Some Vampire Videos That Blood Hounds Can Count On

Of all the fang-and-cape monsters prowling through “Interview With the Vampire,” the oddest has to be Louis, a depressed thing who prefers drinking blood from poodles rather than people. His adopted daughter, a darling kiddie-vamp, is close. She’s cranky now and then, but at least she’s not so finicky--grown-ups taste just fine, thank you.

Yes, one thing you can say about this spurting, dripping, giggling film adaptation of Anne Rice’s novel is that it has some very strange incarnations of the old Dracula legend. But they’re certainly not the first. Hollywood and beyond have been providing peculiar vampires for years.

How about a blood-lover and his loyal blood-loving dog? Then there’s the New Yorker who may or may not be a vampire, but, just to make sure, he buys a pair of novelty teeth before stalking prey in Central Park. You demand affirmative action? Black jugular-biters have turned up in a couple of movies.

Finding these suckers shouldn’t be hard. You don’t need a Renfield or a Van Helsing, just the clerk at the local video store, especially if it’s fully stocked. Here’s a rundown of some of the stranger, more obscure vampire flicks available--some decent, some horrible, some frightening, some merely hilarious.

* For camp value, there’s “Dracula’s Dog,” which came out in 1978. It seems the original Count had nothing better to do, so he nibbled on a neighborhood hound named Zoltan. The mutt, now growling with vampire lust, heads to Los Angeles with another vampire to search out relatives of the first Dracula. Yes, this movie’s a keeper, as nutty as it sounds. It was released with the snappier title, “Zoltan, Hound of Dracula.”

* In “Vampire’s Kiss” (1989), Nicolas Cage plays a yuppie who has more than a passionate one-night stand with a woman he believes is a vampire. Cage thinks he’s one too, but it may all be in his head, just a manic extension of his womanizing and self-involvement. Cage is hilarious--besides those fake incisors, he works that slab of a face of his into some amazing vampiric contortions. Although probably too kinky for mainstream viewers, “Vampire’s Kiss” is a cartoonish metaphor with bite.

* The only black Dracula to ever rise from the grave is at the furiously pumping heart of “Blacula” (1972). A black prince from somewhere far away is bitten by a vampire, then takes to roaming the streets of Los Angeles, apparently a favorite destination for Transylvanians. This cheapie actually has a few shocking scenes, and director William Crain takes an opportunity or two to investigate the hip, urban black environment of the early ‘70s. It spawned a stupid sequel, “Scream, Blacula, Scream!,” in 1973.

* “The Vampire Lovers,” which came out in 1971, is one of the most erotic takes on the legend. It should be, featuring as it does lesbian vampires on the make for both sensual and liquid thrills. Peter Cushing is featured in this, one of the handful of his popular Dracula films made in Britain.

* An amusing follow-up, for often unintentional reasons, is “Twins of Evil” (1972). Get this: beautiful twins are nice to look at, but one of them is a vampiress devoted as much to mayhem as she is to lingerie. The local citizenry can’t tell the women apart, a major disadvantage. Almost notable for starring Playboy’s first twin playmates, Madeleine and Mary Collinson.

* A true bomb, and funny just because it’s so explosively rotten, is “Vampire Men of the Lost Planet.” This movie, which soiled drive-in theaters in 1970, melds sci-fi with bloodletting. Vampire attacks have scientists annoyed and confused until they trace them to a distant planet where this sort of thing goes on all the time. A jumble of filmed sequences and stock footage from other flicks is used by schlock director Al Adamson.

* If you are partial to other foul offerings by Adamson, there’s “Dracula vs. Frankenstein” (1970). In this, the last movie in the long careers of both Lon Chaney Jr. and J. Carroll Naish, Adamson tries to yank a satire from the jaws of terror. The plot finds an aging Dracula making a deal with an aging Dr. Frankenstein for a lifetime’s supply of blood. This is bad, very bad; recommend it to an enemy.

* The French got involved in 1979 with “Dracula and Son,” a mild comedy. Christopher Lee stars as the Count, and Bernard Menez shows up as his boneheaded son. A crude, jokey style permeates the throaty misadventures as father and offspring fight for the affections of a gorgeous babe.

* More extraterrestrial madness can be found in “Not of This Earth,” the 1988 remake of Roger Corman’s 1957 movie of the same name, which isn’t on video. The more recent offering follows the first’s plot closely, centering on an alien vampire who comes to Earth to collect blood for his nuclear war-ravaged home planet. Former porn diva Traci Lords makes a brief appearance as a tight-skirted nurse.

* The original “Nosferatu” (1922) is the first vampire and perhaps the greatest. F.W. Murnau’s silent classic doesn’t offer a suave or sympathetic monster (he’s not the Bela Lugosi of the far more famous “Dracula” from 1931), just a blood-hungry pervert who is demented and, with his mad great-goblin features and scythe-like fingers, very creepy to look at.

A sequel didn’t come along until 1979, when respected German director Werner Herzog made “Nosferatu the Vampyre.” Klaus Kinski is eerie as a Dracula with a heart almost as big as his choppers; Kinski is able to be spooky and vaguely sympathetic at the same time. Herzog also evokes some of the expressionistic flavor that helped make the original so compellingly alien.