1958 was a big year for horror, as when we first started this feature we saw Christopher Lee first play the Count and kick off Hammer as the new player in horror. Over in America, this was released to drive-ins.
A man (John Weingraf) leads a team consisting of a priest and several angry looking villagers towards a remote graveyard. Tracking down one mausoleum in particular, the group knocks down the door in search of the crypt's occupant-Count Dracula!
What they find is nothing. Some time later, young artist Gordal (Norbert Schiller) is waiting for a train. He's going to America to see relatives who are expecting him but have never seen him and have no pictures of him for reference. He happily explains this to the train cab's other occupant...a certain count (Francis Lederar). One late night snack later, and the now sole occupant settles in for a long trip to sunny California.
Soon Dracula arrives in the quaint little burb of Carleton. The Mayberry family, Gordal's kin, greet their supposed cousin and take him home. The head of the family is Cora (Greta Granstedt) and the family consists of her, daughter Rachel (Norma Eberhardt), and son Mickey (Jimmy Baird). There's also Tim (Ray Strickland), boy next door and Rachel's sweetheart.
Tim is the only one in town not taken with 'Cousin Gordal' and in fact seems to find the new arrival an odd duck to say the least, what with all the sleeping all day and having his room barred from any visitors. Everyone else writes Gordal off as an eccentric artist but when pets then people start dying suddenly, well remember that man from the beginning?
Seems he hunts vampires professionally. Arriving in town and claiming to be an immigration agent, the man and his partner (Charles Tannan) start looking into any new arrivals, like say artists from Europe? The partner gets offed at the claws and fangs of a wolf one rarely expects to find in California thus setting the plot in motion.
Shocking pretty good. Low budget as all get out, but it does have some elements one would see later in 'Salem's Lot. Lederar isn't Lee but he brings his own take to the character. Granted most of the film only works because several character are idiots but the actors overcome the limits of the script.
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