- Directed by Al Adamson
- Written by Al Adamson, Samuel M. Sherman
- Stars J. Carrol Naish, Lon Chaney Jr., Zandor Vorkov, Anthony Eisley
- Run Time: 1 Hour, 31 Minutes
- Watch it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FvGWo2xopU
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
This gets a lot of hate from fans and critics. It’s choppy and doesn’t have a lot of strong acting. It wasn’t a great film, but it was watchable, with enough weirdness to keep it interesting. We’ve certainly seen worse, and this has enough pluses to make it worth watching.
Spoilery Synopsis
We open in a cemetery as a man digs up a rotten corpse. The night watchman comes upon Dracula, who finishes him off quickly.
Meanwhile, at the carnival, a girl walks into some scary fog at the beach, and someone beheads her with an ax.
In Las Vegas, Judith Fontaine sings in her show. Afterward, she gets a telegram that says her sister, Joanie, is still missing. She goes to talk to the detective in charge of the search, and he tells her to just sit around and wait, as her sister chose to live with hippies on the beach. He’s not really trying to look, and he’s proud of it; he’s decided that Joanie doesn’t want to be found.
Back at the carnival, a dwarf sells tickets to the fun house. It’s called Dr. Durea’s Creature Emporium, and it’s full of animated wax figures of monsters. Dr. Durea talks about Groton, his assistant and gives a whole creepy speech.
After the show, the doctor and Groton go into the back room, where the real lab is. He’s got Janie, the beheaded girl, there on his table, and he’s stitched the head back on. Durea explains his whole thing to Groton, who would obviously already know all this. After Groton puts the girl back into storage, the doctor injects him with something, and he gets all “warty” and picks up his ax.
Groton goes out for more victims, but then Dracula comes to visit the doctor; he says he knows “Durea’s” secret: he’s a descendant of Frankenstein. Dr. Frankenstein knows who Dracula is as well. Dracula shoots his magic ring at the wall, setting it on fire; the doctor agrees to work with Dracula to resuscitate the old monster. That was the corpse dug up at the beginning.
Groton comes upon Bob and Laura making out on the beach and does his thing to them with the ax. Judith is in town questioning people about Joanie at the big peace protest. One of the people she questions informs biker gang leader Rico that she’s nosing around; he drugs her. She soon has a wild trip.
Back at the lab, Frankenstein and Dracula hook up the monster to the equipment. Lightning strikes, and the monster wakes up. Frankenstein wants to send the monster after Dr. Beaumont, the man who discredited him years ago. Dracula and the monster make quick work of him.
Judith wakes up at Mike Howard’s pad; he brought her home last night. He knew Joanie. He lives with Samantha and a guy named Strange. They’re all talking about a guy they found hacked to pieces down on the beach. Mike tells Judith that her sister hung around the creature emporium all the time; she wanted to become a monster herself.
Judith and her new friends go to the sideshow to see Dr. Durea. Judith shows Durea a picture of Joanie, and of course, he knows all about it but lies. Samantha and Strange are accosted by Rico’s gang, but the police show up just in time to stop things. It’s Sgt. Martin, the detective who was talking to Judith earlier. He warns her to stay off the beaches, “There’s a maniac running loose.” Judith and Mike then go to the beach and immediately fall in love.
Groton starts to change, even though Frankenstein hasn’t given him any recent shots. Frankenstein gives him some of the blood serum to calm him down. Elsewhere, Frankenstein’s monster attacks a couple and grabs a girl.
Mike and Judith come to the conclusion that Dr. Durea is behind all the missing girls. They find a trap door under the doctor’s lab. Rico’s gang tries to rape Samantha, but Groton kills them all. Mike and Judith go back to Durea’s Emporium, searching for Samantha. They soon find Joanie in a coffin. Durea/Frankenstein explains a whole bunch of stuff about fear releasing something into the blood, and that makes his special serum.
Goton attacks Mike, but Grazbo the dwarf knocks Goton’s puppy through the trap door. Things get crazy fast as Durea shoots Mike and everyone runs outside.
Outside, Strange has called Sgt. Martin, and they’re outside the Emporium. Durea somehow manages to fall into a guillotine and gets beheaded. Groton chases Judith up to the roof, but the detective shoots Gorton, who falls to his death; the puppy, however, is fine.
Dracula, who’s been suspiciously absent through all this, hypnotizes Judith. He gloats about how no one will be able to stop him once he gets more of Frankenstein’s blood serum. Mike blinds Frankenstein’s monster with a torch, and the monster attacks Dracula. Mike and Judith get away as the monsters fight– No, Dracula burns Mike to death with a blast from his ring.
Later Frankenstein and Dracula go back to Drac’s castle with Judith in tow. Turns out, both monsters have a crush on Judith, and they end up fighting over her. Dracula loses his ring as the two grapple outside. Eventually, Dracula rips the monster’s arms and head off. Dracula looks up as the sun rises. He almost makes it before turning to dust.
Judith unties herself, picks up Dracula’s ring, and goes outside. Everyone else is dead.
Commentary
Much of Dr. Frankenstein’s equipment were actual props from the 1931 original film. Dracula and Frankenstein both have unique looks. Frankenstein, especially, looks like his face is about to fall off. He kinda looks like Leatherface here; it’s both good and bad at the same time. Dracula speaks with a modulated voice for some reason, and he’s a little hard to understand.
Director Al Adamson hired Lon Chaney Jr. and J. Carrol Naish strictly for their names, not realizing that neither of them were in physical condition to put in a full day’s work. Naish was in a wheelchair, and Chaney had throat cancer and could barely speak. Naish couldn’t remember any of his lines, so he read them off cue cards. The only problem with that is that he had one glass eye, so you can easily see his one good eye moving back and forth to read the cards while the other doesn’t move– it’s very strange.
This film is often on many people’s list of worst horror films, but it’s really not that bad. It’s far from good, but I suspect it’s the disappointment in seeing these two old stars giving horrible, past-prime performances.
This was the final performance out of both veteran actors. The weakest part of the film is the convoluted plot for a simple idea. Dracula wanted the doctor to make him a formula that would eliminate vampire weaknesses so he could rule the world with an unstoppable army. The pacing is good, and it doesn’t slow down enough to get boring.