Franky and His Pals – review

Director: Jerald Cormier

Release date: 1991

Contains spoilers

We are in straight to video territory here, with a monster mash that generally fails to provide more than the most very basic of plot and relies instead on dubious humour to carry it forward. Nevertheless, with an appearance of Drak (Jerry Cormier Jr.) – Dracula, of course – there is a need to watch, document and review.

the mad scientist

It starts with a mad scientist (director Jerald Cormier under the adjusted name spelling Gerald Cormier) talking to whoever he works for on the phone and explaining that he can’t test the time machine yet. He needs gold to make the inner workings work. He is also distracted by the cleavage of his assistant (I think Kelli Gianettoni whose character is named Blonde Bimbo). After credits (that are designed to be self-effacing) we meet grave diggers Calvin (Russ Lowe) and George (Robert Lowe). As they dig, the legend of the monsters is told.

Jerry Cormier Jr. as Drak

Apparently the Monsters were reputed to have been in the area and became trapped in a cave by a landslide. Cutting to the monsters they are still in the cave and are Drak, Franky (Eric Weathersbee), Wolfie (Wilson Smith), Humpy (Keith Lack) the Hunchback, and the Mummy (Richard Sumner). The Mummy is mute but a midriff level parasite it carries, called Apophis, can speak. They pass their time playing poker. Elsewhere the town council have met and the town is in a bind – they owe over a million in property taxes to the IRS.

grave diggers

Playing poker (with multiple decks it seems), one of the stakes is a map that Humper has, showing the town and an x where a cache of gold is hidden. Drak wants the gold and, following a bean binge, fortuitously Franky’s fart clears the cave entrance. It is night (or so they suggest) and the monsters leave. They have been trapped so long they are astounded when they see horseless carriages. In one of an interminable number of musical interludes we get a “rap” (really not well done) that explains the plot thus far.

bite

Beyond scaring a driver and his date and the grave diggers, the monsters get to a hotel, where the gold is hidden and a Halloween party is going on. Of course this means they fit right in and start looking for the gold, sort of… they do tend to just wander around firing off crudely drawn gags and the base layer of misogyny in the script/gags is not supported by any true layer of sexploitation (the closest we get is a bikini contest) or any underlying funny humour. From a TMtV point of view, Drak at least manages to bite two women, the barmaid (Hester Simonis) and a party goer in Egyptian garb (Pauline Elliott). Both suffer no more ill effects beyond feeling weak and the slight amount of blood seen on one neck is really the only blood seen.

dancing Drak

And weak is what the film is but, the makeup seemed ok (at a distance at least) and there was an underlaying something that kept we watching, morbidly fascinated. The vast majority of the film is focused on the party, the grave diggers are scared occasionally, the town council appears right towards the end and the time machine is almost a coda, lining up a sequel that looks to have never happened. 2.5 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon US

On Demand @ Amazon UK

The Complete Dracula – review

Adapters: Leah Moore and John Reppion

Artwork: Colton Worley

First published: 2010 (tpb)

Contains spoilers

The Blurb: Writers Leah Moore and John Reppion are joined by painter Colton Worley for a fully painted series, reprinted here in this softcover collected edition. All of the stunning covers by John Cassaday are included, along with script pages, annotations by Leah Moore and John Reppion and samplings of the original text by Bram Stoker!

The review: Another graphic novel adaptation of Dracula and one that underlines the idiom "never judge a book by its cover". The cover was by John Cassaday and I absolutely love it, a stark comic graphic that absolutely drew me in. The inner art, however, not so much. A painted style I was not wowed. The panel layout is, for the most part, pedestrian and the palette muted, it was at best utilitarian in my eyes – which is not the best way art for a graphic novel should be described. I disliked the character designs too. Art, of course, impacts different people in different ways, there will be those out there who love the style – it really wasn’t for me.

The story itself followed Stoker, but sometimes strangely. Aspects seemed glossed over or, in some cases missing, which might be fine in an adaptation as there is only so much that will fit into the format (though they have called this complete) and yet other moments of completeness that I’d have missed out are included. Moments of crates being shifted and located round London just slowed the pace of the graphic down, for instance. They included the Dracula’s Guest sequence, presumably to be complete (though Stoker chose to expunge that from the final novel) and I was curious about their decision to move to Stoker’s rejected ending connecting the collapse of castle Dracula with his demise. I love Stoker’s novel but didn’t feel this did it justice, for me at least. 5 out of 10.

In Paperback @ Amazon US

In Paperback @ Amazon UK

Short Film: Gothic Tales of Terror

It seems strange to put an anthology film down as a short but this comes in at just over 37-minutes. It is a series of shorts by Tony Laudati and was released in this format in 2025. We have looked at the short Dracula’s Daughter by Laudati previously and it makes up the first segment of this. The anthology has a sequel to that later as well as a werewolf and a Frankenstein’s monster facing piece. There is also a piece that is made up of stills of three women in cat woman makeup/costumes (as per the film poster with this article) that is worth mentioning as you could read them as cat vampires.

seduction

You can read my write up on Dracula’s Daughter but it was essentially a reimagining of the scene from the Universal feature where a young woman is convinced to pose for cash for the artist who also happens to be a vampire. Dracula’s Daughter 2 sees Lili (now played by Rosa Singerman), the victim in the first part, return to the apartment owned by Countess Marya Zaleska (Ausma Fiame) having picked up a young woman, Chloe (Brooke Gorman), at a club. There is conversation, flirtation and an admission that she and the Countess live together but the Countess is away.

Ausma Fiame as the Countess

The film uses the same focus on bringing a glass of wine and the vampire, for that is all Lili could be, not partaking of it before she gets Chloe to lie on the couch and seduction turns into attack. As she bites the Countess returns early and pulls Lili from her victim, allowing the woman to flee. The Countess does not allow drinking from the living (she has plenty of plasma available) but Lili is quick to point out that she certainly didn’t follow that rule with her. How this is resolved and what happens to Chloe – well you can watch the short to find out – at the time of writing it is available on Fawesome.

The imdb page is here.

The Immortal Hunters – review

Director: Paolo Bertola

Release date: 2020

Contains spoilers

It is a bad sign when I watch a film (incidentally subtitled The Renegade on the Tubi stream but not on IMDb) and have to drag myself kicking and screaming to the keyboard because it is just so poor.

Now, when I say poor, I don’t mean 'so bad its good' poor… not even so bad it isn’t good but at least I can laugh at it… I mean so bad that I was deathly bored whilst watching, bad. So bad that I can’t write a review that, at the very least, is entertaining.

fangs on show

Oh well, so we start with the information that, some time ago the dead started being blamed for bringing disease and there was a move to neutralise them – stakes, bricks in the mouth, cut the corpse up were all used but people were only safe when they were reduced to skeleton state (this is all pretty folkloric to be honest).

the vampire lover

Cut to Romania in 1944 and a battle. The narrator, Vladamir (Ruben Maria Soriquez), is a lone survivor. Injured and doomed he crawls when a woman comes to him and decides he is too young to die and bares fangs… Athens in the present day and he is there with his lover and they serve the King of the vampires, Count Ţepeş. Now, Vlad Ţepeş was not a Count and would not have gone by the sobriquet Ţepeş, but hey, ho… The vampires discover *they* are here (Catholic clerical vampire hunters) and the lover is killed.

a goat based diet

They run off to the Philippines and live in the middle of nowhere – Ţepeş has some form of condition and he must have blood once a week. Some are suspicious of Vladamir as they don’t see him feed (he actually only feeds on goat blood). The clerical hunters show up and one of the nuns (apparently undercover) is the spitting image of Vladamir’s erstwhile vampire lover (though clearly not a reincarnation as she has only just been killed).

hunters

And that’s the story, but I didn’t really care. The thing I noticed the most was the really poor dialogue delivery. The film is in English, but sounds dubbed, though possibly by the original actors as they have Italian accents. But it is just flat throughout. The story didn’t hold me, the characters are instantly forgettable. I’m sorry, I just wasn’t moved in any way – indeed staying awake was a challenge. 1 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

Draculaw – review

Director: Scott Deschaine

Release date: 2023

Contains spoilers

A horror comedy (mostly a comedy, to be fair) this not only tickled me but also used a rather unusual trope for the vampire. Of course the title brings Dracula to mind but there is no indication that the vampire at the centre of the film is Dracula, Referred to throughout as The Counselor (James Donahue) he is a lawyer (whereas Dracula hired lawyers) and it is with this vampire plying that trade that we start.

a vampire's contract

Though we only see hands, we hear the conversation between the Counselor and his client Frederick Rockman (Tom McFarland). Rockman wants to start a lawsuit against a rival and, whilst it sounds as though the vampire is trying to caution him, in fact it is clear he tempts him and has him sign a contract. The lawsuit fails and a series of counter claims are lodged against Rockman, eventually settled, though almost ruining him, there then comes the matter of the vampire’s invoice…

Sarah Dewey as Mary

We meet Mary Rockman (Sarah Dewey) as she takes her father into the nursing home. As she goes in she meets a youngish man, mistaking his room for a media room. He is Arc Gabriel (Joshua Greene) – the owner of the nursing home. Once a crack young lawyer, five years earlier something happened that smashed his confidence and he gave up law and moved into the nursing home. Mary tries to solicit his help, at first to no avail. However, after her father passes, his lost briefcase is discovered and they realise they share the same nemesis, at which point he relents – this renewed confidence shows in the filmmakers removing the makeup that made him look haggard.

James Donahue as the Counselor

Arc lost his briefcase when, celebrating a win with his engineer girlfriend Penny (Bessie Amato), the bridge they were on collapsed (invariably due to the Counselor). Her head was never recovered… Meanwhile the vampire is not only a lawyer but he has a pet politician (Dennis Mowery) and makes him get safety laws passed that are annoying and bog people down (there are a range shown through the film and they all take the concept of health and safety to ridiculous levels). This is done for a reason, it causes people to loose time and the vampire feeds on the lost time. He also cannot break a law (or at least cannot break a law and get caught), which is the apotropaic of the film. We, at the end, see him in a nebulous, smoke form where Arc combats him with the law (in the form of a book).

a vampire in the old country

There are various monsters (many seen in the coda) and Arc gets some lore help from home resident Sasha (Adela-Adriana Moscu, One for the Road) who tells him about vampires in the old country – and we get a flashback of a vampire, who is described as ghastly and far from the movie image of a vampire – and also points out that fellow home resident Mrs Hoover (Gerri Weagraff) is an energy vampire. But it is our lawyer vampire that is most fascinating in this with his diet of time. Of course the conflation of lawyer and vampire is telling in and of itself and the film plays with a satirical look at “health and safety gone mad”.

skull-headed bridal revenant

The film isn’t perfect… the haggard makeup for Arc is, quite frankly, rather stage-like, some of the green screen work is very obviously green screen and it isn’t evenly paced. That said some of the effects are brilliant. A skull-headed bridal revenant (Heather Cole) is brilliantly realised, for instance. There isn’t much horror to this; though the vampire's lower face is always covered (due to a horrendous accident, is the cover story, though likely due to a monstrous visage), he is actually more designed to be annoying. The main thrust is comedy, and I was amused, and enjoyed the unusual lore. 6 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon US

On Demand @ Amazon UK

Use of Tropes: Katharina

I’ll be honest this Anglo/Romanian ghost story, directed by Florian Zapra and released in 2022, was somewhat excruciating. However, it definitely uses some pretty darn obvious tropes – mostly location and character backstory – and is of genre interest as a result. It centres round a load of Romanian kids (I guess they were supposed to be late teens, but some seemed somewhat younger) in Bistrița, and an English exchange student Raul (Raul Szanto). The Romanian kids decide to take Raul into the Carpathians for some camping fun.

arriving at Hotel Castel Dracula

To get there they hire a ride, and several sneak into the hatchback as too many are travelling. The driver (Florian Zapra) is a drunk but gets them to the hotel that marks their starting point. En route they establish that he does not speak English. The hotel is the real life Hotel Castel Dracula, which is some 3.5 KM from the Borgo Pass. In that respect the drive is almost parallel to the journey in Dracula - indeed when at the hotel exterior, the camera lingers on the statue there of Bram Stoker.

with the ghost

This is the nearest Raul gets to vampires, something he had been interested in, but the uncanniness begins here also, with the driver who doesn’t speak English warning Raul in English to beware of the woods (a sensible warning for forest with a large bear and wolf population, to be fair) and Raul realising that the driver has vanished from a group photo he took. This, of course, makes him as mysterious as the Count’s coachman in Dracula. As they start their hike, Raul hears something calling him and wanders off, ending up in an abandoned building – suggested later to be the shell of a hotel. Within there he sees a ghost, Katharina (Ely Ciotmonda).

Ely Ciotmonda as Katharina

The Romanian lads find him and undertake to catch the ghost – to become rich. They eventually find and speak to her and ask her to come with them and essentially assimilate into the modern world and she agrees. There is a makeover later, where her clothes are exchanged for modern ones and makeup disguises her pallor. The other genre connection the film offers occurs when she tells Raul that she is 549 years old, named Katharina (but wants a new name) and was married to Vlad Dracul (which would have been the father but I suspect they were suggesting Vlad Ţepeş). .

the gang

And that’s it, all the vampiric connection. The kids try and assimilate Katharina into their world, she ends up invading their dreams (or nightmares as they die in each dream) and then they essentially scare her off with harsh words. It doesn’t do much, generally, the acting is amateurish, in honesty, but there was at least a nub of an idea and some genre interest.

The imdb page is here.

X-Men: Apocalypse Vs Dracula – review

Author: Frank Tieri

Illustrator: Clayton Henry

First published: 2018 (TPB)

Contains spoilers  

The Blurb: One is a villain that has been plaguing civilization since the time of the Pharaohs. The other is the deadliest vampire to ever walk the earth. Enemies since the Crusades, they've met again in 19th century London. It's the battle to end all battles as Apocalypse confronts Dracula!

The review: An interesting stand-alone story that jumps between timelines but, mostly, is set on the 19th century. This has Dracula – as a mortal Vlad Ţepeş – faced with Apocalypse’s forces during his war with the Ottoman Empire. It then outlines an attempt to take over a secret society descended from Apocalpyse, based at the London mansion Alexandria House, who eventually summon Apocalypse from suspended animation, but the mutant is bitten by Dracula and no-one knows if he can resist the vampire’s dominion – not even Abraham Van Helsing who joins the society’s survivors to help defeat his nemesis.

And this is quite good fun, a little bit of Dracula action in Marvel is always welcome and this time he was mixing it up with an X-Men antagonist. The artwork was good enough throughout. The story was a good bit of a side hustle and did fairly much what it said on the side of the tin, as it were, but didn't do anything too left field. 6 out of 10.

In Paperback @ Amazon US

On Kindle @ Amazon UK