Your Daily Dracula – John Carradine as Richmond Reed, Vampire Hookers (1978)
‘Yeah, I’ve done it in a 1954 Plymouth, but never in a cemetery.’
Cirio H. Santiago was the busiest, but probably least interesting Philippines-based grindhouse director during the period when Roger Corman’s New World was turning out film after film in the islands. He was okay at action, but a bust with anything else – here, he gets to show he can’t handle horror, sexploitation or comedy all at the same time. Howard R. Cohen wrote a ton of things for Corman, starting with the classic Unholy Rollers and working up to the fun but dumb Saturday the 14th films – I suspect Cohen threw this script together in LA and didn’t much trouble with what got done to it overseas where filmstock is cheap.
‘Coffins are for being laid to rest, not for being laid.’
In a set-up reminiscent of a dirty joke or a US Navy venereal disease warning film, our heroes are two sailors in white suits – Tom (Bruce Fairburn) and Terry (Trey Wilson, later of Raising Arizona) – who have shore leave in Manila and are out to get laid. Cue minutes of actuality footage of bar-signs and backstreets and the expected, exceptionally tiresome routine of the gobs discovering that the bargirls they’re getting friendly with are guys. Then, it’s on to the main attraction …
‘You joined the Navy to see the world.’ ‘Yeah, this world not the next one.’
The hookers are Cherish (Karen Stride), Suzy (Lenka Novak) and Marcy (Katie Dolan) – all pretty, none quite upto the demands of Cohen’s occasionally witty dialogue. They hang out in a cemetery with their master Richmond Reed (John Carradine) in an approximation of Dracula and his three brides. Former Dracula Carradine, going by an approximation of his real name, wears a white suit and tropical hat to go with his cloak and fangs and has had the role tailored to his pontification tendencies. He gives out a lot of Shakespeare and Walt Whitman, even speculating about whether the poet was a vampire in a way which slightly prefigures some business in Only Lovers Left Alive.
‘If you don’t shut up, them vampires’ll go after your blood. With a mop.’
The street-savvy Chief Petty Officer (Lex Winter) falls victim to the vampire hookers, suggesting that his cabbie (Leo Martinez) is in on the scam. More annoying is Pavo, played by Vic Diaz (who was in practically every Filipino exploitation movie), a Renfield-type goon who is turning vampire – he wears a sackcloth cape and rubbish fangs, and consumes hours and hours of a 78-minute film with flatulence jokes which start off poorly and get worse as the film goes on. It’s his fault this is not remembered as ‘the one with John Carradine and the vampire hookers’ but ‘the one with the farting minion’.
‘Get the blood out of that rat before it evaporates.’
Eventually, the sailors and the hookers get together – and stuff happens, until endings are doled out for everyone … with the mandatory 1970s twist of someone we didn’t know was a vampire flashing fangs at the fade-out.
‘It’s times like this make you appreciate being dead.’
Because of the monologuing, Carradine seems more comfortable here than in his very similar turns in Las Vampiras and Nocturna – though it’s still awkward when Santiago ignores his star’s obvious arthritis and asks him to do simple things like opening coffin lids which look hideously painful.
‘We can’t kill him when he’s asleep. It takes all the enjoyment out of it. They never scream.’
It has a good score by Jaime Mendoza Nava
… and a catchy theme song …
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