Your Daily Dracula – Ronn Moss, The Boneyard Collection/Her Morbid Desires (2008)
A fannish mess from the loose collection of Los Angeles talents who gave you The Erotic Rites of Countess Dracula (and sequels) and The Vampire Hunters Club, The Boneyard Collection seems to have been made as one short feature (Her Morbid Desires, adapted from a story by Brad Lineaweaver), one skit (Cry of the Mummy) and Grindhouse-style bogus trailers (The Devil’s Due at Midnight, Boogie With the Undead) yoked together by a painful routine from a seated Forrest J Ackerman as ‘Dr Acula’ and a couple of pretty models.
In Her Morbid Desires, ambitious starlet Freddi (Erica P. Hanson) lands a role in The Romantic Adventures of Count Dracula, a low-budget film produced by Gerry Shah (Seth Marten), and notices that the production keeps losing directors (William Smith and Robert Loggia in one-scene bits) which means the AD (Del Howison) has to hurry things along … and that actresses die mysteriously on the set, which no one is that fussed about and seems to be good publicity. Dracula (Ronn Moss) is a long-haired soap opera type and the segment is crowded with guest stars – Tippi Hedren as the heroine’s perhaps witchy aunt, Barbara Steele as the author of the book the script is based on, Molly Murphy as the Queen of the Vampires, Kevin McCarthy as a Father Sandor type vampire slayer and Brinke Stevens as herself (in more murderous form). Quite a few scenes feature only one or two characters remote from the rest of the cast or a single person talking directly to the camera, suggesting it might have been filmed in bits and pieces and celloptaped together later – perhaps with some of the star bits afterthoughts prompted by sudden availability. Also with bits at a party or strewn around the place for Rod McKuen (a trick is missed by not reminding him he recorded the US cover version of ‘Dracula Cha Cha Cha’), Ray Harryhausen, George Clayton Johnson, Cassandra Peterson/Elvira and Pete Atkins.
HMD is a shambles, but just about bearable – the mummy sketch is half as long but seems to last three hours and the mock trailers/music videos are disposable. Written and directed by Edward L. Plumb.
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