cinema history class: dracula vs. frankenstein (1971)

The session: Freaky Frankenstein's
Keith shows us four oddball interpretations of the Frankenstein story 

As always, there may be spoilers here. And the trailer may be NSFW and/or NSFL.

Week 4: Dracula vs. Frankenstein (1971)
Directed by Al Adamson

My Level of Prior Knowledge:
Completely unfamiliar.

Plot Synopsis:
A descendant of Dr. Frankenstein runs a creepy seaside attraction while secretly conducting experiments with the help of his grotesque assistant. When Dracula brings him the original Frankenstein monster and proposes an alliance, the monster is revived—eventually leading to the promised showdown between Dracula and Frankenstein’s creation.

Reaction and Other Folderol:
Dracula vs. Frankenstein is an incoherent mess.

And apparently, there was a good reason for that. This feels like a movie made by people who weren’t entirely sure what movie they were making while they were making it. The whole production has that cobbled-together quality: scenes and ideas thrown at the screen in the hope that eventually they might add up to a movie. They don’t.

The dialogue is terrible. The acting is very bad. The story wanders around seemingly at random. Even Dracula and Frankenstein’s monster—the two guys whose names are right there in the title—sometimes seem like they wandered in from some other movie.

I did get a kick out of the cop, who struck me as some weird low-budget version of Harry Morgan in Naked City. And I have to admit that the midget landing on the axe was funny. I’m not entirely convinced it was supposed to be as funny as I found it, but at this point you take your entertainment where you can get it.

Which brings me to the only circumstances under which I can really recommend Dracula vs. Frankenstein: get together with a bunch of friends, get drunk, and make fun of it. Under those conditions, this could actually be a pretty good time. As a movie, though? No.

And then there was Joe.

Joe gave this piece of shit a 10.

I don't understand it.

This was much worse than the last two things we watched, neither of which Joe gave a 10. So apparently those movies somehow failed to meet the exacting standards that Dracula vs. Frankenstein satisfied.

I have spent some time trying to understand Joe's rating system. I shall spend no more.