When I was a kid, the New York City area featured the WNEW Channel 5 Drive-In Movie. Every Saturday afternoon, you could tune in to such great fare as Horror of Frankenstein, Satan’s Cheerleaders, and The Five Deadly Venoms. There were also some not-so-great films. I recall one advertisement for Dracula’s Dog, which, even as a young boy, sounded terrible. I didn’t bother to tune in that week. However, the title remained with me until the year 2026 when, while looking for another movie I’d never watched for this year’s marathon, I came across Zoltan, Hound of Dracula. There couldn’t possibly be TWO Dracula’s dog movies and a little sleuthing around IMDB confirmed that Dracula’s Dog and Zoltan, Hound of Dracula are indeed the same film (based on the novel The Hounds of Dracula.) It looks like it was time to reconnect with my childhood and see if I had missed an overlooked gem some four decades ago.
Zoltan, Hound of Dracula opens with the Soviet Army dynamiting its way through Romania when they come across “a Dracula tomb.” A soldier is left behind to guard it overnight, but an earthquake causes one of the coffins to slide from its niche. Investigating, the soldier finds a shroud-wrapped corpse inside—with a stake through its heart. Having clearly never seen a vampire film in Soviet Russia, the soldier removes the stake and unleashes (heheh) Zoltan, Hound of Dracula! Once freed, Zoltan and his handler travel to California in search of the last of the Draculas so they can serve their new master. Hot on their trail is a Soviet inspector (played by Jose Ferrer). Can he reach Dracula’s descendant before Zoltan does?
But you’re not interested in all that. I know what you’re really thinking. It’s “Does Zoltan, Dracula’s dog, have oversized canine teeth like a vampire? I mean, more oversized than dogs usually do?” My friends, I’m happy to report the answer is “yes.” And, unlike his two-legged owner, Zoltan doesn’t go around biting people and turning them into vampires. He bites dogs, making more vampire dogs!
Look, we all know there’s no way this was going to be anything but a B-movie for the drive-in crowd. Up until halfway through it, I was still debating with myself whether this was a TV movie or not. It is perhaps one of the goofiest entries in the vampire film catalog, making that really the only reason to sit down and watch it. There is plenty of animal violence, some done by animals and some done to animals, so sensitive viewers might want to skip this one for reasons above and beyond mere quality. I’m just hoping Jose Ferrer was able to buy himself something nice with the paycheck he picked up on this one.
Rating: The Tomb from earlier this month is still worse than Zoltan, Hound of Dracula, meaning that this dog of a film can “sit, stay, and roll-over” on a comfortable score of 2 skulls out of 5.
