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Captain Kronos Vampire Hunter (1974)

Kronos


Cast:

Horst Janson is Captain Kronos
John Cater is Professor Hieronmeyer Grost
Shane "From Frankenstein and the Monster From Hell" Briant is Paul Durward
Caroline "Far more logical the David Hassellhoff's Star Crash" Munroe is Carla the oh so hot chick...
John Carson is Doctor Marcus
Lois Daine is Sara Durward


What the box says:

In a small village in the remote English countryside, several young maidens have been found dead - their beautiful faces horibly aged almost beyond recognition. Suspecting a supernatural evil at work, the local doctor calls on Army friend and famed vampire hunter Captain Kronos, an expert swordsman formerly of the King's Imperial Guard. Aided by his expert assistant Professor Grost, the two quickly confirm the gruesome murders are teh work of a unique type of vampire, one who drains its victims not of blood, but of their youth! After forging a lethal new sword from an old graveyard cross, the vampire hunters set out to put an end to Evil's reign of terror in this Hammer Films horror classic.


Plot:

The blonde strumpet is brushing her hair. Never need her name, and victim just sounds too formal. Her brunette friend, Anne, goes off for a few minutes. Strumpet is surprised by someone in black robe, I dub thee Ring Wraith. Ring Wraith grabs her and leaves. Strumpet has a small trickle of blood running from her lip.


When Ring Wraiths get lucky.

Neighbor guy spots Anne who is standing petrified. He checks on the strumpet who is now old. Really old, 200 years old range. And the credits begin to roll.

Captain Kronos is riding his horse in front of a wagon driven by a hunchbacked man, Grost. The wagon has numerous garlic wreathes on it. They ride through the scenic countryside. They pass the uber-hot Carla who is in a stockade. Kronos sets her free Carla hitches a ride on the wagon.

Elsewhere, a peasant family is gathered for Isabelle’s birthday party. She is given one of her late mother’s bracelets. She rushes off to show it to a friend who lives nearby. Ring Wraith is nearby. Isabelle stops to pick some flowers and is being followed. She screams. Isabelle has a small trickle of blood running from her mouth and a vacant look on her face and collapses.

Kronos and Grost make camp. Grost introduces himself to Carla. Kronos is sitting off by himself smoking. Carla hears the real work begins in the morning. Everyone gets some sleep.

Isabelle father is waiting for her to return. She staggers into the house dieing of old age.

Next day, Grost, Kronos, and Karla ride on through a cemetery. They arrive at a fairly large house. Local woodcutter is suspicious of them. Kronos asks for Dr. Marcus. It turns out that they’re old friends.

Marcus wrote Kronos about girls that are rapidly aging. Grost claims it is the work of a vampire. Marcus is skeptical of Grost’s explanation. The girls were drained of youth not blood. Grost claims there are many types of vampires. The girls wore crosses, that didn’t protect them. Grost thinks the girls were mesmerized, hypnotized at the moment of attack.

Isabelle is buried. Her sister stops at the church to pray. We see the shadow of the cross sway, like arms. She screams. Exit some more of Isabelle’s family…

Carla is pumping water for Kronos. That won’t be all that’s pumped before the end of this movie. Carla will stay if Kronos wants her. Guess what? He does, and the sly sexual references fly…. They hear the church bell ring, Kronos leaps into action. Grost finally gets around to mentioning being professional vampire hunters to Carla. I’d think any vampire hunter would automatically be a professional. Well, a professional is paid. So, who pays for Kronos and Grost? In the church, the withered hag is found.

A carriage stops at the cemetery. Fey blonde guy, Paul Durward stops to pay respects to his father who died 7 years ago. We also learn Paul’s father was the greatest swordsman around. Marcus tries talking to Paul. Lady Durward blames Marcus for the death of her husband, she ignores him. Marcus wants to examine her, thinking she’s terribly sick. Paul gets in the carriage and rides off…

Grost is burying things in the woods. Dead frogs in boxes are being buried throughout the woods. Carla is helping. The locations of the dead toads are marked.

Kronos is smoking a special cigarette. He checks the balance of his sword. Marcus walks in. Kronos tells Marcus about the special Chinese “herb” he’s smoking. Kronos is preparing, for soon will act…

Marcus and Grost play a game of chess. Well, Carla has decided it is time to have her swashes buckled by Captain Kronos. He’s partaking of the Chinese “herb” but readily quits when he realizes Carla wants some sweet lovin’. Vampire-Hunter lovin’ ensues.

Afterwards, they talk basking in the afterglow.

A couple goes at in the woods. Myra thinks she saw someone. Well, the guy doesn’t care. She heads home. He watches her collapse. Guy cradles her withered hag body…

Grost wakes Kronos, tells him an attack has a witness. Priest prays over Myra. Grost and Marcus talk with guy. Kronos and Marcus look for a toad box to uncover. We learn vampires reanimate dead toads. Kronos finds a box with a live toad. Kronos finds a wagon trail. The vampire attacks young girls to regain youth. Kronos, Grost, and Marcus follow the trail to its end. Kronos and Grost head for the nearby village. Marcus stays behind.

Marcus heads off to the nearby Durward castle.

At the local tavern, Kronos has put out a bounty for anyone who has seen the carriage. Kerro and his 2 goons come from upstairs followed by a blonde trollop. Kerro is the local swordsman and all round local prick. Everyone watches in silence as Kerro throws the trollops coin in the spittoon. Red Beard doesn’t think it is funny. Kerro orders him to laugh. Red Beard refuses until Kerro draws his sword. Red Beard laughs ad then runs out.

Some pale guy has a job for Kerro.

Marcus enters the Durward castle and meets Paul. He claims to be on a friendly visit. Paul is acting distant. Sara, his egg-shaped red-headed sister that vaguely looks like Carol Burnette, makes her first appearance. Marcus leaves. The bell rings and Paul checks on his Lady Durward. He knows that Marcus wasn’t stopping for a neighborly visit.

Kronos and Grost enter the tavern. Kerro and his men watch them and start trying to insult Kronos. He doesn’t fall for their bait. Kerro starts insulting Grost. Well, Kronos takes umbrage at this. Kerro draws his sword. Kronos is faster and with one stroke kills Kerro and his 2 goons. Kronos questions the tavern keeper, who hasn’t seen anything.

Marcus heads back. We see the Ring Wraith and hear ominous music. Marcus rides out of the woods unscathed…

Grost is angry at being mocked. Carla and Kronos try to lift his spirits. Kronos reveals those men in the tavern were hired to provoke a fight and kill them. Marcus returns. The hunt begins in earnest tonight.

Grost is sitting in a tree, a series of bells are tied to a ribbon. The bell rings and, Kronos leaps into action. A red-haired peasant girl is attacked by an actual bat, spilling her basket of eggs. The bat clings to her face. By the time Kronos gets to the girl, she’s dead.


Not what inspired Barbara Gordon to become Bat Girl....

Sara enters the Durward family castle wearing a black cloak. Paul is waiting for her. Sara can’t check on Mother who is so old, etc…Sara is afraid of aging. Paul tells her she won’t end up like Mother. This has a creepy family undertone to it.

Marcus is looking worried. Carla is basking in the afterglow of another romp with Kronos who buckled her swashes. She asks him how he became a vampire hunter. When Kronos went to war, he left behind his mother and little sister. Returning they were vampires. He had to stake and kill them…

Marcus is shaving with a straight razor. In the mirror, he realizes he’s lost his grey hair. He looks for Kronos. Marcus has fangs now. Kronos knocks him unconscious and ties him up. Kronos wants to cure him. Marcus thinks he killed the peasant girls and pleads to be killed. Grost realizes killing Marcus will give additional data on how to fight vampires. Grost grabs a stake and, Kronos hammers it through his heart. Marcus screams in pain, not dead. They throw a rope over the rafter and try to hang him, still no effect. Grost grabs a torch. Marcus begins aging and dies. It wasn’t the flame. They realize Marcus’s cross was steel. Steel is how to kill these vampires. The woodcutter watches them.

Woodcutter rallies the village against Kronos. Marcus was brutally killed by Kronos. He must be avenged. A flock of torch-wielding villagers rush off to lynch Kronos and Grost.

Kronos and Grost take a large rusting cross from the cemetery. The mob arrives and is readily defeated by Kronos. Our heroes head back to Marcus’s house.

The work begins. Grost begins removing the rust and forging the cross. Kronos wearing a handkerchief over his face begins meditating. Grost cools the forged sword and hands it to Kronos.

Another sister of Isabelle is warming some milk for her and her brother Barton. They are scared after the death of Isabelle. Ring Wraith strikes again. In the woods, Kronos finds the dismembered body of Isabelle’s father. Kronos sees a wagon ride off. Kronos finds the cabin with the aged girl died.

Grost is waiting sees the wagon pass him.

The next day, Sara is at the cemetery visiting her father’s grave. Kronos walks up to her and talk for a few minutes. Paul walks up. I’m getting this sword fight will ensue between Kronos and Paul. Sara and Paul leave. Kronos thinks Sara is the vampire. But, they’ll find out soon enough.

Kronos prepares for battle, cross around his neck, garlic. Carla will be the bait. Grost hands the sword to Kronos. Now, they are ready.

Paul visits his sickly mummified looking mother. The door bell is rung. Kronos has knocked put the groundskeeper. Carla faints and is carried in by Paul. Kronos and Grost move in closer to the outside of the castle. Paul revives Carla who tells how her father arranged a marriage for her so she ran away. She asks to stay the night. Sara locks the front door. Paul and Sara retire for the evening.

Carla hunkers down on the couch she’s sleeping on, waiting. Kronos uses a grappling hook to scale the wall and enter from the second floor. Carla is slowly getting creeped out. Something is prowling through the house. A shadow comes down stairs. A woman in a blue dress approaches Carla who is mesmerized by her. Blonde vampire woman is about to attack when Sara screams. Kronos breaks into Lady Durward’s room, finding an old woman mask.

Paul and Sara watch their mother. She’s young and hot. It turns out her family had many dark secrets. It took her 7 years to get this far. She’s going to bring the gift of youth to her husband. He didn’t die of the plague 7 years earlier.

Kronos waits in the shadows. The Ring Wraith appears and is revealed to be Lord Durward. Paul and Sara are suitably disturbed by these turn of events. Lady Durward mesmerizes her children to erase their memories of what has just been revealed. Lord Durward approaches Carla who is his meal to revitalize him. Lord Durward has half of his face hideously disfigured.

Kronos decides now is the time to act. He knocks the Ring Wraith away. Lady Durward tries using her mesmerism on Kronos. He quickly covers his eyes with his sword that has a small mirror plate on the blade. This mesmerizes Lady Durward, instead of him. Grost manages to climb the rope and enter Lady Durward’s room.

Kronos versus the Ring Wraith, Lord Durward. Old school sword fight, without kung fu, ensues. Lady Durward, Carla, Sara, and Paul are all standing around like mannequins. Ring Wraith seems to be afraid, has been cut. He manages to knock away Kronos’ sword. It takes Kronos awhile dodging Ring Wraith’s blade before getting a sword.

Kronos runs the blade through Ring Wraith, but very much still undead. It wasn’t the steel blade. Grost throws the steel blade to Kronos who runs Lord Durward through right and proper. Lord Durward ages and dies. Somehow, Lady Durward revives, tries rushing Kronos who stabs her.

The blood spills on Sara awakens her. Carla and Paul revive, too. Lady Durward ages to dust. Kronos drops his sword and walks away. Grost and Carla follow him out of the castle. Paul and Sara are in shock over the corpses of their parents.


The ending to Killer Meteors 2: the Quickening...

Kronos prepares to leave. Carla is staying at Marcus’s house. Kronos has evil to fight wherever it may be. Kronos and Grost ride off….


What I say:

Hammer Studios, the studio that revitalized horror movies in the late 50s and early 60s with Dracula, Frankenstein, the Mummy, and others, too. The late 60s and early 70s, Hammer fell on hard times. They were trying to come up with something that would save the studio.

Brian Clement, director of numerous episodes of the Avengers had written a script about a swashbuckling vampire hunter set sometime in the past. It was intended to have sequels which would help Hammer recover. It was intended for Kronos to hunt vampires throughout the ages. Unfortunately, it didn’t work like it was intended. Hammer wasn't able to release this movie until 2 years after it was made and went out of business right after this movie was released.

This is definitely one of the most original vampire movies of the mid 1970s. By this time, we had the Bela Lugosi and Christopher Lee versions of Dracula. The idea of a fearless vampire hunter unlike Van Helsing but a swords man was the main selling point. With Buffy the Vampire Slayer around for the better part of the 90s, it should seem so strange. Think that Giles is Grost. Reverse the genders of the main characters and it has a fairly decent parallels between Buffy and Kronos. A new movie with a swashbuckling Van Helsing played by Hugh Jackman has came out. So, even movies that have been forgotten by most seem have numerous ideas "borrowed" from them.

Grost has to be one of the most original characters in a long time. A hunchback character that is good. I’m not counting the hunchback of Notre Dame, was considered evil by the evil mob of townsfolk. The only person who mocked Grost was Ferro trying to provoke Kronos into a fight. No one else mentioned it. After the Kerro fight, Grost is angry that he’s not able to defend himself and how people are cruel. Carla and Kronos each tell him how true a friend he is. It’s something you don’t see often in a horror movie. John Cater did an impressive job with the wizened vampire expert. I just kept thinking how Donald Pleasance would have played Grost.

Horst Janson is Captain Kronos. Most of the movie he played Kronos as aloof, almost like the Eastwood characters in westerns. He may be standoffish but not when hot Caroline Munro is involved and who would be standoffish when she wants to ride the Horst… As long as he was quiet or swordfighting, he was acceptable. Kronos never said much. It seemed to make him more distant not speaking. And we know quiet vampire hunters always seem to draw the women. Just ask Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter or Vampire Hunter D.

Caroline Munro, oh so hot. The raven haired gypsy chick. I mean as a rule I'm not that happy with useless eye candy in movies. Caroline sure won't sore the eyes. Her filmography isn't a very long one. She is an important character who isn't just there to be rescued. Wait she's there for the obligatory though non nude love scene, too.

The creepy-egg-shaped-red-headed-Carol-Burnette-imposter Sara, Lois Daine was an excellent red-herring to draw you off from the identity of the real vampire. Paul and Sara played the uppity local nobility to a T. At the end where they mourned the deaths of their parents, I have to at least respect the fact Paul didn’t try attacking Kronos. Too many movie endings have evil parents die and their kids try to take revenge on the hero who will let them do it to keep them from being evil, too. See Punisher for another example of this.

This is set at some time in the past few hundred years sometime in Europe. No one has pistols of any form. 1600s, but, that doesn’t make sense. No one is running around in powered wigs or any of those types of accoutrements. It just has this vague sense of the old days of Europe. It is almost like the gatling guns used in the Django version of the American West. Billy the Kid Versus Dracula combined the charm of vampire movies with the inherent machoness of the classic Western.

The idea of various species of vampires is an interesting idea. It has never been used in very many places. Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires had a more Oriental type of vampire, but not the hopping stiff armed, Keung si, type. Even better, the vampire in this movie drained youth, life force, not blood. Elisabeth Bathory, distant relation of Dracula, who bathed in the blood of virgins to retain and even gain their youth. That concludes my historical fact for this review.

This has to be one of the tamest R-rated movies around. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom is probably a more gorier and violent movie. It almost seems they were trying to give it a better reason for having an R rating. Granted I couldn't seem this movie as a PG. It seems out of place to not show some of these heaving Hammer Studios bosoms. About this time, the lesbian vampire movies began appearing as the infamous genre it is. Maybe they had the nudity requirement. Movies like Captain Kronos were trying to not get sent into the grindhouse theaters or the drive-ins of the 70s. It is too off-the-wall for standard moviegoers but far too chaste and tame for the exploitive fans...

The vampire mythology has been revolutionized in this movie. A distant early warning line of dead toads is buried throughout the woods. If a vampire walks over a buried toad, the toad is reanimated. I’ve mentioned earlier about the different types of vampires. Even better that that, each type has a different way to be killed, fire, hanging, stake through the heart. We learn that when they try killing Marcus several times before getting it right.

This is like the bridge between the Hammer classics like Dracula and 1970s trashier Jess Franco vampire movies. Hammer’s collapse was about to happen. And trying to save the company helped get this widely unknown movie to be released. And one fact, I’ve neglected these are pale black leather wearing vampire bemoaning their fates. One thing that angers me is these post-modern-gothic-vampire-wanabees. What happened to the Christopher Lee or Bela Lugosi types of vampires? They are needed to deliver us from these whiny Goth vampires.

As of the next few months continue, I've got a couple of movies that seem to owe a lot to Captain Kronos. This is one of the cliche dropping movies. It tried changing the mythology of vampires so it wouldn't taste like the old blood of the Lugosi vampire movie. The vampie hunter genre was one of if not the smallest vampire genres. Granted it got revitalized by Blade, no telling how bad the Don "The Dragon" Wilson vampire hunter movie set the sub-genre back, though. But, how can you go wrong with hot Gypsy chicks, hunchbacks, and a man named "Horst?"



3 1/2 NINJAS

Quotable Dialogue

“That lock’s as tight and cunning as a moneylender.”
“You ol’ leech lover.”
“What he doesn’t know about vampirism wouldn’t fill a flea’s codpiece.”
“Toad in the hole.”
“Well, she’s not exactly an aged crone, you know?”
“Still nothing like a little leech or two, a little bloodletting to cool a man’s veins?”


Morals of the Story

Vampires kill flowers by walking past them.
Dancing on a Sunday is a punishable offense.
There are as many types of vampires are there are types of fish in the sea.