This is a quaint cultural artifact of the early '70s. It's an independent film, made by people who loved horror films but weren't able to actually make a scary or terribly involving movie. There are endless references to horror film icons and fandom which are nice but unless you have fond memories of Count Yorga, this movie is bound to disappoint... Because it's on about that level.
The San Francisco locations (A murder at Lincoln Park golf course, with the Golden Gate Bridge in the BG - The Kerwin Mathews film-within-a-film was shot at a WWII gun emplacement in the Presidio - The theater where most of the action occurs was actually in Oakland)are nice and I have happy memories of Bob Wilkins, the San Francisco TV horror host on whom a character in the film is based. Beyond that, the film is slow, the characters are thin and the plot is weak.
The protagonists, who are involved in putting on a Horror Convention at a San Francisco movie palace, include a horror novelist, a Sherlock Holmes buff and a mystical hippie comic-book guru (No, really, he wears a Jesus robe and goes on about the "comic ethos".) The villains are a horror film star named Makakai, who plays vampires and "lives" his role off-screen, and his pair of PR men, who are actually Burke and Hare, the 19th century body-snatchers. Oh, and Malakai is a real vampire - Not much of a spoiler there.
The acting is good and, while it looks pretty dark on my TV, the film is technically well done... But, the writing is weak and despite a bit of gore, it never manages to be remotely scary.
The San Francisco locations (A murder at Lincoln Park golf course, with the Golden Gate Bridge in the BG - The Kerwin Mathews film-within-a-film was shot at a WWII gun emplacement in the Presidio - The theater where most of the action occurs was actually in Oakland)are nice and I have happy memories of Bob Wilkins, the San Francisco TV horror host on whom a character in the film is based. Beyond that, the film is slow, the characters are thin and the plot is weak.
The protagonists, who are involved in putting on a Horror Convention at a San Francisco movie palace, include a horror novelist, a Sherlock Holmes buff and a mystical hippie comic-book guru (No, really, he wears a Jesus robe and goes on about the "comic ethos".) The villains are a horror film star named Makakai, who plays vampires and "lives" his role off-screen, and his pair of PR men, who are actually Burke and Hare, the 19th century body-snatchers. Oh, and Malakai is a real vampire - Not much of a spoiler there.
The acting is good and, while it looks pretty dark on my TV, the film is technically well done... But, the writing is weak and despite a bit of gore, it never manages to be remotely scary.