I Bury the Living

Year:  1958

Director:  Albert Band

Screenplay:  Louis A. Garfinkle

Starring:  Richard Boone, Theodore Bikel, Peggy Maurer

Running Time:  76 minutes

Genre:  Horror

Businessman Robert Kraft (Boone) finds himself appointed as head of a commission that oversees a large cemetery.  The cemetery caretaker, Andy MacKee (Bikel), uses a huge wall map of the cemetery, the plots which have been bought, but are unoccupied, are marked with a white pin, and the plots that are occupied are marked with a black pin.  When Kraft absent-mindedly places black pins instead of white to mark a newly purchased plot, the owners die suddenly and mysteriously.  Soon Kraft becomes convinced that he can kill people by sticking black pins in their cemetery plots.

I Bury the Living is very much a low budget B-movie, filmed on an obviously minuscule budget, with few sets and less special effects.  Richard Boone looks convincingly fraught as the film goes on, and Theodore Bikel almost manages to get past one of the worst attempts at a Scottish accent in film as the amiable old caretaker.  The film does have some stylish noir photography, and effective music by Gerald Fried, who had already done the music for Stanley Kubrick's early films and would go on to compose the scores for numerous TV shows, including the famous "fight music" from the Star Trek episode "Amok Time".  Director Albert Band also does well with making a large plan with pins stuck in it look threatening and sinister.  In fact this is a really neat little psychological thriller, for about the first hour, and then it all falls apart with a dreadful climax, that feels like something out of Scooby-Doo.  It almost ruins the film, but the preceding hour is good enough to still make it worth watching.  

    Theodore Bikel and Richard Boone in I Bury the Living

Zoltan... Hound of Dracula

 Year of Release:  1977

Director:  Albert Band

Screenplay:  Frank Ray Perilli

Starring:  José Ferrer, Michael Pataki, Arlene Martel, Reggie Nalder, Jan Shutan

Running Time:  90 minutes

Genre:  Horror

The Romanian army accidentally blast open the sealed tomb of the Dracula family, inadvertently reanimating Count Dracula's pet Doberman Pinscher, Zoltan, and the Count's half-human servant Smit (Nalder).  Smit and Zoltan immediately set out to find Dracula's last remaining descendent, Michael Drake (Pataki), a psychiatrist who lives with his family in California.  

When you start dealing with Dracula's pets, it's fair to say that probably the last drop has been wrung from everyone's favourite bloodsucker.  This low-budget production has become something of a cult film and it is daft and original enough to provide some campy fun.  There is some fun to be had as Zoltan chomps his way through various campers and recruits a succession of furry fiends (including an adorable little vampire puppy).  José Ferrer is good value as the fearless vampire hunter determined to stop the malevolent mutt, Michael Pataki spends most of the film looking confused as Zoltan's target, and the distinctive Reggie Nalder is effective as Dracula's henchman/dog handler, even if he doesn't really have anything to do except look menacing.  The problem is that Zoltan himself just isn't scary, and it feels as if the film was running short and so they padded it out with endless shots of dogs standing around with glowing eyes and growling.  This is the kind of film that is best viewed after a few drinks, with a pizza and a few friends late at night.  If you are in the right frame of mind you can have fun with it, but it's fair to say that you're life won't be much the poorer without Zoltan... Hound of Dracula.

Who's a good boy?  Zoltan... Hound of Dracula