Godzilla versus Kong. Freddy versus Jason. Alien versus Predator. Billy the Kid versus…Dracula?

Well, it’s certainly no one’s dream match up but 1966’s Billy the Kid versus Dracula is what happens when 60s drive-in movies meets the once-dominate Western genre. It’s a wild concept on paper, but that zaniness doesn’t quite reach the screen.

Dracula is somehow in the Wild West frontier of the United States. While on a coach ride west, he sees a photograph of a young lady, Betty Bentley, and becomes smitten. So killed off a local indigenous woman, causing the tribe there to kill off everyone in Dracula’s party.

He later turns up at the town alone, claiming that he is Mr Underhill, Betty’s uncle. When news reaches the town that Betty’s mother has been killed, “Mr Underhill” moves in at her ranch.

But poor Dracula has one major thing in the way of his hands: Billy the Kid. Billy is Betty’s fiance and a bit of a suspicious man. When he hears a group of German immigrants panicking about vampires, he listens to their worries. He enlists the help of the local doctor to learn more about the lore (and it’s very weird lore).

Billy has to wise up and save ol’ Betty before she becomes Dracula’s bride.

It’s bad. It’s definitely bad. Poor John Carradine walks around just looking like a vampire: top hat, red cravat and a black cape? Oh don’t mind that fella that makes all the Germans scream. Nothing to see here! But little oddities like that are one of the few bits of fun in this. Everything else is just very boring and long.

Director William Beaudine was incredibly prolific, directing nearly 200 films according to Letterboxd. And this one Beaudine points to as his worst (which I think is probably saying something). This came at the tail end of his career, being one of the last two movies he ever made. The other being Jesse James Meet’s Frankenstein’s Daughter, which was the film BvD was shown with as a double feature.

Not that I have seen any of Beaudine’s other films, but I can get why he’d be disappointed in it. It moves at a slug’s pace up until the end. When you’ve got cowboys and vampires, you expect a bit more action and adventure. Not long scenes with German housekeepers arguing with their mistresses about wolfsbane.

There are a lot of the usual suspects that bring down the vibe here. Flat characters, racist caricatures, a general dislike for women. And none of the fun parts (Dracula getting hit in the face with a pistol) make up for it enough to get into the “so bad it’s good” zone.

It’s always a shame when b-movie concepts don’t reach the height of what they could have been. I’d even argue that today, even with minuscule budgets, independent filmmakers are allowed to go more “balls-to-the-wall” with concepts like Llamageddon and Sharknado… I mean, I didn’t say they were good. Just crazier.