‘Billy the Kid Versus Dracula’ Is as Ridiculous as It Sounds – Armessa Movie News

There are few characters that have been portrayed on film more frequently than Dracula. Just about every possible angle has been exhausted – from Dracula 3000 taking him to space to Mel Brooks spoofing the story in Dracula: Dead and Loving It. A recent Dracula incarnation, Renfield, starring Nicholas Hoult and Nicolas Cage shifts the focus from the Count to his devoted servant. The Last Voyage of the Demeter, which hit theaters this summer and stars Corey Hawkins and 2023 king David Dastmalchian, adapts a single chapter from Bram Stoker‘s famous 1897 novel. However, the most left-field approach is in William Beaudine’s Billy the Kid Versus Dracula from 1966. Starring John Carradine as the titular vampire, this strange and unique entry in the vast vampiric catalog pits Dracula against famed gunslinger Billy the Kid in a battle to save Billy’s fiancée from the clutches of the undead.

John Carradine Regrets ‘Billy the Kid Versus Dracula’

On the face of it, the combination of elements doesn’t make a lick of sense. That first instinct is probably the correct one because Billy the Kid Versus Dracula is borderline nonsensical. However, there’s a sense of congruency in the characters of Billy the Kid and Dracula in that both were already mainstays in popular culture. In fact, Billy’s tale was adapted to film twice in 1911, more than a decade before Bram Stoker’s novel was first adapted as Nosferatu. Billy the Kid has dwindled in popularity as the Western fell out of favor in Hollywood while Dracula has stayed strong, but in 1966, they were all Beaudine needed them to be: name recognition with no copyright.

Filmed back-to-back with the equally ridiculous Jesse James Meets Frankenstein’s Daughter in just eight days, Billy the Kid Versus Dracula has the dubious honor of being the only movie prolific character actor John Carradine regrets appearing in. According to Johnny D. Boggs‘ book Billy the Kid on Film, 1911 – 2012, the patriarch of the Carradine acting family said, “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.” Despite this withering assessment, Carradine was a brilliant choice for the part, having played the character previously in both House of Frankenstein and House of Dracula, bringing a level of ham that manages to undercut the self-serious tone of the movie.

‘Billy the Kid Versus Dracula’ Isn’t Trying To Be Funny (But It Still Is)

The opening moments of Billy the Kid Versus Dracula trick the audience into thinking that the filmmakers might be leaning into the comedy. Focusing on a family of German settlers sleeping in the open expanse of the Old West, the mother wakes up from a sense of unease and a truly awful-looking bat overhead. The only sensible thing to do here is to give your daughter a cross because of course there is a vampire about! The funny part is that she’s right, with Carradine appearing over the girl with bug eyes, a top hat, and a cape. The cross saves her, but not before he gets a bite in. This is followed by the title appearing in large letters across the screen and credits that feature a bat silhouette as a screen wipe. This all sounds like it is played for laughs, but from this point on, the comedy is entirely unintentional.

Among the funniest scenes is one with an old lady inviting Dracula to visit her ranch after he shows a disgusting level of interest in her daughter. They are in a stagecoach together with a whiskey salesman and her brother who (and this is shockingly key to the plot) the daughter has never met. Dracula essentially ignores his traveling companions until he is shown a picture of the young lady, at which point he turns on the charm and gets incredibly creepy: “18 and beautiful? Yes, I would love to see her.” So, what is a vampire to do in this situation? Rile up a local tribe of Native Americans by killing a young girl, prompting them to attack the stagecoach and kill all inside so that he can impersonate the uncle. It’s what anyone would do!

‘Billy the Kid Versus Dracula’ Sticks to Vampire Tropes When It’s Convenient

This leads Dracula into the path of reformed outlaw Billy the Kid (Chuck Courtney), who has given up a life of crime to work as a ranch hand and is now engaged to none other than the young lady Dracula is obsessed with, Betty Bentley (Melinda Plowman). It’s not made entirely clear, but presumably, the film is indulging the theory that Billy the Kid survived the showdown with Pat Garrett and turned his life around. The arrival of Betty’s “uncle” is all smiles until that German family from the opening turns up in town with tales of vampires and Dracula finishes the job and kills their daughter. From here, it’s all wolfsbane on windows as the German family convinces Billy that the creepy man living with them may not be who he says he is.

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The town doctor, referred to by Dracula as a “backwoods female pillslinger,” somehow has vampire information in a medical book. Medicine in the late 1800s wasn’t incredible, but this seems like a stretch. However, this plot contrivance does lead to the only way to prove that Dracula is a vampire – a lack of reflection. This is one of the hallmarks of vampire cinema that is maintained, with most of the other classic tropes being ignored or half-implemented. At first, it seems like Dracula only travels at night, which would make sense, but then he’s in daylight basically for the rest of the film. He never needs to be invited into a house to enter and the effectiveness of crosses is sketchy at best. On the flip side, he can turn into a bat and must be killed by a stake through the heart, and bullets don’t hurt him, but a gun thrown at his face will knock him out! Beaudine may not have put much thought into the vampiric lore here.

‘Billy the Kid Versus Dracula’ Is the Worst Version of the Vampire

Among the almost uncountable number of depictions on film, many of which are great, you would be hard-pressed to find an inferior movie. Adaptations of the character range from the blaxploitation classic Blacula, to more straightforward takes like Francis Ford Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula, and every kind of reimagining in between. Billy the Kid Versus Dracula isn’t just the worst Dracula movie because it has a silly concept or because it has a bad script. The worst thing about the film is that it feels like they didn’t even try to make a good movie. Still, it’s hard to be mad at a movie that includes Dracula being pistol-whipped.