R.I.P. David Hess

The gang won't be the same without you, Boss.

September 19, 1942-October 7, 2011

"Dracula's Dog"(1978)d/Albert Band

It was painfully apparent that, by the end of the seventies, Hollywood cinema, or at least a squeaky toy-sized portion of it, had gone to the dogs.Mainstream marquees had seen fare like The Doberman Gang(1972), Sounder(1972), Benji(1974), A Boy and His Dog(1975), The Amazing Dobermans(1976), The Shaggy D.A.(1976), For the Love of Benji(1977), and even C.H.O.M.P.S.(1979), ferchrissakes.Vampires, on the other hand, were also big business throughout the 'me' decade, but it took the father of the guy responsible for genre flicks like Parasite(1982), Meridian(1990), and a host of even worse movies to really try to blend the two(that's right, dogs and vampires...and vampire dogs) into one headscratchingly incoherent b-gem for the ages.All that's really missing here is one of the Landers sisters in a lycra bodysuit and a van with a bubble window and inflatable air mattress in the back.As it stands, tonight's entry, known also by the ludicrous alternate title, Zoltan:Hound of Dracula, does have 70's film journeyman Michael Pataki, Reggie "Salem's Lot" Nalder, Jose Ferrer, and even Arlene Martel, who upper rung sci-fi geeks will instantly recognize as Spock's squeeze, T'pring, from the original 'Amok Time' episode of Star Trek.Don't point any accusatory digits at me, you motherfuckers, she looked familiar and I just Googled it.It's also got domestic fanged animals fitted with bigger prop fangs and spraypainted a foreboding grey color in an early turn by none other than FX wizard Stan Winston.Hey, they can't all be Terminator 2:Judgment Day(1991), right?

Here's one mailman who won't have to worry about his low blood sugar ever again...
As a road crew of Russian soldiers blast the Romanian countryside with dynamite, they unwittingly excavate the previously hidden Dracula family ossuary.One of the guard duty Russkies tugs a stake out of a shrouded corpse inside, only to get neckbitten by a grey Doberman with gag fangs that bounds out of the coffin.The undead pooch then unstakes his master, Veidt Smit(Reggie Nalder), a prune-faced innkeeper who's half vampire and all ugly.A flashback from centuries past shows how Zoltan(yes, the dog's name is Zoltan) foils Count (Igor) Dracula-in-bat form just as he's about to sup upon a young maiden's red stuff, and the vampire latches itself to the dog, transforming it into a vampire, which bites its master, turning him into a vampire.Oh, you get the idea.Rather than unstaking any one of the plethora of Draculas entombed besides them, Smit and his dog choose instead to hunt down the last living descendant of the Count himself.Smit uses telepathy to communicate to his pet, and after hearing his thick German accent shouting "Zoltan!" repeatedly into an echoed-up mic on a soundstage over close ups of his hideous facepiece, well, it's unsexy, to say the least.Branco(Jose Ferrer), the resident inspector/Dracula historian, surmises that one of the empty coffins discovered by the Soviets must have contained Smit, and that he and whoever(whatever) occupied the second casket must be seeking out Michael Dracula(!)(Michael Pataki), who has long since relocated to America, to transform him into a vampire, to serve over an eternity of evenings, unaware that Smit is within earshot behind a nearby tree(!!), and has heard everything he just said, including the guy's last known address.Nice one, jackass.

Veidt Smit(Reggie Nalder) has a grillpiece like a dog dish fulla stale Chuck Wagon.
Meanwhile, Mike Drake, the last living Dracula(apparently his kids don't count for some reason), readies his family for a relaxing camping vacation in their Winnebago, incognizant of his heritage and that Smit and his crated up, otherworldly Doberman have stowed away on a ship to American shores.He even goes through a trunk of old family pictures and stumbles across photos of Dracula himself standing next to the dog(that he casts no reflection apparently didn't stop the Prince of Darkness from taking his pooch to The Picture People for professional shots, it would seem), but thinks nothing of it(!!!).The Drakes make it to the national forest, with their two German Shepards(and one puppy... small litter, huh) in tow, but Smit and Zoltan aren't far behind, in a discreetly understated black hearse that they pick up along the way.Uh, yeah.Pretty soon, other campers and fishermen and their dogs are getting neckbitten by Zoltan with increasing frequency; the dogs reanimating into the Pinscher's undead minions, as evidenced by their own grey spray paint and oversized joke fangs.Zoltan even sucks the Drake's tiny puppy dry, and when the saddened family buries the lifeless pup, it's soon adorably clawing its way out of the grave to exist as a pint-sized vampire itself.Branco arrives on the scene just as the Drakes are about to blow the clambake, and after five minutes of garbled exposition("You're the last remaining Dracula, there's a vampire dog after you, come with me if you want to live, etc. etc.") that Michael readily buys into, both men find themselves defending a tiny shack from a pack of attacking vampire dogs.When the smoke clears, Zoltan finds himself impaled on a metal fence, his master staked through the heart, and his minions also dispatched accordingly.The camera follows a trail of small, dead animals to the aforementioned vam-puppy, still prowling with his eyes glowing and fangs bared.Awwwwwww, that's precious.

"Zoltan! Get offa that roof! Bad vampire dog! BAD vampire dog!"
French-born Italian Albert Band directed Richard Boone in 1958's I Bury the Living, before helping his son Charles start Empire Pictures in the eighties, helming dogshit like Ghoulies II(1988), Doctor Mordrid(1992), and Prehysteria!(1993) himself, while producing cinematic deuces like Troll(1986), Terrorvision(1986), and Mansion of the Doomed(1976), which just happens to be directed by Michael Pataki, who appeared in genre fare like The Return of Count Yorga(1971), The Baby(1973), Graduation Day(1981), and Dead and Buried(1981), when he wasn't putting the Mallachi Crunch on Fonzie.The burn-yapped Nalder appeared in 1970's Mark of the Devil as well as The Bird with the Crystal Plumage(1970) and 1975 tele-pic The Dead Don't Die before snagging the familiar Barlowe role in Salem's Lot.Ferrer was no stranger to genre pics himself, scoring roles in The Being(1982), Bloodtide(1982), Bloody Birthday(1981), The Swarm(1978), The Sentinel(1976), and even Jackie Chan's Battlecreek Brawl(1980).Winston followed his work up here with The Wiz(1978), The Exterminator(1980), and Oliver Stone's The Hand(1981).On the scale, Dracula's Dog gets its snout rubbed in a single Wop, having been a very bad dog, indeed.

"I can haz yr jugular veins?"

"Aftermath"(1994)d/Nacho Cerdà

Leaving the music for zeros here during an all-horror Wop-tober, tonight we look for some answers to the eternal question, "When I finally pass over into eternity, what are the chances that a particularly horny morgue attendant will put the blocks to my eviscerated cadaver one night on the slab and bring my organs home to feed his dog afterwards?" Okay, maybe you aren't all that concerned with such a question, but Nacho Cerdà, Spanish genre director extraordinaire, obviously took just such a scenario to heart back in 1994 when he churned out this gruelling thirty minute exercise in ultra-realistic splatter and necrophilia, resulting in a controversial work of beautifully twisted art that's still whispered about to this very day.Opting to avoid dialogue altogether and complimenting his camera movement with pulchritudinous strains of Mozart's Lacrimosa, Cerdà serves up some unforgettably disgusting visuals with a vein of humor blacker than a shrimp's waste-packed colon.Unapologetically gross and wrong on nearly every level there could possibly be, Aftermath, lovingly released with Nacho's other two shorts(1990's Awakening and 1998's Genesis) in a comprehensive dvd package by the sick fucks over at Unearthed Films, is not mainstream horror that you might screen with the family on movie night.Hell, it's not even a Buttgereit-esque fetishistic take on the unsettling subject matter herein.Be forewarned:This is some of the nastiest shit you'll ever regret subjecting yourself to, if a trendy, milquetoast horror-Mary you be.If you're deranged, degenerate, and deviant, then you'll probably find yourself rewinding the hurl-worthy parts over and over in delight.While friends and lovers mourn your...silly grave, I have other uses for you, darling...

The brains of this outfit just found their way onto an autopsy scale.
After some gravelly Spanish voiceover and titles concerning death, the afterlife, tunnels, ghosts, Hell, and forgotten images(like my Detroit Lions undefeated and in first place, it's been a minute or two...), the sounds of a car accident jumpstart tonight's feature.The camera pans lovingly over the scene of a dead dog with entrails strewn and eyeballs a' poppin', followed by some establishing morgue imagery.An orderly in headphones gurneys a corpse through the halls to the morgue.Grieving loved ones are given a silver cross necklace as a parting memento.A male corpse with a bloody grill and nearly severed foot, hanging by a sinew, is stripped down to the nitty gritty.His dome is peeled back and skull is bonesawed while a second attendant(Pep Tosar) jabs a syringe into the eye of another male corpse that somewhat resembles Uncle Bob Martin during the Fangoria heyday.Señor Walkman peeks in to see the two men in the midst of their gruesome handiwork as the first corpse's skull is loudly cracked open with what looks like hedge trimmers and his brain is extricated.As the second attendant strips his cadaver down to the naked, he watches the first slit open his subject's torso with a scalpel and is visibly aroused by it(!).A disembodied heart is washed off in the sink and plopped into a plastic organ jar.While the second worker lets his bonesaw rip, the first haphazardly stuffs loose organs back into his corpse's chest cavity and squishily sews him back together, hosing down the bloodied body, zipping up the body bag, and throwing his report on top before wheeling it off.Meanwhile, number two is much more thorough and inclusive about his duties...

A little knifeplay can add excitement to your sex life.Just sayin'.
Enter Marta Arnau Marti, a young woman recently killed in a car accident while wearing a hot pink miniskirt and bra(she must have been on her way to my place).The second attendant caresses her lifeless face as he flops her onto his autopsy table.Breathing heavily, he scans the halls to make sure everyone else has gone home for the evening before cutting her clothes off with large scissors(note:she could have trimmed the lawn a bit before her fateful final trip...just sayin'.).He weighs her brain on a digital scale before repeatedly running a large knife down the length of her frame.He gruntingly slams the blade into her deceased vagina(!!), splitting her torso open, as blood flows into the drain.He rubs his gloved fingers together to feel the texture of her fluids and organs on display in her open cavity between them as he slips one hand into his slacks for an impromptu tug o' the skin, as a climax brings him to his knees.Excitedly, he takes pictures of the gore-splattered remains with his 35 mm camera, before setting the timer and propping it up on a countertop, as he drops his drawers and sexually mounts the dead body on the slab with the aid of a few fingertips full of patroleum jelly(!!!).He grunts and groans as he pumps his sex into the unresponsive corpse, with the flash snapping away in the background.After giving the dead woman the best two and a half minutes of her afterlife, we hear the film rewinding inside his camera over his orgiastic sighs.Well into a nearby bottle of hooch, he stuffs a heart into a small baggie while tidying up the cumbersome organs that splatted on the floor while he was giving the cadaver the high hard one.A personalized body bag envelops the violated body as he washes off instruments in the sink.At his pad, he grinds the heart into scarlet mush in his blender and serves it up in a silver doggie bowl to his hungry rottweiler over some newspaper on the floor that ironically contains the obituary of one Marta Arnau Marti.

"Just let me know if I'm hurting you, baby...via Ouija Board."
I'm not a big necrophila advocate, myself, maybe I've just slept with too many broads who may as well have been dead between the sheets the way it was.I dunno.This is clearly not one for the mainstream horror crowds, and it may just be too artistically handled for the back alley hardcore gorenography nuts out there.One cannot argue the mastery and flair that Cerdà wields in tackling such an awful subject and sculpting it into something palatable and rich in black humor.Plus it stars a guy named fucking Pep, ferchrissakes.You'll have to judge for yourselves if you're up to the task of seeing it all transpire for yourselves or not.On the scale, a perfectly nasty four wops for Ignacio.

Home is where her heart was.In the doggie bowl, if you fancy specificity.