 Professor Van Helsing meets up with Count Dracula again, this time in the
Chinese village of Ping Kuei. Hsi Ching offers to guide Van Helsing to his
village where the Seven Golden Vampires are tormenting everyone. During their
journey to the village they encounter attackers until they arrive at the
"derelict temple" of the Seven Golden Vampires where Drac is residing. The box
says that is "where Van Helsing and the Count begin a battle-to-the-death where
good and evil collide, and only one man is left standing." The box also refers
to this film as a "kung fu horror spectacular." 1974, 89 minutes, Widescreen, DVD
Peter Cushing returns for the umpteenth time as Professor Van Helsing in
Hammer Films last gasp effort. It was 1974 and nobody wanted to see period
horror pieces like Hammer had been making the last 15 years. Bruce Lee's Enter the Dragon had been a huge world wide success so Hammer teamed up with Hong Kong's Shaw
Brothers to meld the best of Hammer with the best of kung fu. What they came up
with was this: Dracula and Van Helsing travel to China at the turn of the
century and wreak havoc on a little podunk village. Dracula raises The Seven
Golden Vampires from the undead and Van Helsing goes out to stop him. First of all this guy they got playing Count Dracula is completely inept. He
wears all this rouge on his cheeks like he's some Howdy Doody drag queen.
Thankfully he assumes the form of a Chinese man early in the movie and we
really don't see him again until the end of the film for what has to be the
most pathetic battle to the death I have ever witnessed. Van Helsing is in
China yammering on to a bunch of bored Chinese university professors about some
Golden Vampire legend. They laugh in his face and leave, doing a good
impression of the audience. There is one guy who believes him because he is
from that village and so he gets Van Helsing to lead an expedition to said
village for a little vampire action. It should also be noted that going along
on the journey is Van Helsing's son, who is just the biggest sissy you have
ever seen. I only assume that Van Helsing took him along so that the kid
wouldn't be running around Europe disgracing the Van Helsing name while pops
was out beating down the various Draculas. Also along for the ride is some rich
white girl who's bankrolling the whole thing (good investment!) and the Chinese
guy's six brothers and one sister. They must be like a kung fu Osmond family or
something.  This ragtag band of misfits who have no chance in hell of beating Dracula and
his minions, who have never been stronger, sets off to the village of Ping
Kuei. This is where the movie kicks (ouch) into high gear and really shows off
its chops (double ouch). This movie is structured quite well because with about
an hour and a half to fill they know we need a gigantic kung fu fight scene
about every 20 minutes or so. It also helps that these fight scenes are drawn
out affairs that last about five minutes. Once the fight scene is done the
characters interact with one another a bit, commenting on how tough that fight
was or how tough the next one will be or the various men and women might make
eyes at one another before moving on down the road to the next battle. The fight scenes are okay. They never seem to really catch fire and degenerate
into the kinetic frenzy that you want these things to. It doesn't help that the
camera work is unimaginative and the music is just horrible. This is a kung fu
movie more than a horror movie. Get the kung fu music in and the tuba and bass
drum horror music out! The best part of the fight scenes is watching the
Chinese sister beat up all these undead dudes. She had some good moves! One of
the problems with this movie is that the Golden Vampires are a bunch of
dummies. There are six of them (the seventh was killed in a flashback sequence,
so I felt a bit ripped off) yet they attack Van Helsing and crew three at a
time. This allows them to be dispatched much more easily than if they attacked
en masse. They did control armies of the undead that they sicced on Van Helsing
so maybe they thought they could get the job done at half strength. That
reminds me, a lot of times when you had the undead army mucking about it was
done in this awful slow motion. What is the point of making your slow, plodding
loser creatures look even more slow and plodding. Come on! Speed it up! There's a big old battle at the end and most everyone eats it, except of
course that prissy Van Helsing, Jr. In the end, the elder Van Helsing faces off
with the Prince of Darkness himself inside the temple of those loser Golden
Vampires. I will now describe their final apocalyptic showdown exactly as it
occurred: Dracula cut a little promo on Van Helsing. Then gave him two Flair
chops across the face. Van Helsing takes the bumps and falls over some
contraption that Dracula had been keeping virgins tied up to. Dracula lunges at
him and Van Helsing jabs a big spear into Drac's chest. 1-2-3 match over! Uh,
the only moves that Dracula had was two bitch-slaps? That must explain the
questionable makeup the guy was wearing. I hadn't been that disappointed in an
apocalyptic showdown since Sting vs. Hogan at Starrcade '97. Needless to say I
pelted my television with empty beer cups. Hammer does throw in some bright red blood and some topless girls to distract
you from the apocalyptic slap fight, but you can't help but thinking as the
credits roll that you would have much rather seen the rich white girl and the
kung fu Chinese sister get into an apocalyptic slap fight. The DVD has some odd
bonuses. It has an audio only version of the movie that consists of Peter
Cushing narrating the story with some sound effects (why was that ever made?)
and on the other side of the disc you get the American version of this movie, The Seven Brothers Meet Dracula along with the theatrical trailer for it. This U.S. version is only 75 minutes
long and apparently cut out the good 15 minutes from the movie. Somebody ought
to look into releasing the 15 minute version. Bottom line? Dracula, kung fu
battles, undead armies, gore, topless virgins, adds up to only one thing -
CLASSIC!
Reviews © 2004
MonsterHunter
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