This is a genuinely strange movie, a serious take on a ‘B’ Western that involves Dracula visiting the Southwest. The story finds the diabolic Count (John Carradine) traveling to the Southwest during the late 1800s and pretending to be the uncle of a beautiful young woman whom he intends to marry (Melinda Casey). However, her boyfriend, Billy the Kid (Chuck Courtney), begins uncovering evidence about the true nature of her “uncle.” The very title, "Billy the Kid Versus Dracula" (1966), is enough to bring on some laughter, and that feeling isn’t helped by a cheesy-looking bat in the opening scene or the rather amateurish credits. If you can look past these issues, though, the film is surprisingly well-made for what it is; it has an interesting plot and characters, and the cast seems committed to taking the material seriously. The idea isn’t as ridiculous as it initially appears when you consider that Bram Stoker's novel was published in 1897 and vampires are immortal unless destroyed. Since Dracula traveled to England in the book, far from his native Transylvania, there’s no reason he couldn’t have visited the American Southwest at some point. It also helps to view both Dracula and Billy the Kid as cultural figures—mythical characters that can be interpreted and reimagined endlessly. Just like Robin Hood or James Bond can be portrayed in countless ways, so too can Billy the Kid or Dracula. They are essentially whatever the creators want them to be. Someone noticed what seems like a contradiction: bullets don’t seem to affect Dracula, but a gun to the face does. It appears inconsistent at first glance, but it's explained by Dr. Henrietta Hull in the film, who says that vampires are "undead" and similar to ghosts capable of transforming into bats or appearing seemingly out of nowhere—something we see demonstrated throughout the movie. To function normally, they have to become “solid,” allowing people to interact with them, like Betty (Melinda Casey). When the gun is thrown at Dracula, he was caught off guard and didn't manage to solidify quickly enough. Another explanation might be that the vampire is vulnerable to silver and Billy’s gun was silver-plated. However, if vampires are weakened by silver, why did the Count set up shop in a silver mine? The reason is that the mine had been abandoned for years, so any remaining silver would be deep underground, far from where Dracula planned his evil ceremony. He needed the location because it’s situated deep within the earth, shielding him from the sun and preventing interruptions from outsiders. Speaking of sunlight, in Bram Stoker's novel, Dracula could operate during the day, though he didn’t prefer to, and direct exposure severely weakened his powers—though it couldn’t kill him. The film has a running time of 1 hour, 13 minutes, and was filmed at Ray Corrigan Ranch in Simi Valley, California, with studio work completed in Hollywood. GRADE: B-

Source on TMDB