Saturday Night Drive In: Captain Kronos – Vampire Hunter (1974 Hammer)

Posted by crypticescapemagazine on January 2, 2016 in Drive In, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

2016 should be launched with three words. Awesome British Horror!!!  Hammer Film Productions woke up, looked at this script for Captain Kronos Vampire Hunter, determined it was bad ass, slapped on a R rating (oooooooooooo), and basis for Vampire Hunter D was created!  For this we thank you, Hammer!

The film was meant to be the first film in a series of films following the adventures of a legendary vampire hunter, Captain Kronos (Horst Janson).  Unfortunately that didn’t happen.  Cool soundtrack, pure awesome horror, intense action, and a dashing hero with an entire mythology around him would have been a cool series of films to see.

The movie starts with a village that is being terrorized by series of mysterious gruesome deaths where the victims would be found…aged to death!  Their entire life force and youth stolen.

Dr. Marcus send notice to his friend, Captain Kronos, an old army buddy.  Accompanied by his assistant hunchback Hieronymus Grost, Captain Kronos hunts vampires for a living.  And he’s damn good at it.

Grost explains how the victims were drained of youth instead of blood, “there as many species of vampires as there are beasts of prey.”  With another death, Dr. Marcus is convinced and the hunt begins!

Captain Kronus picks up a really hot lover Carla (Caroline Munro-EY YI YI!) who was sentence to the stocks for dancing on a Sabbath.  He frees her and she helps the vampire hunter.

The movie entails all kinds of odd vampire hunter mythology to hunt the vampires.  Which adds to the fun of the movie.  It isn’t an A to B plot, the hero actually has to work to get to his next goal.  Fabulous script writing that Hollywood seems to have forgotten how to do.

So, join the adventure of Captain Kronos!  You’ll want to change college majors after this movie!  Or at the very least buy a samurai sword and swing it around at pale skinned Twilight vampire wannabes.

Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include—

(1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;

(2) the nature of the copyrighted work;

(3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and

(4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

The fact that a work is unpublished shall not itself bar a finding of fair use if such finding is made upon consideration of all the above factors.