So yeah, that happens, but then, you know, like I was saying earlier, how it really undercuts the bad ass array of this woman. Every single time that we cut to them just chilling, she’s like doing some extremely domestic task. Like she’s the 1 who’s cooking the meal, washing the dishes. And my favorite line in the whole thing is, you know, it’s like Van Helsing’s son, Leyland, is sitting against a tree next to Vanessa and they’re chatting. And at first I thought, well, maybe they’re gonna   have a relationship, a romance, but he’s having these overtly obvious, furtive glances with Megwe, who is washing the dishes and she looks over, and it’s like, teeheeheeheehee. It goes back to washing dishes. It’s so embarrassing, you know?

Clip: Yeah. Back in my country, that is an open invitation to help with the dishes.

Todd: Yeah! Yeah that’s funny. So sure enough he goes over and starts handing her bowls you know and they tee-hee and then Vanessa wanders over to our main actor guy, who is David Chang. Actually, if you watch any Hong Kong films, this guy is super popular. He’s like practically the Tom Cruise of Hong Kong cinema. He’s been in hundreds of movies and he’s super recognizable and he almost always plays the main character. He’s a real good looking guy. He’s very talented and able to fight. He’s still alive. I think his latest thing that he did was back   in 2016 So he’s you know, he’s still kind of going so he then is developing this really Forced love interest romance with her

Craig: Vanessa, right?

Todd: They have this 1 scene him and Vanessa and then later on they’re like laying together in this cave that they camp out in. And all of this is very not very Chinese. Like, you know, it’s pretty, we’re pretty conservative culture and This is clearly very Western written script. You know what I mean?

Craig: Yeah, well, did you say that? The high was it the Sosa Brothers? What did you what did you say? Who was the Shaw Brothers? The Shaw Brothers are Are they Western or are they Chinese?

Todd: Chinese, yeah, from Hong Kong.

Craig: Because this just really felt like a very American idea of what Kung Fu movie would be. And maybe even the Chinese people behind it knew that they were marketing it in a Western market and so they you know they were

Todd: kind of

Craig: giving giving us what they thought we wanted or whatever. But it was, I mean, like, because what you said, the main guy, you can tell, even though his character, you know, he has so little to work with, you can tell that he’s very charismatic and I can only presume a fine actor and you know, fighter, stuntman, whatever he may be, but they’re just tropes, you know? Like all of the Chinese characters are just stereotypes. Which in 2019 just feels a little icky. You just kind of want to, ugh, I look at it and feel like, oh   gosh, those guys deserved better. Make them the real heroes of the story as they should have been because the American or whatever they’re supposed to be, the white actors, really, their characters are so lame. You know, They completely rely on these other people to protect them. And they just feel so disposable, the Chinese characters. So they have a big fight with the zombies and the vampires in this big cave before they even get to the village that they’re trying to get to. And the 7 vampires are there and they’re like zombie minions or whatever their minions   are. And they fight and it’s really kind of a great fight sequence. There’s a lot going on and you know it just kind of cuts from 1 part of the fight to another. Like it’s all going on at the same time but the camera just moves from 1 scene to another and we get to see all of that going down and they end up taking out 3 of the 6 remaining golden vampires with really no casualties on their side at all. But at the end, The main Chinese brother says to Van Helsing, we can’t do this   again. We won’t survive another attack like this. And Van Helsing is like, yeah, you will. It’s fine.

Todd: Trust me on this. Well, you’d think he’d be just a little happier that he killed off 3 of the 6 that they are going after. They haven’t even made it to the village yet and they’ve already accomplished half of their goal. You’d think he’d be a little more pumped up.

Craig: Van Helsing convinces them to continue on and they do continue on and they find the village and like they find, I don’t know, 1 of those gold masks or something and so they realize that the legend is true and so then they get to the village.

Todd: Yeah, apparently they don’t move the bodies or any of the materials there where the farmer was taken out. What, 50, 100 years later?

Craig: Right, but anyway they get back to the village and I don’t even think the village is inhabited anymore, but like they start to fortify it. Like they dig this big trench and they set up these great big spikes and they basically just wait for the vampires and their minions to arrive and fight. Which is what happens, like Dracula blesses them in the name of Satan or something, and they come down.

Todd: More undead arrive. But eventually it

Craig: turns into a big melee. I think all, but like 1 of the brothers ends up getting killed, very kind of unceremoniously. And that just, it just kind of bothered me. Like even, you know, like the sister lives and the main brother lives, but like they barely even acknowledged that the rest of them died.

Todd: Yeah, you know, it’s, this is not the Magnificent 7 or the 7 Samurai. You know, you’re right. They just don’t care. There’s no buildup. There’s no nothing. Some of them die in really lame ways. You get the sense that maybe on a shot by shot basis, they’re really trying. Like I think there’s this 1 scene where a brother’s hand gets cut off.

Craig: 2 of them. It’s the brothers, like 1 of their schtick is like that they grab hands together and like swing around on 1 another and so they they do that and then their hands both get chopped off and they’re laying there like next to each other dying and they like high 5 and then they die yeah

Todd: like what Like they take out a couple vampires, I think in the process, like 1 of them falls into a fire pit with another 1. But again, it’s like, whereas a lot of these vampire scenes, when the vampires get killed, we get these extremely long shots of them crumbling away, which I mean, the special effects are what they are. It looks like kind of latex masks covered in, caked in mud and dirt and makeup that are just slowly deflated and so everything kind of

Craig: Well, and they kind of deteriorate into dust and I’m not really sure how they did it but it seemed like they were really proud of themselves because they really lingered on these shots and like it seemed like some sort of time-lapse photography or maybe there was some of it

Todd: there was some fading going on too where they kind of fade slowly from a scene of this stuff happening to like bones with some rest around them that kind of thing but then you know in this fight scene when they’ve taken out at least 2 more vampires, they don’t really give it all of that drama. Like I think 1 brother just quite literally embraces a vampire and they’re both rolling around and they both fall into a fire pit and that’s it. Like there’s no big deal over the brother’s death, there’s no big deal over the vampire,   you just kind of have to be paying attention to know. If you blinked in that 5 seconds, you might not even notice, oh, 1 of the 6 vampires is dead now, as well as 1 of the brothers.

Craig: Oh, and I totally did, because I was taking notes. And so I would write something and I would look up and I had no idea who was still alive and who was dead. I suppose kind of the pivotal moments of the scene are that 1 of the vampires spies Vanessa, like cowering in the corner, and he runs over to her and he bites her. And I didn’t know what that meant because they play it a little bit loose with the lore and they explain that by saying Van Helsing, Sr. Says,

Clip: My knowledge so far as it goes is limited to the European hemisphere. I had hoped to learn something of the East from the faculty of Chinese history, but as you witnessed, the professors were not forthcoming to say the least of it. They abhor anything that has a holy significance. They fear the word of the Lord. In Europe, the vampire walks in dread of the crucifix. Here, it will be the image of the Lord Buddha.

Craig: Well, I know what European vampires are like, but I don’t know what Chinese vampires are like, so it’s kind of loosey-goosey, you know, who knows? And I actually thought that was kind of clever.

Todd: Yeah, it was clever, except it really never came into play. You know, When the farmer and the legend came back, he tossed the medallion that he had stolen on a statue of a Buddha. When he died, the vampire went to get that medallion, but because it was on a Buddha, he wasn’t able to get it, so he ended up dying. And that’s why these vampires are pissed, is they’re trying to retrieve that last medallion so they could raise him up. But aside from that and the fact that they set up a little Buddha statue at the   entrance to that cave, it made no difference because everybody came in anyway. So there wasn’t any of that And the other thing that I was a little surprised by is I thought this was a big setup. There’s this big deal about this medallion. The whole thing kind of got kicked off by stealing this medallion. We know that if you take the medallion away from them, they’ll die pretty soon. And so I thought part of this tactic because, oh, hey, the legend is true. Van Helsing’s going to turn around and say, all right, guys, go for the   medallions. Yank them off of these guys once they come in. But that doesn’t happen either, you know? The medallions are just swinging around their necks pretty carelessly while they’re engaged in, you know, 20 minutes of kung fu fighting with the brothers and the townspeople. So it didn’t make

Craig: a lot of sense. Well, and there really didn’t seem to be all that much at, as you’ve mentioned, all that much at stake because even in their first battle with the vampires, they kill 3 of them, so there’s only 3 left and for them to have their ultimate power or whatever, there have to be all 7. So like, they pretty much have won after the first battle. Like, I don’t even really know why even bother to kill the rest of them.

Todd: And thanks a lot, Dracula. Like, back us up a little bit here. He does nothing.

Craig: Right. Nothing. Anyway, in the second battle, Vanessa gets bit and then young Van Helsing, the main brother, comes and kills the vampire that bit her, but then she approaches him seductively and smiles to reveal that she has fangs and then she bites him and old Van Helsing yells to him you must destroy her so fortunately there’s a big spike right behind her so he just throws her onto it and she dies. And then I guess because he’s been bitten he realizes that he’s going to be a vampire too, so he in a very samurai fashion throws   himself onto the same spikes so that they are impaled together. Yeah. And that was the only death that I even cared about. I felt I wanted that main guy to kind of end up being the hero. But no, the white people are gonna be the heroes, obviously. Because they’re worthless, but they’re white, so. That’s right. Because what basically happens

Todd: is the last vampire standing manages to snag the previously badass Megwe and toss her onto a horse and gallop back up to the pagoda. What is going on here? Like what is his endgame? I just don’t get it. He straps her down to a table and he’s about to bite into her, but of course the young Van Helsing, Leyland, sees this going on and so he runs up there as well as the man on the white horse, jumps in just in the nick of time and has a bit of a fight with him. But what ends   up happening is in the meantime, this has been enough time for the older Van Helsing to come in and he stabs this creature from the back, in which moment it falls into that big boiling blood vat that was in the middle of the room and becomes nothing. Right. And they all look around and kind of dust themselves off and say, job well done and leave. But Van Helsing stays around the older 1 because something doesn’t feel quite right. And sure enough, as he turns over, he sees Dracula, which is, you know, in the form of this   other guy. He challenges him, you know, don’t be a coward, show me your true form. And then there is a really long, really weird, bad special effect fading again through some bizarre stuff.

Craig: Yeah, at 1 point he looks like a giant turd. It was like a melted candle.

Todd: It was not their best effort to be completely honest. And then he, you know, Van Helsing just stands there while Dracula walks up about 3 inches away from him and then gives him a big smack across the face which sends him flying.

Craig: That was hilarious. Dracula just slaps Van Helsing around like a bitch for a while. It’s so lame.

Todd: It’s so bad. It’s terribly staged. And like you said, suddenly Van Helsing swings around at 1 point and is able to impale him with a spear that was hanging around.

Craig: Yeah, and that special, the transformation special effect goes on for a good 45 seconds. Yeah and then and then the whole the whole fight takes maybe all of a minute and really it’s not a fight at all it’s just Van Helsing getting slapped around until he finally like gets slapped around and falls down near a big pole. So he just turns around with the pole and Dracula pretty much impales himself on it.

Todd: That’s right. Yeah, oh man, it’s pretty bad. And then we get treated to at least a 2 minute long scene of Dracula crumbling into dust.

Craig: Yeah, oh, at least so long. And then I thought, well, maybe then now something else is going to happen. But no, that’s just it at the end. Like it pulls to an exterior shot of the pagoda and you see the title comes up again, the legend of the 7 golden vampires, and then the credits roll. I know. It’s… I don’t know. Have you seen, I’m presuming that you have seen some of these other Hammer Dracula films? Almost all of them, yeah. They surely can’t all be this bad.

Todd: No, they’re not all this bad. Not at all. No, they’re much better films than this 1. This film, bless its heart, it doesn’t really know what it wants to be. I think at its core, it really just wants to be a kung fu movie. But it’s not even a very good kung fu movie. And so, it’s just kind of lame all around. Well, there’s a major continuity error in here. There’s a major problem with this film from the get-go. If in 1804 Dracula is approached and takes the body of this guy and he goes off to   China for a hundred years, Who in the meantime, how was he back at the castle for Van Helsing to go and have, you know, like 6 other movies with him? It doesn’t make any sense whatsoever. Like, are we to believe that this is how Dracula meets his final demise is in a pagoda in China on that table. Yeah. It’s really bad. They don’t even care. You know, I mean, it’s so obvious they don’t even care. And then, like I said, it’s still a little icky, the stuff between, and They’re not even trying with these relationships either.   Like I feel like that moment where he impales himself and her on that spike was supposed to be a crying moment, like, oh my gosh, like there’s this sacrifice for love kind of thing. But because they just kind of looked at each other and now they’re boyfriend girlfriend, it just doesn’t have that impact. Just the movie is way more interested in the fighting and the fighting is not even that good to take the time to raise the stakes.

Craig: It was okay. I mean, I was I was grateful for the fight scenes because At least it was something to look at But yeah, I mean it wasn’t great. They were all right 1 of the things that I was disappointed about I didn’t read much about the movie but I, you know, I looked at the IMDB page to see who was in it, to see if there was anybody that I would recognize, and I saw Peter Cushing and I’m like, oh, Peter Cushing is, you know, a really well respected actor and I’m sure that he’ll be   really good. And he just felt old and sad. Like, really? Like, I do, I need to go and watch some of the earlier films that he was in to see if it was any different because it really, this movie made his Van Helsing, whichever Van Helsing it’s supposed to be, it made him seem really just kind of pathetic. I mean, he was really more just kind of the academic who tagged along and didn’t really have anything to do. And I feel like maybe they tried to remedy that by putting in his son like, oh, okay, well,   yeah, Peter Cushing’s old, so let’s give him a son who can be kind of the romantic hero. But he was lame too, in a more like cocksure kind of lame guy kind of way. I just you know I hear the name Van Helsing and I’ve seen him portrayed by Hugh Jackman and many other people and you know he’s just kind of this badass vampire killer and in this movie he’s just kind of this sad old guy who nobody really gives any credence to and that was a little bit disappointing to me but this whole movie it   feels like not fan fiction but you know some sort of like alternate universe Dracula Yeah, it doesn’t really feel like the Dracula that I know so it just feels separate from all that So I’m not gonna my my vision of the whole Dracula lore and the Van Helsing lore is not gonna be really Tainted by this movie because it it feels you know like in in the comic books You know there

Todd: are rebooting and changing things yeah

Craig: different universes and stuff like that’s what this feels like It feels like kind of an alternate universe kind of story. And so, whatever, it is what it is. Frankly, I didn’t hate it. We’ve certainly watched worse movies. It was all right. Yeah. I certainly wouldn’t need to see it again but I don’t know it was okay

Todd: well I think you know you got to give him a little credit for trying I mean is it really intriguing idea and on its face it’s just so wacky that it sounds exciting. Like, yeah, Dracula has gone to China and raises up 7 other vampires and they all fight Kung Fu style with 7 brothers, AKA the Magnificent 7 or something like that. It’s just so nuts, right? But it’s just not as entertaining as it should be with that nutty of a premise. Yeah, yeah. It’s kind of a wasted high concept idea, I think.

Craig: Well, and I don’t know as, you know, I don’t know that much, much of anything really at all about the Hammer Dracula films, but knowing that this was the last 1, I can kind of see why. I mean, it kind of feels like a nail in the coffin kind of movie. You know, like, yeah, we’re fresh out of ideas.

Todd: Well, there was going to be a sequel to this 1, too, that was going to take place in India. They called Kali the Devil Bride of Dracula. But I think because this 1 wasn’t a success that that got canceled.

Craig: That sounds more interesting than this 1.

Todd: Actually it does, doesn’t it? There’s a bride in there, there’s a devil that takes place in India. But alas, was never meant to be. No, okay, I am putting the horror of Dracula on our list. We need to watch that soon because you’ve got to have some context. We got to do more of these hammer Dracula films because

Craig: they’re quite… I know. I’m kind of surprised we never have. You know, my dad is the guy that got me into horror movies. And when he guested with us a million years ago, he talked about how these old school monster movies were what he grew up with. And I’ve never seen them. And so we should. We should do some of these old nuggets.

Todd: We’ll remedy that. Yep. This is a nugget that’s been in the fryer a little too long.

Craig: Yeah, true. But yeah. I think maybe I’m ready for something a little bit more contemporary in next week.

Todd: We will do it. All right. Well, thank you again for listening to another episode. If you enjoyed this episode, please

Craig: share it with a friend.

Todd: You can find us on Facebook, just search for 2 Guys and a Chainsaw. You can also find us on our website where we have all of our back catalog episodes available for download or streaming. TwoGuys.Red40Net.com. Obviously, we’re also available wherever you can search and find your podcast such as iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, all those places. We love to hear from you. We love to hear what you think. If you happen to have seen this movie, let us know what you think of our assessment of it and leave us a few suggestions for the next movie you’d   like us to do. Until next time, I’m Todd. And I’m Craig. With 2 Guys and a Chainsaw.