Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter 4K 1974 Ultra HD 2160p

Story Movie

In one of the English villages, something was going wrong - young girls were suddenly turning into infirm old women and dying with blood on their lips. Local doctor Marcus immediately wrote to his friend, professional vampire hunter Captain Kronos, who rushed to the scene with his hunchbacked assistant. After analyzing the facts, the brave captain confirmed the doctor's guess about a vampire in the neighborhood, and started searching for him.

Review 4K Movie

In the mid-70s, Hammer Studios, which had reigned over the mystical gothic horror genre for the previous twenty years, was experiencing the decline of its former success. During these twenty years, the viewer has had time to eat “gothic horror” in the form of all sorts of Dracula, Frankenstein, Mummies and other such evil. Screenwriting sources have become shallow, the plots have been played so many times that it was easy to predict the development of the story of most films. Movie theaters were losing viewers and box office, and the studio was on the verge of bankruptcy. New plots were required, new heroes, whose adventures could give development to new franchises, as well as new faces on the screen, new actors. Otherwise, the prospect of bankruptcy appeared on the horizon of the studio threatened to become a close reality.

And so in 1974, already well-known by then screenwriter Brian Clemens, who wrote, among other things, the scripts for such films as “Blind Terror”, “And soon there will be darkness”, “Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde”, “The Golden Journey of Sinbad”, decides to try his hand at directing and takes to shoot the film “Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter”, in which he acted as a writer, director and producer.

In the vicinity of a village suddenly began to occur strange attacks on young and beautiful girls, who in one minute became old and ugly and soon died. Of old age. What was attacking them was no ordinary vampire - sucking out not blood, but youth and with it life itself. Concerned about this, Dr. Marcus writes a letter to his friend, who hunts all kinds of evil things, asking him to come to the village. In addition, not far from the village is the castle of a baron who died a few years ago, whose widow has gone blind and aged out of grief. But the daughter and son of the baron look much younger than their age, as if time has no power over them.

The movie was originally conceived as a three-part franchise with through protagonists, falling each time into different mysterious and scary stories. And kept the main features of Hammer studio pictures, such as beautiful landscapes and luxurious interiors of castles, gloomy outside and rich inside, chic dresses of ladies and strict surtukes of gentlemen. In addition, carriages, horses, servants, peasants, roadside inns and inns together with castles created the right atmosphere of medieval Gothic, against the background of which the adventures of Captain Kronos unfolded, who together with his friend-assistant hunted vampires, witches, ghosts and demons. Vampires had once turned Kronos' mother and sister, and now his whole life was dedicated to revenge and fighting this evil. Later, the two friends are joined by a girl they rescued, chained to the shame pole for a terrible sin - she danced on Sunday. And a love line is woven into the plot.

For the role of Captain Kronos was invited German actor Horst Janson, in England is not very famous - because it was necessary a new face for a new franchise. The roles of his assistants played more popular and recognizable actors. John Carson as Dr. Marcus, Caroline Munroe as the rescued Carla and John Kater as Grost, the permanent associate of Kronos. And they coped with their roles quite well.

It should be noted that the script really turned out to be quite strong. Let it was composed of known plot moves, but all parts were perfectly fitted to each other and balanced. The plot turned out to be fascinating, with unexpected turns, kept the intrigue and did not let the viewer get bored, containing elements of detective and road adventure. On the movie very properly arranged plot deceptions, thanks to which its special advantage was quite an unexpected ending, which in itself is a huge plus to the picture.

But the viewer “Captain Kronos...” did not accept. The fashion for gothic has already passed, and even a rather original and unconventional plot did not arouse much interest. To shoot a sequel in this situation, there was no point. And after making a couple or three more movies, the studio “Hammer” in 1975 declared itself bankrupt.