1977 Dracula’s Dog

• AKA “Zoltan, Hound of Dracula”
• Directed by Albert Band
• Written by Frank Ray Perilli
• Stars Jose Ferrer, Michael Pataki, Jan Shutan
• Run Time: 1 Hour, 27 Minutes
• Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_z-dXVPW4I

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

The premise sounds silly, and you might expect it to be funny. It manages to be a serious horror movie with a decent story, tension, and a body count. Reggie Nalder is perfect as the main villain in looks and persona. This is one worth checking out. 

Spoilery Synopsis

We open on some soldiers, looking generically communist, practicing shelling in the woods. “Stop blasting; we’ve uncovered a tomb.” They go down into the huge chamber. There are various crypts of members of the Dracula family. They post a guard and leave for the night. Sometime during the night, there’s an earthquake, and the guard hears noises in the chamber. Two of the tombs open and coffins slide out. The guard, never having seen a vampire movie, opens the lid and pulls out the stake that’s in the shroud covered body. Is it Dracula? No- it’s Dracula’s Dog! Credits roll. 

We flash back to Zoltan, the dog, back when he was alive. He was a good dog, defending his human owner when Dracula came to bite her. The barking woke up the woman, who screamed and drove the vampire away. The bat, however, bit Zoltan, turning him into a vampire-dog. The dog then pulls out yet another coffin and he pulls the stake out of that body. Zoltan doesn’t wake up Dracula, he wakes up his former owner, Veidt Smith, who says they must go find their new master. 

In the morning, the soldiers return with Inspector Branco, here to find out what happened to the dead guard. The soldiers carry out the various coffins and open one in front of the major and the inspector. It’s clearly a vampire tomb, and the whole countryside will be terrorized if this gets out. Worse yet, two of the coffins are empty. They burn the coffins and the mostly dead guard as well – he had a heartbeat but wasn’t breathing. 

Inspector Banco says Veidt Smith was more of a Renfield than a true vampire. They cannot exist long without their masters. There are no more vampiric Draculas, but there is a Michael Dracula who lives in America, and Veidt is most likely going to find him. He has no idea who was in the other empty coffin.

We cut to Veidt, aboard a ship, and we flashback to how he got hooked up with Dracula. He has Zoltan in a box in the cargo hold. Customs opens the crate to check for contraband, but there’s just a dead dog inside. Later, we see that Zoltan is vampire fine; he was just playing dead. 

Elsewhere, Michael Drake and his wife, Marla, send their two kids to bed. They let the German Shepherd out for the night, and he’s a good dog too. They’re packing for an upcoming camping trip, and he makes sure to put his gun in the overnight bag.  

Zoltan gets on the roof and looks through the window at Michael, asleep in his bed. Veidt tells Zoltan to go in and turn him into a vampire, but a loose roof tile breaks and the Drakes’ dogs go berserk, waking everyone up. 

In the morning, the family, including the dogs, pack into the RV and leave the house in the hands of their neighbor, Mrs. Park. They don’t notice the big black Hearse following them. They get to the campground and the family frolics in the weeds. 

One of the puppies runs off and gets lost and everyone searches. When the sun sets, Veidt lets Zoltan out of his box. Zoltan soon finds the puppy and kills him. Zoltan’s about to eat the children too, but the German Shepherd runs him off. In the morning, they find the dead puppy. They take the puppy back to their campsite and bury it. 

Sometime during the night, the now-undead puppy crawls out of the grave, Zoltan finds a hiker and viciously tears him apart.  There’s another camper’s dog, and Zoltan turns him too. During the night, Zoltan and the other dog attacks Michael outside the RV. 

At the airport, Inspector Branco arrives in the country and rents a car. He goes to the Drake house but only finds Mrs. Parks there. Between her and the park ranger, he works to track the family down.  

The following night, Annie, one of Michael’s dogs, encounters a pair of vampire dogs. All three dogs then attack Linda, Michael’s daughter, but she is rescued by other campers. The group hears dogs howling all around them. 

Inspector Branco shows up and explains why he’s there. Michael makes jokes; he doesn’t really believe he’s related to Dracula. Branco explains some details that make Michael remember fleeing from angry villagers when he was a child. Branco wants Michael to stay with him in a fisherman’s cabin and send the rest of the family home. 

As Branco explains to Michael how to kill a vampire, they hear scratching at the door. The dogs surround the place, even getting on the roof. Zoltan does, eventually get inside just as the sun rises. The dog runs back to his coffin without biting Michael. Branco wonders if that other coffin might have held a dog…

The next night, Branco and Michael go back to the original campground. Over at the Hearse, Veit tells Zoltan, “We cannot survive another night without a master.” Branco soon finds the skull-faced old minion, and they fight. Veidt loses badly and gets a stake. 

Three big dogs come after Michael, who rushes to raise the cloth-top convertible before they can get to him. One of the bad dogs is Annie, one of Michael’s former pets. Samson, the other good dog, runs up, and he lets it into the car. Samson, however, is faking the good-dog thing and attacks Michael inside the car as Zoltan and the others watch from outside. Michael ends up staking Samson. 

Branco and a hunter arrive to distract the dogs. He stakes the bad dogs, all except for Zoltan, who runs off into the woods pursued by Michael. Zoltan hypnotises Michael to drop the stake. Michael, however, is wearing a cross, and when Zoltan backs away, he falls off a cliff and is impaled far below. 

Branco and the hunters stay behind to burn the bodies while Michael goes home. Except… We cut to the vampire puppy, who’s been killing the rabbits in the woods. He’s got yellow glowing eyes. 

Brian’s Commentary

It’s a ridiculous concept that’s all played pretty straight here. The dog is always photographed so his eyes are glowing evilly, which is a nice effect. The real villain here is Veidt Smith, who looks like a walking skull; the actor looks halfway mummified without any special makeup. 

I seem to remember a lot of “wild dog pack” horror movies that came out around this time. This was one of them, but with a supernatural twist added. It’s a silly idea, but it’s not a terrible movie.

Kevin’s Commentary

 This had the potential to be stupid and funny. I was pleasantly surprised by how seriously this was taken, and how well it worked as a horror movie. It’s not a classic of cinema, but it holds up pretty well for entertainment. I’d recommend it.