Zoltan, Hound Of Dracula [DVD] [1977] [Region 1] [US Import] [NTSC]

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Editorial reviews

Amazon.co.uk Review
This entry in Hammer's long-running vampire series is certainly a scraping from the bottom of the dog-dish. We begin in Europe where a tomb is discovered which proves to contain the undead corpse of one of Dracula's servants and, er..., his equally undead dog. Revived, the pair set about tracking down their rightful master, the last of the Dracula line. Unfortunately, the latter turns out to be a very ordinary American family man who bears no trace of his vampiric lineage, least of all a desire to drink blood. It then falls to Zoltan (an admittedly well-trained mutt with a coating of silver paint) and his master (played by the splendidly cadaverous Reggie Nalder, who probably looked undead even on his days off) to try and re-infect the bloodline with vampirism, while pursued by a vampire-savvy detective played by the avuncular Jose Ferrer. It turns out that the best chance to do this is on a family camping trip where Zoltan gets to bite a bunch of other dogs, too. Although Stephen King's ICujo/I later proved that you really Ican/I do scary doggie movies, this attempt to extend the vampire franchise is one for completists only. I--Roger Thomas/I

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Customer reviews

review by: s.vernon date: 2007-10-27 rating:
CHEESY VAMPIRE DOG FEATURE
Unearthed in a tomb in Romania, Veidt Smith, (Reggie Nalder) a half-man/half-vampire servant to Count Dracula, and Zoltan, Dracula's dog, are resurrected and find themselves the last remnants of the family. Discovering that the last remaining member is Michael Drake, (Michael Pataki) a surgeon living in California with his wife Marla, (Jan Shutan) and kids Linda, (Libby Chase) and Steve, (John Levin) they travel to America to find them. Uncovering their plans, the Romanian government sends Inspector Branco, (Jose Ferrer) to stop the pair but all three discover the family is out on a vacation in the woods. Catching up with them on their trip, Branco and Michael take on the vampiric family to avoid becoming the next victims in a long list of corpses left in their wake. br / br /The Good News: Of course the real star of the show here would only be the titular Zoltan himself. Fitted out with glowing eyes and ludicrously over-sized fangs, the dog often looks amusingly nonplussed with what is meant to be going on around him. He is certainly one multi-talented dog, however, as he drags heavy looking coffins out of crypts, removes stakes with his teeth and provides several other highly impressive stunts that come off as very well done and give it a certain amount of menace. It's no surprise that the best moments involve the dog. One minor plot point really makes it watchable and saves the film. During the initial dog/Dracula flashback, our title hound snacks on a random puppy. The poor pooch is found and, since his undead status is unclear, he gets buried. As the ground moves and the infant German Shepherd squeals it's way through the background, we get the classic scene from the time-honored monster movie tradition of the creature crawling out of the dirt. Naturally, it's a tiny little bundle of oatmeal-scented love, and it's absolutely hilarious. It adds to the cheesiness of the movie, as does a later scene, after the carnage is completed and all seems right with the world. We are treated to a return of the vampire puppy, and his closing shot a full close-up of jagged teeth, eyes glow with demonic glee and a Hell-spawned snarl, is another certified scene-stealer. It's aces and is quite cheesy. The house-siege scenes do have some quite tense moments, as the ethereal howling from the dogs in the background and their frantic assaults to get in anywhere they can in the house, come as close to horror as this film gets, and the several attacks do build up the tension quite nicely. There is one really excellent blood-letting scene, where a fisherman is savagely mauled by the dogs, and the bloody remains are given quite a nice look after-the-fact. But otherwise, this was just a giant cheese-fest. br / br /The Bad News: This here is quite simple. It all depends on how much the plot points stack up in the cheese stakes. There's quite simply too many to name, from the inherent stupidity of the soldiers early on who discover the corpses, to the reanimated corpses who spend the majority of the time simply staring at others, while the servant gazes at the dog who hypnotically stares at the other dogs in the area. The ludicrous situation that the film comes to, which has the dog army invade a small barricade set-up to stop them, to the events that proceeded them, are just plain cheesy, and there's no getting around them. The amount of cheese that can be absorbed from a film will be about equal to how much you can find wrong with this one, as it's the only factor that really seems off in this one, but it's still a major one. br / br /The Final Verdict: Full of cheese, this would fit right in with the 80s with it's tone and style, and for the right kind of person, this can be a really pleasant guilty pleasure. It's not that terrible, but it's still immensely cheesy film that will not really appeal to those outside of that mind-frame, so take heed with this one. br /

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review by: Middlerabbit date: 2004-09-08 rating:
No shaggy dog story, this...
The first horror film I ever saw, so my pleasure may at least be slightly nostalgic. br br Having said that, I was surprised to find that it's not half bad! A faintly ridiculous plot, but I guess there's only so many Dracula twists you can think of before thinking - "Yes, he had a dog! Jurassic Park!". Probably.p Nicely shot, not too scary, frankly. But an enjoyable tale with good acting, decent sets and plenty of typical horror film stupidity.p Better than it sounds, not too tacky. Maybe a bit, but 95% of Hammer films would kill to be this good. Really.


review by: darkgenius date: 2004-06-27 rating:
Who let the vampire dogs out?
Ah, those Communists; it's all their fault, you know. In Zoltan, Hound of Dracula, the forces of Communism unleash a mean, lean, killing machine in the form of a huge, fanged vampire dog on the good old USA. Sure, the film makes it look like it was accidental, but I have to ask: why was the Red Army going around blowing up holes all over Romania? There can be only one explanation: they were trying to find an ancient vampire tomb so they could bring a vampire back to life and enlist him in their cause. And that comrade who sacrificed his life for the cause? Clearly a ringer. Let's say I'm guarding a newly discovered Dracula family tomb when the earth starts quaking and a coffin slides out of the mausoleum onto the floor? Do I open the coffin? Do I then, seeing a stake projecting from the innards of the shrouded corpse inside, reach right in and pull the stake out just for the heck of it? No. Nobody would do that - unless they were acting under orders (or were just born stupid). What soon emerges from the coffin is a huge black dog (code name: Zoltan) who sates hundreds of years of blood hunger on his benefactor. The vampire canine quickly frees his old buddy, one of Dracula's servants, from another coffin, and the two reunited friends scurry off into the night. The servant is only a partial vampire; the sun doesn't bother him and he has no craving for blood; all he has is a fervent need to serve a master and a really silly expression on his face whenever he supposedly concentrates. Inspector Blanco, played by Jose Ferrer, knows all about the Dracula family, and he knows that the risen servant will go looking for a new master - and there is only one surviving member of the ancestral Dracula bloodline remaining (which is strange when you realize the guy has a son and daughter of his own), a perfectly normal human fellow named Drake living in California. pDrake and his family have just begun a two-week camping vacation - it's not one they will soon forget. The family keeps being bothered by and eventually attacked by great big dogs, losing their own dogs in the process. Dracula's servant's master plan is to use his ever-growing number of vampire dogs to get the family out of the way and then take Drake's blood, thereby turning him into the Dracula heir and master he is seeking. The film completely goes to the dogs by the time Inspector Blanco finally finds Drake to warn him about the whole vampire thing. If you think your neighbor's dog barks loudly in the middle of the night, wait until you hear a constant cacophony of huge dogs whooping it up for a full half hour. This isn't a bad thing, though; I rather liked the way the dogs were used in this film, doing all of the dirty work for the weird undead servant. The ending of the film gets a little bit hokey, and then it gets even a little hokier, but I actually enjoyed this film a great deal.pI must warn fellow animal lovers out there that some dog characters meet with an unhappy fate in this film. Worst of all, a litter of cute little adorable puppies gets dragged into the whole mess. Personally, I don't care what happens to human characters in horror films - the more gruesome the death, the more I like it. But to bring pain and misery to poor little puppy characters is hard for an animal lover like me to watch. pYou know, a number of really talented canine actors and actresses basically carried this movie on their backs; they acted their hearts out, looked more like fanged vampire killers than most humans ever do, and for what? For no credits whatsoever, that's what. Sure, the trainer gets his name listed; even the person who supplied the dogs gets to see his name up in lights; yet not one canine actor was given any credit in the making of this movie. You name the movie after a canine vampire, but you won't even list the dog's real name? Where is the justice in this? This is a good horror movie, and credit should be given where credit is due.

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Similar categories

Video . DVD Blu-ray . Categories . Horror . Vampires
Video . DVD Blu-ray . Special Features . Region 1
Video . DVD Blu-ray . Refinements . Format (binding_browse-bin) . DVD
Video . DVD Blu-ray . Refinements . Editions (feature_two_browse-bin) . Standard Edition
Video . DVD Blu-ray . Refinements . Region(feature_browse-bin) . Region 1
Video . DVD Blu-ray . Refinements . Release Date (feature_three_browse-bin) . 1970 - 1979
Video . DVD Blu-ray . Refinements . Language (theme_browse-bin) . English

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