Zoltan: Hound of Dracula (1977) Horror Demon Dog

Zoltan: Hound of Dracula (1977)  A group of Soviet soldiers out looking for treasure blow their way into a tomb in Romania. All the names on the tombs are the family Dracula. These soldiers leave a poor soldier behind to guard the find while they settle in for the night meaning to explore more in the morning. Tremors in the night shake the tomb dislodging caskets from the tombs. In the one the soldier decides to open is something under some sheets that has a large wooden stake through the center of it. Apparently the soldier has never heard stories of vampires and so he does the one thing you should never do. He pulls the stake out to look at it. Unfortunately for him that stake was keeping the vampire dog Zoltan from rising and removing it allows the gray doberman to jump from under his sheets to kill and drink the blood of the stupid soldier.
 Reggie Nalder) say telepathically to the dog. A 'fractional larmia' is the term given to this character basically a Renfield character who will seek out the last remaining Dracula living on earth. In this case Michael who lives in Los Angelas CA. We learn about this because the Major running the operation Maj. Hessel (Arlene Martel) and Inspector Branco (Jose Ferrer) have long exposition filled scenes where they explain the plot points. At the end the Inspector is instructed to look up Michael Drake (Michael Pataki) and try to intervene before Smith could turn him into a vampire? Smith and the dog arrive in LA via ship with the dog playing dead (undead) in a shipping container. Since he only becomes active at night, like a vampire Smith can get him past customs by saying the dog is being returned home for burial.

In a dog memory flashback, yes I just said that, we learn that Zoltan was bitten by Dracula in bat form after the dog interrupted the vampires desired feast on a local village lovely. He becomes controlled by Dracula a hound of the living dead. The smart dog then opens the casket of his former master who must have been turned by Dracula and the two leave the tomb to "...find our new Master." as the risen corpse Veidt Smith (
  Michael is a forty something father of two living is a nice a neighborhood, his wife (Jan Shutan), daughter (Libby Chase) and son (John Levin) are getting ready to go on a camping vacation. They decide to bring their two beautiful German Sheppard dogs even though one is still nursing a litter of pups. a big deal was made about Michael bringing his handgun so we can be sure that it will come into play at some point. The ominous music as they pull out followed by a hearse leads to the viewer down the road that things are going to get interesting on this camping trip.
Branco arrives in LA via airplane while they are camping. Very casual in his approach considering Smith and Zoltan took a frigging steam boat.  It must have taken them weeks to sail from Romania to LA. but Branco flies in rents a sweet convertible  and heads out to find the Drake family as if there was no rush at all. He easily could have been there weeks before and prepped Michael about arriving ghoul and vampire dog. It is a slow burn this film. With Smith and the vampire dog looking for an opportunity to get to Michael but along the way having other kills. Zoltan converts some of the dogs to work with him, including the Drakes own shepherds and they start closing in on the Drake family. After a close call where Linda is attacked, Michael and family are ready to go home. Branco finds them as they pack up and explains his connection to the Dracula issue and his family history.  Michael sends his family home while he and Branco stay to confront the pack of dogs. They hold up In the shabbiest of shacks and the night looks dire when the dogs attack. They barely make it through fighting off the dogs with fire. Zoltan though eventually makes his way in, but the sun is rising and it chases him off.
  The climax of this film is Michael against four vampire dogs and even guys arriving with guns can not help him. He must be the one to deal with Zoltan and end the threat. Branco deals with Smith and then arrives just in time to help with the dog pack. Michael though must face off with the titular character but it is a really shitty final confrontation. So disappointing in fact that even the silly see you for the sequel ending can't save this slog of a film. What to take away from this film?  Well some of these actors are great. Maybe not in this role but there is a place in my heart for the work of Jose Ferrer, Both Martel and Shutan appeared on Star Trek, the original series. Still this really is not a very interesting movie. So with really no Dracula and a lame disaster of a plot this is not a recommended film.

Mark of the Devil (1970) - Horror Gore Historical

Mark of the Devil (1970) - As a Yut I can remember being at the Drive-In movies a couple times, I have a very strong memory of watching "5 fingers of Death" and I have a memory of this film "Mark of the Devil", in my head they were a double feature but I really doubt that since they came out a couple years apart. In an effort to revisit the movies of my youth I recently watched Mark of the Devil. It opens with this strange camera effect like they were shooting through the bottom of a clear bottle. We see the local witch hunter, Albino (Reggie Nalder) sending his thugs after a caravan of priests and nuns, they capture rape and in general do bad to them. The next scene is a results scene as 2 women and a man are publicly tortured. Albino accuses them of witchcraft and doing sinful things and requires them to confess. They cut the fingers off one woman and then tar and feather the man. They then burn the other woman at the stake and of course she curses them all. It really is to establish the place and time as somewhere between the 15 and 18th century during the witch hunts. We get a scroll narration talking about just this and how 8 million people were executed during the period. Then setting up the movie we are to see.
We follow Vanessa (Olivera Katarina) from the crowd scene back to the tavern she works at. As we pass people in the streets we hear bits and pieces of the soon to arrive Lord Cumberland (Herbert Lom) the big wig witch hunter who is coming to check out the town. Already at the Tavern are sitting Christian(the great Udo Kier) and Jeff Wilkins (Herbert Fux) the assistant to Cumberland and his executioner respectively. When Albino comes into the tavern there is a bit of a confrontation with the new comers. He does not want to give up the power he has to Cumberland when he arrives. There is a multi level conflict here, Christian sees Albino as a backwards thug abusing his power. He is training with Cumberland who he sees as a noble man doing the work of God to remove the evil from the world. The power he has over Albino is to demand the paperwork for all the executions that have taken place and he exercises this power. It leaves the illiterate Albino on the ropes, his assistant has to work to create the falsified paperwork quickly. In this Christian acting for Cumberland can attempt to set this backwoods thug straight.
Albino hits on Vanessa and when she spurns his ugly assface he accuses her of being a witch. Christian stops him and then in the time from when Cumberland arrives and the accusation there are scenes of Christian and Vanessa spending time together and him falling for her. He can not be near her all the time though and it is not long before Albino gets his hands on Vanessa, he whips her good and arrests her.
When Cumberland arrives he takes Albino's side against Vanessa, basically saying that the accusation of the local witch finder is sufficient to hold her. Later she will be tortured for a confession. In another case a young blond, Deidre von Bergenstein (Gaby Fuchs) who is also accused says she was raped and impregnated by the Lord Bishop of the area. Cumberlands insists she should admit being a witch but she refuses having been wronged by this Bishop. She will be tortured for confession. What this scene did was to create doubt to in Christian about his mentor Cumberland, he sees the elder purposely not accept the story from Deidre because it would make the church he works for look bad. Christian thought they were seeking truth and is thrown off by the callus approach of Cumberland.
This is the message of this film. It is a history lesson about the witch hunts while expressing that so much of what was going on was either personal, as in the case of Albino. Or personal for Cumberland when we learn he is impotent and at one point can only get off by raping a noble women. That a lot was done to benefit the church as in the case of Deidre who must be a witch because the alternative is that she was raped by the Bishop and that is seen as unacceptable. There is also a story line about Baron Daumer (Michael Maien) a young man who should inherit his fathers fortunes, but since he was too young the church has been holding them. Now of legal age and requesting his inheritance the church has accused him of being possessed by a demon. The torture to remove the demon will probably kill him. Christian again sees the flaws in his mentor when it is obvious the church just does not want to loose the income and power of the holdings. Cumberland says he could free himself of the demon by signing everything over to the church.
Through the story Christian struggles with the morality of what they are doing, will he save Vanessa his love? Will he turn against his Lord Cumberland? Can he save Baron Daumer? When the film gets to a climax it is so anticlimactic that I was amazed. After sitting through this really boring if somewhat gory film, I could not believe who got killed who got away and why they bothered to make the movie in the first place.
Back in the day when you went to see this movie they gave you a vomit bag because the scenes of torture were so graphic. In these times of torture porn this movie is almost PG-13, there are a couple of boobs of Gaby Fuch on the rack, there is the rape scene that is not graphic at all and you see quite a few tortures and people burnings but they are not close to what you see in Hostel or the Saw movies. Boy were times different back in the early 1970's. Like many movies from that era this movie takes a long time for the character, in this case Christian to get from point A to B. The movie is long and somewhat boring with lots of torture scenes, he is really slow to give up on Lord Cumberland though. When he finally does for the love of a woman, it ends up being a tragic decision.
Rating (3.2) 5.0 and up are recommended, in the Zombiegrrlz rating system I would say Skip It!