Billy the Kid Vs Dracula

Billy the Kid Vs Dracula (1966) starring John Carradine, Chuck Courtney, Melinda Plowman

In Billy the Kid vs Dracula, Bar-B ranch foreman Billy the Kid isn’t an outlaw any more. He’s turned over a new leaf. He’s engaged to his boss, Betty. They are paid a visit by Betty’s uncle, Underhill, who – totally unbeknown to them – is a vampire.

Review

I can safely say that Billy the Kid vs Dracula isn’t the worst film ever made. It’s not even the worst vampire film ever made. But that doesn’t mean its a good movie, however. In other words, it isn’t. Above all, it’s a cheesy monster movies that you watch with friends and a bucket of popcorn to make fun of it.

Negatives

• First is the character of Billy the Kid. He’s a cold-blooded killer, but he’s written here as a nice young man who simply made a mistake. However, almost everyone in town knows his backstory … But they just don’t care.
• Next, Dracula violates lots of the Hollywood vampire lore. Sometimes. When it’s convenient. Unless it isn’t.
• The town doctor goes from being a total disbeliever to an expert on vampirism overnight.

“I have worked in a dozen of the greatest, and I have worked in a dozen of the worst. I only regret Billy the Kid Versus Dracula. Otherwise, I regret nothing.”

John Carradine

Positives

• The acting is decent.
• The costuming is nice.
• The “old country” couple that tries to warn the Americans about the danger of a vampire is nice.

Trivia

• John Carradine had considered this to be the worst movie that he ever acted in.
• Billy the Kid vs Dracula was shot in eight days.
• The name “Dracula” is never spoken by any character in the movie. It only shows in the title.
• John Carradine also played Dracula in House of Frankenstein and House of Dracula.

Editorial review of Billy the Kid Vs Dracula courtesy of Amazon.com

Dracula goes to the Old West and while riding on a stage learns that one of the passengers is on her way to meet her daughter at her ranch. Accompanying her is her brother who hasn’t seen her daughter. Dracula the arranges for some Indians to attack the stage coach and kill everybody. He then assumes her brother’s identity and plots to make her daughter his mate. When he shows up he meets the girl who introduces him to her fiancée, William Bonney aka billy the kid, who has reformed. When a European family who had earlier encountered Dracula decides to protect the girl and warns Billy of the danger. Billy then wonders if the man is her uncle. And it doesn’t help that no one believes him and the ranch’s former foreman is doing what he can to discredit Billy.