PR in the Philippines

(SeaPRwire) –   Early in the oddly titled 1966 film Billy the Kid Vs. Dracula, there’s a scene where the Count (John Carradine)—whose real name is never spoken aloud—suppresses a yawn while riding in a stagecoach. Do vampires yawn? Probably not; it’s more likely the seasoned actor Carradine, still wearing the same top hat he sported for roles in House of Dracula and House of Frankenstein over two decades prior, showing his complete boredom with the entire project.

Part of a double feature crafted for the drive-in era, Billy the Kid vs. Dracula hit screens six decades ago alongside the equally whimsically named Jesse James Meets Frankenstein’s Daughter. Both were directed by William Beaudine, a journeyman filmmaker said to have made 178 features in his career—these two being his final works before his passing. Neither movie is particularly good, but both arguably laid the groundwork for one of the most fascinating genre blends: the horror Western, which has produced entertaining (and sometimes exceptional) films like Bone Tomahawk, Ravenous, and Near Dark.

Beaudine reportedly shot both films in just 16 days, and this rush is evident in their day-for-night visuals, sparse production values, and mediocre scripts and casts. Carradine once stated that Billy the Kid vs. Dracula was the only film he regretted making in his nearly 60-year career, which included hundreds of roles. His remorse makes sense: his vampire is a bug-eyed old lecher who wants to take young, attractive Betty Bentley (Melinda Plowman) as his vampire bride—a plan strongly opposed by her fiancé, the legendary (and now retired, so don’t look for historical accuracy here) outlaw Billy the Kid (Chuck Courtney).

Jesse James Meets Frankenstein’s Daughter is only slightly better than its counterpart. Outlaw Jesse James (John Lupton), alive despite reports of his death, arrives in a small town with his brutish right-hand man Hank (Cal Bolder). They learn the townsfolk fear Maria Frankenstein (Narda Onyx)—the granddaughter (yes, even the title is wrong) of the original Dr. Frankenstein—who fled Europe and is conducting sinister experiments on immigrant children in the town. When Hank is wounded in a shootout with local lawmen, Maria hatches a devious plan to turn him into her monstrous servant.

Unsurprisingly, both films were panned by critics, and watching them today does neither any favors. Yet they—along with the slightly more stylish 1959 vampire-outlaw film Curse of the Undead and 1965’s witchy revenge thriller The Devil’s Mistress—are among the earliest examples of a genre crossover that has reappeared over the years in both period and modern settings, producing films that in some cases have become minor masterpieces.

1973 was likely the next big year for the horror Western, when Western icon Clint Eastwood directed and starred in High Plains Drifter, about a mysterious, nameless stranger who brings chaos and violence to an isolated mining town and may be the ghost of a sheriff the townspeople had shot down. Eastwood’s eerie, enigmatic film remains one of his best from the 1970s. That same year also saw the release of Hex, a Western-horror-biker crossover, and the exploitation quickie Godmonster of Indian Flats, about a giant mutated sheep terrorizing a mining town turned modern tourist attraction.

The fusion of horror with the neo-Western—a film set in modern times but using Western tropes—took root firmly in 1987 with Kathryn Bigelow’s Near Dark, about a clan of nomadic vampires who wander U.S. backroads and lure a young man (Adrian Pasdar) into their circle. Featuring standout performances from Lance Henriksen and Bill Paxton, Bigelow’s solo directorial debut is rightly considered a horror classic.

Other neo-Western horror films include 1996’s From Dusk Till Dawn (directed by Robert Rodriguez from a Quentin Tarantino script), 1998’s Vampires by John Carpenter, and 2014’s indescribable “Iranian vampire Western” A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night. But some of the best recent horror Westerns stayed true to period roots: 2004’s Dead Birds pits bank robbers against ghosts on a deserted plantation; J.T. Petty’s 2008 thriller The Burrowers follows a 1879 rescue party terrorized by underground monsters while searching for a missing family; and 2015’s shockingly brutal Bone Tomahawk sees a Kurt Russell-led rescue posse face off against a cannibal tribe.

Science fiction has also crossed over with the Western in films (mostly featuring aliens or dinosaurs) like 1969’s The Valley of Gwangi, John Carpenter’s 2001 Ghosts of Mars, 2011’s Cowboys and Aliens, and even Jordan Peele’s 2022 thriller Nope. The desolate plains and empty roads of the untamed West—perfect for myths, folk tales, and supernatural or otherworldly possibilities—make genre mixing feel natural, even if it all started with a cheap drive-in double bill.

Both Billy the Kid vs. Dracula and Jesse James Meets Frankenstein’s Daughter are streaming on Tubi.