Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter

Horst Janson - Captain Kronos
John Carson - Dr. Marcus
Ian Hendry - Kerro
Caroline Munro - Carla
Shane Briant - Paul Durward
John Cater - Prof. Hieronymos Grost
Lois Daine - Sara Durward
Wanda Ventham - Lady Durward
William Hobbs - Lord Hagen Durward
Brian Tully - George Sorell

Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter, was the first in what was planned as a series of adventures for the young hero of the title. Audience indifference saw it quickly die at the box office - which is a shame, for the film is actually rather good.

In it, Horst Janson plays the Aryan-like Captain Kronos, ex of the Prussian army who - with his hunchbacked assistant Professor Grost (John Cater) - roams the countryside in search of vampires (a result of having discovered that his mother and sister had been turned into vampires while he was away fighting in some war). Coming across a small township, Kronos and Grost find that a vampire has been sapping the very youth from the locals, turning beautiful young girls into dead hags. But the mystery is: who? Aided in their task by a local, Dr Marcus (John Carson), the trio lay various traps for the vampire - who has the ability to move about during the hours of daylight - only to finally discover the perpetrator of the attacks to be the beautiful Lady Durward (Wanda Ventham) who, like many members of the aristocracy before and since, has literally been preying on the lower classes.

An entertaining blend of action, adventure, comedy, horror and swordplay, Captain Kronos was written and directed by Brian Clemens (making his debut with the megaphone) and was co-produced by Clemens and Albert Fennell. And like much of Clemens's work, the proceedings have a strong feeling of The Avengers about them, particularly during the action sequences. These include a number of well-staged sword fights, care of fight choreographer William Hobbs, who also plays Hagen, one of the film's villains.

Basically, the film is little more than a collection of every horror cliché imaginable, yet so tempered with wit are they that they come up fresh and new. The film's most effective sequence revolves around the discovery that the vampire has infected Dr Marcus. He begs Kronos and the Professor to kill him. They thus tie Marcus to a chair and try first impaling him on a spear, but to no avail. Hanging and burning similarly fail, with the doctor waking from each attempt to kill him only to wait for the next, only the accidental discovery that a crucifix has a deadly effect on vampires finally finishes him off.

Clever visual touches also abound. The withering of woodland flowers when the cape-clad vampire passes by, and a scene in a church where the shadow of a giant cross gradually turns into something more sinister stay in the mind, as does the tear of blood which runs down the cheek of Lady Durward at the film's conclusion. Lively performances (particularly by Cater as Professor Grost) and a pounding score by Avengers regular Laurie Johnson also adds immeasurably to the proceedings. Sadly, the film failed to find an audience and all future cases for Kronos were subsequently cancelled, though the film has since gone on to become a cult item.