The Best Old Movies on a Big Screen This Week: NYC Repertory Cinema Picks, September 7-13
The 7 Brothers Meet Dracula (1974)
Directed by Roy Ward Baker and Chang Cheh
Baker had worked with Bettie Davies and Joan Crawford, Dirk Bogarde and Roger Moore before casting blood-sucking warriors with zombie-like features in The 7 Brothers Meet Dracula. Hammer gothic meets the martial artistry of the Shaw Studios in this enjoyably bizarre flick starring Peter Cushing as a teacher confiding to his skeptical students what is also the alternative title of this film, The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires. According to the legend, at the beginning of the 19th century a Chinese monk visiting the Romanian region of Transylvania is body-snatched by Count Dracula, or vice versa. As a result of this narrative crossover, seven vampires came back from the dead and have been running amok ever since. Our heroes’ task will be to weed out the titular sevens, improbable creatures born out of a genre mash-up not devoid of a certain charm. Giovanni Vimercati (September 8, 9:30pm at the Nitehawk)