The Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires Soundtrack LP

I had watched several movies directed by Roy Ward Baker before it finally registered with me that this guy was becoming one of my favorite directors.

I wasn't seeking his movies out because his name was attached to them. It happened backward. I kept watching British horror movies I liked and eventually noticed the same name appearing in the credits.

The Monster Club. Asylum. And Now the Screaming Starts!. The Vault of Horror. Five Million Years to Earth.

There was something about the look of these movies that I kept responding to. Baker could make relatively modest productions feel atmospheric and substantial, and he was particularly good at the sort of colorful, slightly lurid British horror that I apparently could watch forever.

His career was much larger than the horror films through which I discovered him. He had been directing movies since the 1940s and worked extensively in British film and television, including A Night to Remember, his acclaimed 1958 account of the sinking of the Titanic. But by the late 1960s and 1970s he had become associated with exactly the sort of movies I was gradually collecting and obsessing over: Hammer horror, Amicus anthologies, vampires, crypts, monsters and Peter Cushing.

Which brings me, naturally, to records.

While looking through Baker's filmography I discovered that there is a soundtrack album for The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires, the gloriously unlikely Hammer/Shaw Brothers kung-fu vampire movie he directed in 1974.

There is a Seven Golden Vampires soundtrack?

Holy stromboli. I'll be back in a few minutes.

Oh yes. It exists.

And Peter Cushing narrates it.

This is how collecting works. You begin by attempting to learn something about a film director and fifteen minutes later you're shopping for an LP narrated by Peter Cushing.

Then I discovered something else I apparently needed: the Dawn of the Dead soundtrack featuring Goblin's music from the Dario Argento-associated European version of the film.

There is a Seven Brothers Meet Dracula soundtrack? Holy stromboli, I'll be back in a few minutes...

Oh yes, it exists.  And with Peter Cushing narrating none the less. I found out this also exists...

,

Dawn of the Dead original movie soundtrack by Dario Argento and Goblin. My record collection could be up to as many as three by Halloween. Perhaps four, if...

Yes

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My Seven Brothers Meet Dracula Movie Poster

Black belt versus black magic. So claims the movie poster for Dynamite productions The Seven Brothers Meet Dracula. Also known as The Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires, this movie stars Peter Cushing as Dr. Van Helsing in China, presumably there to deliver a series of lectures to Chinese college students who skoff at his teachings and leave the lecture hall en masse. But one student remains behind and tells Van Helsin g his village has been plagued for centuries by Seven Golden Vampires who raid the village every so often to cause mayhem and suck blood. Interestingly, this student has seven brothers and one sister who are duty bound to eradicate the village of this ancient scourge. Thus ensues one of the greatest vampire movies of all time, and guess whose two thumbs are pointed in his own direction to indicate that he is a proud possessor of the movie poster for said movie.

ME! Dracula, Van Helsing, seven golden vampires, zombies, kung fu, and a chick with heaving breasts. 

Julie Ege and her screen presence. She's in the movie. But despite what she'd have you believe the movie isn't about her breasts. see, there's this Chinese Dracula who wants to be a Romanian Dracula, so he goes to visit this English actor Dracula imitating a Romanian Dracula so he can ask the English imitator Dracula to transform the Chinese Dracula into the Romanian Dracula the English Dracula is imitating so he can go back to China and tell Chinese vampires what is what.  

I don't remember ordering Chinese. 

You forgot my egg rolls, Suzuki. That would actually be Japanese and doesn't make much sense, but it's par for this magnificently off beat and awkward gem of a movie directed by Roy Ward Baker who brought you the classics The Monster Club, Vault of Horror, And Now the Screaming Starts, Asylum, The Vampire Lovers, and Five Million Years To Earth to name but a few. Well, actually to name the bulk of his best horror movies, but that's quite a list. The martial arts in this movie are well done. It's a legitimately entertaining hybrid of a kung fu and a vampire movie. Did I mention I have the movie poster?

Does this ridiculous plastic mask make my fangs look fat? Yes. Yes it does. The Seven Brothers Meet Dracula they don't really meet him but they could have if they'd gone up the Buddhist temple at the top of the hill maybe they could have worked this whole thing out without so much bloodshed. Four stars from me and you'll have to figure out out of how many possible stars by watching the movie yourself. I have to go vote so outro.

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My Favorite Episodes of Hammer House of Horror

Hammer House of Horror was a British television series created by the legendary Hammer horror studios which consisted of thirteen episodes broadcast on ITV as a weekly series between September 13th and December 6th 1980. And what a lucky thirteen! Each episode was fifty minutes, and although some of the episodes are slightly uneven, the amazing amount of suspense and tension that was created without graphic violence, foul language, or nudity is extraordinary. Although not on a par with The Twilight Zone in writing quality, at least in my opinion, the level of storytelling is far above what one normally is asked to digest with the standard horror fare. And the acting is similarly good. Here are some of my favorite episodes...

Witching Time

A musician dude is holed up in a small country estate when he gets a visit from a redheaded woman who inquires exactly what it is they do to witches in the 20th century and when he replies nothing much I suppose she announces with relief that's good news because she is a witch then they have sex and she scratches his back up pretty good she looks like this...

I guess it looks like he's got a pretty good handful of haboob there I can't really remember but if there is nudity it's pretty brief and I refrain from using the word tasteful, but if there is it's not obnoxious. Anyway, this musician has a wife. She's not keen on the idea of the back-scratching witch. There's a a conflict. 

In which they try to dispose of the scratchy witch by burning in a bonfire but due to some ancient technicalities this won't fly. What happens? Well, all I can say is there's got to be more than one way to dispense of a redheaded witch. This is the first episode of Hammer House of Horror and a great introduction into the old fashioned type of storytelling that runs throughout the series. Feel free to go ahead and start here when watching the series. Did I mention...

That the intro music is very good? 

The Silent Scream 

This is my favorite episode of Hammer House of Horrors because of...

Peter Cushing

But wait, there's more. You get a plot. You get an early performance by 

Brian Cox, who you'll remember from all kinds of movies like Adaptation and Super troopers. Is he recoiling here because he's just received an electrical shock trying to escape a barless prison cell created by an insane Peter Cushing? Possibly. Is there an escape? More boobs I didn't remember? Maybe. He was also briefly a linebacker with the Chicago Bears, but that's another story.

Rude Awakening 

Aside from classic actor Denholm Eliot's performance as a man who fantasizes about murdering his wife and shagging his secretary, there is one compelling reason to watch Rude awakening multiple times. And that reason is actor James Laurenson, whose performance as the gentle but terrifying Shadmock in Roy Ward Baker's classic The Monster Club may be the greatest single cinematic performance of all the times. 

Depiction of a Shadmock by artist Jenny Mathews. 

It's a good episode, but I'm tired about writing about Hammer House of Horror and since these episodes are all of high quality and only fifty minutes long you can't go wrong by just jumping in and watching any one of them at random. 

Thriller Video

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The Seven Brothers Meet Dracula

The Seven Brothers Meet Dracula, also known as The Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires, is a Hammer production, directed by one of my favorite horror directors of all time, Roy Ward Baker. Some of Baker's films include The Monster Club, Vault of Horror, Asylum, The Vampire Lovers, and Five Million Years to Earth.  Here's how it goes down...

Taking a lesson directly from President Nixon, Count Dracula wakes up one morning and decides he needs more of a presence in the Asian markets, and where better to start than China?

So, the Count finds a trade partner willing to sell out his own people in exchange for certain considerations in the derivative market.  Leaving the Count free to...

Take on the guise of a Chinese vampire. Now to oppress the people and rape the women.

Seven virgins bleeding into a blood stew for Seven Golden Vampires. Won't anyone stand up and fight?

Damn right they will. Where there are Seven Golden Vampires there must be Seven Brothers (and one sister) to fight the. The martial arts scenes in this movie are very well done. 

More stuff happens. There are hopping zombies and a blond chick and Peter Cushing is in it at Van Helsing. I have it on VHS and play it every few months. I think I might go play it right now.

More Zombielogic's Incredibly Brief Movie Reviews

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Scream and Scream Again Will Make You, Well, You Know

I recently re-watched the 1970 classic of convolution, incredulity, and exhilerating car chases titled Scream and Scream Again. I had to watch it in ten episodes on You Tube because no matter how much money you are willing to pay Netflix these days they just seem to have less and less movies available. 

Here's all you need to know to get yourself motivated to watch this classic (in my mind, at least) piece of unfollowable schlock... it's one of the few movies that Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, and Vincent Price all appear in. That's enough right there to send you to You Tube right now, but, wait, there's more. Wait a minute, let me backtrack. The movie begins when....

This jogger collapses, then wakes up to find his... well, let's just say something is missing.

Peter Cushing as Major Heinrick Benedek

Then it's revealed it's all taking place in some convoluted 1984/Nazis actually won World War II Rollerball evil corporation/government fascist (redundant, I know) state, then Peter Cushing gets the Vulcan nerve pinch from this guy who's apparently more than he appears and, well..

Michael Gothard as Keith

This effeminate, dandy looking David Bowie type guy is going around stalking chicks in discos and he's really... (well, I'll let the story tell itself)

This guy is a copper who is on the case. I think he gets Vulcan nerve pinched, too.

This guy is in it. He's some affable gwat I suppose he's the hero but I haven't seen the ending yet.

Vincent Price as Dr. Browning

Vinnie the P is in it I think he's a mad scientist. After the first half hour you won't be able to keep track of anything that's happening anyway so just relax and enjoy...

One helluva car chase shot with some amazing low angles that happens about thirty minutes in, followed by a foot chase and an iconic scene where the dandy serial killer guy with amazing strength and flexibility manages to escape handcuffs by...

well, you'll see. 

Then it looks like Vincent Price ends up in an acid bath but I haven't watched the ending yet and I can't remember from seeing it twenty-five years ago probably on Elvira's Movie Macabre if the sinister fascists are foiled. 

Here's the English quad poster saying something about stuff. I guess all that could have happened in the movie, not sure.

Christopher Lee as Fremont

Oh, ya, Christopher Lee is in it. He probably gets nerve pinched eventually. Watch Scream and Scream Again it makes no sense and so what?

March 29, 2013: Almost all of the movies on Elvira's Movie Macabre are considered classics by me.

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