Captain Kronos - Vampire Hunter (1974) aka Kronos aka Vampire Hunter

4 / 5 Feb '10
Tagline: Evil Ends Here.
Directed by: Brian Clemens
Written by: Brian Clemens
Actors include: Horst Janson, Caroline Munro, Shane Briant
Genre: Horror, Adventure
Length: 91 minutes
Banned: Nope

Review:
Pretty amusing entry into the line of Hammer vampire pictures, this one follows a different sort of tale. See the vampires in this actually suck life from their victims and only leave a bit of blood on the side of their mouths. Additionally they prey on young women and when finished, their faces are extremely aged (or rather they each turn to the face of an old man wearing a wig). There is a heroic vampire hunter by the name of Captain Kronos (Horst Janson) fighting the good fight along with a wench he saved and his hunchback assistant. Thing is, Kronos isn't your typical hero, he's very into sexy ladies and he's been known to smoke herbal cigarettes (nudge nudge wink wink) and well he's a different sort of feller. Admittedly the hooded faceless vampire lurking about the woods is rather creepy and the idea is a very interesting one and it has a neat style to it. I also appreciate that it's unlike any of the others from Hammer that I've seen so far and it's very easy to appreciate. It's not their finest but it's far from their worst, a definite one to watch despite the lack of star power.

Availability:  On DVD

And Soon The Darkness (1970)

4.5 / 5 Jan '10
Tagline: N/A
Directed by: Robert Fuest
Written by: Brian Clemens, Terry Nation
Actors include: Pamela Franklin, Michele Dotrice, Sandor Eles
Genre: Thriller, Horror
Length: 99 minutes
Banned: Nope

Review:
This is one film that actually gave me the creeps, it felt real and they did a perfect job of giving off that vibe of alienation and horror. The story is about two young British girls (Jane & Cathy) bicycling through the back areas of France neither of which are fluent in French. After the girls get in a squabble Jane takes off and leaves Cathy suntanning out in the woods. She decides to sit at a roadside cafe and wait until Cathy catches up. After waiting quite a while she decides to bike back to try to find her friend, but she isn't there. Only a few random items are left as a reminder that they were ever there. A ways back a Fellow was watching them, could he have taken Cathy? Jane will stop at nothing to find out, and it's one frightening ride to say the least. I've heard some complain that many of the characters speak in French (untranslated) but the thing is, that's how the girls would have felt. I can only pick out a word or two of French but it was enough to know that something was terribly wrong. I was surprised just how horrific this one actually was, though it is rather slow moving at first (but not in a bad way, it just builds into a doomy tense situation). Recommended highly, this was a real treasure, thanks to Infofreak for recommending this one to me, it's frightening!

Availability:  On DVD but OOP