Review: Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter

The village of Durward is plagued by a series of killings by a breed of vampire that appears to drain life – not just blood – from their victims. Dr. Marcus (John Carson) enlists the aid of sword-wielding vampire hunter Captain Kronos (Horst Janson) and his hunchbacked colleague Prof. Hieronymous Grost (John Cater) to put an end to the killings. Shane Briant and Lois Dane play a snooty aristocratic brother-and-sister pair whose late father Dr. Marcus was acquainted with, and whose elderly mother (Wanda Ventham) still holds a grudge against Dr. Marcus over the death of said late father. Caroline Munro plays a gypsy girl whom our heroes welcome into their fold. Ian Hendry turns up briefly as a black-clad baddie at a tavern who dares to pick a fight with Captain Kronos.

 

Somewhat underrated 1974 Hammer outing from writer-director Brian Clemens (who wrote the underrated “And Soon the Darkness…” as well as Hammer’s “Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde”), has elements of traditional Hammer vampire film, swashbuckler, and even spaghetti western. It’s definitely more Hammer vampire film than the other two, but those elements are still very much there I think and give the film a slightly different flavour. Hammer actually did several different kinds of vampire films over the years – “Vampire Circus”, the lesbionic “The Vampire Lovers”, and even a kung-fu flavoured vampire film “The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires”. Here the big difference for me was that the vampire attacks are eerie and creepy, and that in this film vampires are said to come in different species. In this film we get a breed of vampire that causes its victims to rapidly age before their ultimate death. In other words, these vampires drain life, not blood. That’s interesting and kinda fucked up to be honest. Admittedly the rapid speed at which the draining process takes seems a touch silly to me, but it’s certainly interesting and unique. I loved the marvellous shot of blood dripping from a church bell, too. The film looks terrific as shot by Ian Wilson (“And Soon the Darkness…”, “Fright”), and the music score by Laurie Johnson (“Tiger Bay”, “Bitter Harvest”) is solid too.

 

It’s an interesting and weird film in which the least interesting thing is probably lead actor Horst Janson. Janson has a lot of credits on IMDb, but the majority of them are German-language. Here he is dubbed, and frankly he’s a bit bland and forgettable, which is a shame. What surprises me is that he apparently only made three westerns, because for all money he looks like a spaghetti western star for sure. The film definitely does give off spaghetti western vibes at times, with black-clad, black-hearted Ian Hendry’s cameo in particular seemingly taking place on the set of a spaghetti western. His entrance is certainly spaghetti western stuff through and through, he may as well be wearing bloomin’ jangling spurs. It’s a terrifically mean cameo from the very fine, but troubled British character actor. Elsewhere in the cast, Caroline Munro is good and charismatic, and obviously hot. She does her usual thing of showing as much skin as she can without actually showing any nudity. John Carson probably contributes the film’s best performance as one of Kronos’ helpers, whilst a hunch-backed John Cater ably fills the assistant vampire hunter part. Although a bit underused, a perfectly odious Shane Briant is perfect casting in a nefarious part. Although mostly confined to the second half, the swashbuckling swordplay is fun, especially the final swordfight. It’s a bit of a shame there wasn’t room for a cameo by Christopher Lee, given not only his connection to Hammer but also his fondness for on-screen swordplay. Clemens does a really good job behind the camera for a veteran screenwriter with only one other minor TV episode directing gig in 1995. He’s especially good at building up creepy atmosphere in the film’s scarier scenes.

 

Slightly offbeat Hammer vampire film features a bland leading man, but everything around Horst Janson is jolly good fun. Deserves a wider audience I’d say.

 

Rating: B-

 

 

 

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