Not Bad Enough to Be Good
(originally posted on IMDb 20 May 2018)

Despite the ludicrous premise laid out in its title, "Billy the Kid Versus Dracula," of a historical Western gunfighter battling a supernatural, bullet-proof vampire from a Victorian-age Gothic horror novel, the film isn't so bad that it's good, and it's not good enough to be other than bad. The filmmakers seem to have taken it seriously, which is often a recipe for such silly screenplays to become unintentionally funny, but the problem is that the film is competently made, despite its silly story and low budget. Yet, preventing the film from being good is that there's nothing intelligent in it, and its relative competence is due largely to it imitating Universal's Dracula series--the wolf's bane, which Universal substituted for garlic from Bram Stoker's novel, gives it away.

Director William Beaudine had directed films since 1915, including Mary Pickford vehicles in the mid-1920s, so the technical competence of this B-picture should be expected. The plotting is especially decent, creating most of the drama during the Discovery and Confirmation phases of the Complex Discovery Plot--the usual plot employed for horror films, as outlined by cinema scholar Noël Carroll. And, the runtime is thankfully short for a feature. John Carradine starred as Dracula in Universal's "The House of Frankenstein" (1944) and "The House of Dracula" (1945), so, of course, he's perfectly credible in the role once again this time, and he, at least, seems to have tried to camp it up some. Chuck Courtney also looks the part of Billy the Kid, and the rest of the cast is serviceable, as well. Even the vampire's mesmerizing stare, the fake bats and the stop-substitution appearances for Dracula have been done amusingly worse in films before and after this one. The stereotypical Native Americans, the scenes filmed during the day that are supposed to be set at night, and the bland dialogue are too routine.

I did find the scene of Dracula hitching a ride in a horse carriage a bit amusing, as it reminded me of Jonathan Harker's ride to Castle Dracula in Stoker's novel, where fellow passengers warned Harker about the vampire. Instead, the passengers in this film are rightly a bit spooked that they're sharing a carriage with the undead. In addition to the wolf's bane, the film borrows some other parts from other movies. Dracula as an identity thief had been used in "Son of Dracula" (1943) and "The Return of Dracula" (1958). And Dracula being fascinated by an image of a woman is a common trope in Dracula movies which originates from the 1922 "Nosferatu."

(Mirror Note: The doctor confirms Dracula's vampirism by revealing his lack of a reflection in a mirror. The through-the-mirror shot shows Betty, whom Dracula is carrying, to seemingly be floating in mid-air.)

(Included on my list of 60--and counting--Dracula movies.)