Movie Review: the Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires

The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires, Peter Cushing, 1974, 19.97 at Amazon

The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires was a 1974 attempt by Hammer Horror, shortly before its demise, to revive the Dracula franchise, melding English horror with a Chinese kung-fu movie.

First up, Christopher Lee turned it down leaving another actor to portray the thirsty Transylvanian count. If the part resembled what went on film, I can understand Lee's reluctance to take it. He'd been getting unhappier with the role as time went on. He disliked the lines in one of the later Dracula films so much he refused to say them and went a different direction, doing the entire role silent. Harpo Marx with a cape and fangs.

Often derided, The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires as finished product does have points of interest.

The plot involves a Chinese entering Castle Dracula where he asks Dracula (John Forbes- Robinson) to come to China and lead the sleeping 7 Golden Vampires that once dominated the region. Dracula instead assumes the form of the Chinese which enables him to leave the castle and goes to China where he leads the 7 Golden Vampires in their evil quest as they frequently swoop down on the local village to kidnap a six-pack of half a dozen villagers' daughters for their blood.

Lecturing in a Chinese city, Professor Van Helsing (Peter Cushing) is contacted by a young Chinese, Hsi Ching (David Chiang) who asks Van Helsing to accompany him and his brothers and sister, Mai Kwei, to the village where the vampires dwell. With Van Helsing's son (Robin Stewart) and a young adventurous widow, Mrs. Vanessa Beren (Julie Ege), who funds the expedition, they confront the vampires and destroy them, leading in turn to a quick but final confrontation between Van Helsing and Dracula.

Cushing and friends provide the vampire-hunting, the brothers and sister provide the kung-fu action.

No matter how bad a movie turns out, I like to remember that some people believed in this. There was a serious attempt with invariably limited funds to create an entertaining and profitable movie. How many times have I heard critics slam movies for not using certain special effects or settings when it was clear there was simply no budget? In that light, it's interesting to see what was done here.

The movie is entertaining, offers an interesting treatment, and does posess a few good bits that stand out.

The kung-fu elements worked pretty well in the script. The Golden Vampires themselves are a problem: a big golden, bat-shaped medallion suspended from the neck by a chain needs merely to be ripped off to turn them to dust. This appears to be more difficult than it would seem because they stay alive for a lot longer than I would give them credit for. They are, of course, vulnerable to the other usual methods of vampire dispatch.

I liked the army of zombies summoned by a gong from the vampire's derelict Chinese temple. In the area around the temple, the zombies crawl from their graves and head for the village, with a hopping sort of gait, shot in slow-motion. Sounds goofy, may look goofy to some, but at least it's a bit different. And it's a better device than the bubble machine whenever the ape-suited RoboMonster made his appearances in his opus.

The story itself isn't too bad either. If you care for martial arts, there's plenty of that. Peter Cushing, despite his age, puts up a heckuva fight in his combat scenes. As when Bela Lugosi appeared in otherwise forgettable movies, Cushing contributed immesurably to the movie by his mere presence. Had Cushing been absent, the movie would've been a total loss.

Released under a number of different titles that are variations on the one I've used.

A similar Frankenstein movie that was proposed was not filmed. Probably just as well. It barely worked here, and my apparently generous opinion on that seems to be a minority viewpoint.