THE 7 BROTHERS MEET DRACULA (1974)
(aka Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires)
Directed by: Roy Ward Baker & Chang Cheh
Starring: Peter Cushing, David Chiang, Shih Szu, and Julie Ege
Mondo psychotronic overdrive. In the ‘50s and ‘60s, Hong Kong horror was mostly posh, elegant adaptations of Pu Songling’s stories about silk-robed scholars falling in love with horny ghosts. They fit in perfectly with Shaw Brothers’ brand of restrained, big budget entertainment, but after One-Armed Swordsman turned them into a bare knuckled butt-kicking factory in 1967, and Western hits like The Exorcist tore up the box office, it became clear that needed to change.
Over in England, Hammer Studios needed to rejuvenate their fading Dracula franchise, and so it seemed to make sense that Hammer and Shaw would team up for The Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires, a prince of darkness picture shot in Hong Kong starring Peter Cushing and David Chiang, with Hammer director Roy Ward Baker (Doctor Jekyl & Sister Hyde) delivering the frights and Hong Kong action choreographers Tong Kai and Lau Kar-leung in charge of the fights. It was a sign that Shaw was ready to double down on the increasingly lucrative horror market and that Hammer was willing to embrace the post-Bruce Lee kung fu boom.
A respectable overseas success, Warner Bros apparently lacked confidence in its American potential and shelved the movie. Five years later, Max Rosenberg — the co-founder of Amicus Productions, Hammer's major competitor — licensed it for U.S. release through his new distribution outfit, Dynamite Entertainment. Rosenberg was a born hustler who could be aggressively honest about the quality of the products he was peddling. Of his first film, Rock, Rock, Rock (1956) he said, “It’s just a bunch of songs connected to a stupid plot.” He co-founded Amicus with his partner, Milton Subotsky, to turn out bloodier, less expensive Hammer pictures, often starring the same actors and usually delivering similar scares.
When he opened Dynamite it was irony of the most ironic kind that his first pick-ups were two Hammer flicks Warner Bros had lost confidence in, The Satanic Rites of Dracula and Legend. Rosenberg happily hacked them to pieces, retitled them (Count Dracula and his Vampire Bride and The 7 Brothers Meet Dracula, respectively), and dumped them onto the action circuit. As he said of 7 Brothers, “It was a bad picture when we got it and an even worse one when we finished with it.” With 15 minutes chopped out, 7 Brothers sounded like a musical no one wanted to see and, predictably, no one saw it.
That drive-in version of the historic collaboration between England's house of horror and Hong Kong's martial arts masters is what we’re showing because it’s sheer, glories lunacy that moves like lightning. The 7 brothers (and one sister) take on Drac in a pack and they don't cut him no slack. Featuring gratuitous nudity, copious blood, and buck-toothed vampires who stand around like ninnies, this flick also features the world's meanest shot in which its elderly star (Peter Cushing) accidentally falls into a campfire. Outta sight!
