Billy the Kid vs. Dracula (1966)

How bad is it? It's seriously flawed, but merely mediocre.

Should you see it? It's not necessary, though a decade-by-decade Carradine vampire festival might be fun.

I first saw this film at age 8 on an 8 mm. black and white print. I was not impressed. Better print and color and decades later, it's still not much. Like most of William Beaudine's films, it's not good, but not utter trash.

The film doesn't really work as a western, though there are some natives and some horses and a gunslinger. It also doesn't work as a vampire film (the name "Dracula" never gets said in the film), as the main tropes get messed with - the vampire appears in daylight, it's not a wooden stake that kills him, etc. The biggest problem, however, and the source of some cheap laughs, is that the cinematographer didn't know how to shoot day-for-night, so night scenes are clearly done in the day. There's also bats on wires. After being shot at 12 times, Dracula succumbs to a glancing blow from a thrown handgun.

The companion piece, "Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter," Beaudine's last film, is worse because it's duller. It's not even an accurate title, as it's Frankenstein's granddaughter.