Dracula (The Dirty Old Man) (1969)

Best bad quote: "It was a day just like any other day......... which doesn't say much."

I've never really been afraid of vampires. Out of all the movie monsters, death by vampire always seemed the best way to go. Sure, some vampires have been written as monsters, but, I find that more often than not, vampires are portrayed as sympathetic, almost human creatures who, unfortunately, have to drink blood to survive. Or, they are portrayed as so mysterious and sexy that death by vampire might as well be called la petite mort. Vampires, and especially Dracula, are not often portrayed as lecherously lovable goofs with thickly stereotypical Jewish accents. So, let's hand it to Dracula (The Dirty Old Man) for being the first.

This movie is a joke. I don't mean that like "Oh, this movie is so bad it has to be a joke!" I mean, literally, this movie is a joke. All of the dialogue is dubbed, and has been so in a way that seems as if the narrators are lampooning the film. A lot of the time it sounds as if their lines are being improved. And, most of the time, the narrators speak even when the mouths of the actors are not moving in order to wrench in something funny. The movie seems to originally have had very little dialogue, but with the dubbing it now features lots of funny internal soliloquies that almost make it seem as if the narrators are riffing the movie Mystery Science Theater 3000 style. 

The nonsensical, outrageously redundant opening narration is a good gauge as to the strange hilarity Dracula (The Dirty Old Man) has to offer you during its 69 minute runtime. Newspaper reporter Mike is sent to meet a Mr. Alucard, (that's Dracula spelled backwards, as the movie helpfully points out several times, even going as far as to put "Alucard (Dracula spelled backwards)" in the opening credits) who lives out in the middle of nowhere. But, for Mike, "death lurked behind those beautiful hills, behind the beautiful hills, behind the beautiful hills." Well, not death, really. More like a dopey Dracula who decides that Mike should become his half-bear, half-rat, all-furry rubber masked henchman, whom he dubs Jackalman. Irving Jackalman. At night, Mike changes to Jackalman and then must capture sexy girls for Dracula to teleport to his mine shaft lair. There Dracula ties them up, strips them, rubs his weird face all over their bodies and then bites them on the breast, all the while saying the most ridiculous things.

 

The film isn't all fun and camp, however. There's a rather brutal rape scene where Jackalman finally gets to have a girl of his own. The narrators try to make the scene funny by riffing on what's happening on screen, but it just serves to make the scene more disturbing, even if it does manage to twist a couple of laughs out you due to the ridiculousness of the dialogue. There is an even more ridiculous rape scene later, where a randomly masturbating woman cuts to having Jackalman going down on her. And, despite having her eyes open and looking down at Jackalman's nappy mask it takes her quite a while to realize that the wolf creature is not, in fact, her doughy boyfriend.

Mike, as Jackalman, ends up capturing his own girlfriend to give to Dracula, but then decides that he wants her. Stripped naked, she sort of tries to escape as they fight. She giggles a lot and takes a rest after only jogging a little way and is thus promptly captured. Dracula is defeated via his own stupidity as it turns out his lair is right at the mouth of the cave. He decides to take a step outside during he and Jackalman's fight and is then turned to dust. Jackalman is turned back into Mike and then he and his girlfriend decide to screw right then and there in a painfully long, very softcore scene on Dracula's dirty makeshift bed.

The moving picture part of this movie isn't the main attraction. It's the dubbing that makes Dracula (The Dirty Old Man) worth watching. It's almost like you are watching a commentary track for a silent film where the actors decide to make fun of the shitty movie they were in. I haven't been able to find any information on the original script, but I know that the reason it was dubbed was because there were serious sound issues. I find it highly unlikely the finished product that I watched, with its goofy accents and ridiculous lines, was what the filmmakers originally intended. But, without the ridiculous dubbing, this movie would have just been another boring, sleazy exploitation film for kids at drive-in theaters to not watch while making out in their cars. But, with it, Dracula (The Dirty Old Man) turns into a strange joke of a film that, surprisingly, works. 

You can go to Something Weird Video to check out this movie.

Rating: 5 out of 5 Rape Faced Jackalmans