Die Ärzte singing
Junge:
In other words, the Killer Barbys vs. Dracula is pretty bad. A sequel to the earlier Jess Franco project, Killer Barbys (2003 / trailer), we got drawn to the movie primarily due to Bela B. and the Killer Barbys's cover version of the Iggy Pop/Kate Pierson classic Candy (1990), which is far from being as good as the original — they don't do anything new with it but just more or less cover the original one-to-one, which makes the version somewhat redundant but, at the same time, serves to prove that great songs are hard to ruin. (Sylvia Superstar, a.k.a. Silvia García Pintos, the hot-looking lead singer of Killer Barbys, does have an attractive Spanish accent, but Kate Pierson is simply a better singer. And Bela's voice simply lacks the gravitas and resonance of Iggy in his prime.)
Killer Barbys with Bela B. singing
Candy:
The two even sing Candy at one point during the movie, which looks less like it was made with real film than with someone's video camera and on a lark, an aura augmented by the cast being so heavily populated — outside the Killer Barbys and Bela B. — with Franco-film regulars. (That some of the jokes are so obviously "insider" also doesn't help.) The clearly created-on-the-fly narrative of this relatively unfunny comedy is flimsy and inconsistent, and one is hard pressed to say that there is any great amount of humor or that the movie works in any way, shape, or form. It's an incomprehensible, incompetent mess that hurts the eyes and tries one's patience, and is far from being anything that one should spend money on. It is doubtful, going by the overall feel and look of the movie, that the project took more than a few days to film, and as Bela B. wears the same outfit for all his appearances in the film, one could imagine he was there for a day or two at most, which might also explain his quick and out-of-the-blue early exit. And unlike the trash classics of vintage Franco — Vampyros Lesbos (1971 / trailer) and A Virgin among the Living Dead (1973 / trailer) promptly come to mind — there is little nudity to enliven the dull procedures.
Trailer to
Killer Barbys vs. Dracula:
Much like the indefinitely more professional, entertaining, and band-fixated TV film Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park (1978 / trailer), Killer Barbys vs. Dracula is set in an amusement park, but naturally in Spain instead of California. But whereas Kiss at least got Magic Mountain, Killer Barbys are stuck in one of those cheap and awful Spanish sauf-tourism places (Costa de Sol, actually) that are usually populated by drunken Brits or Germans (the places do tend to segregate) looking for sun and inebriation and fish & chips & any kind of alcohol (if British) or Bratwurst & beer (if German). (If those were the types of places that Killer Barbys were stuck performing at, it is hardly surprising that they are no longer around.)
Anyhow, it is there that Comrade Irina von Karstein (Romay playing a character named after the character she played as a nubile in Jess Franco's Female Vampire [1973 / French trailer]) shows up from Transylvania with her tie-dye-wearing subordinate Comrade Ivan Ivanovich (Viktor Seastrom of Franco's Vampire Junction [2001]) to deliver the casket of a staked Dracula (Enrigue Sarasola of Torrente 3: El protector [2005 / trailer]). He, however, is apparently only half-dead as he opens his eyes more than once while staked and even bops to the music so much when the Killer Barbys play that he unstakes himself.
Once unstaked, he runs around here there, day and night (mostly day) and bites a few people — including the Belgium TV reporter Katia, who, played by former Franco nubile Katja Bienert,* is the only one to show a little boob, and the park's chronically inebriated fake Dracula, played by a sad shadow of Peter Martell.** A blind vampire hunter named Dr Seaward (Dan van Husen) shows up with his assistant Albinus (Carsten Frank of Ulli Lommel's Zombie Nation [2004 / trailer] & Green River Killer [2005 / trailer]), a female vampire suddenly starts slinking about showing fang, a lot of scenes are shot with a solarisation filter for no apparent reason, and Dracula dances and runs around and uses special powers (like teleporting or crawling on walls) and then doesn't use them when it comes time to be staked again, at which point (seriously!) he turns into a white Energizer Bunny and hops away.
* Bienert, below not from the film and with her boobs covered by two boobs, made her Franco-film debut, showing a lot of skin, at the age of 13 in his popular de Sade adaptation Eugenie, Historia de una perversion (1980 / trailer); her nude-scene debut, however, came two years earlier at the age of 11 when she, as "Katja Caroll", played the 16-year-old lead character Petra in Train Station Pickups a.k.a. Die Schulmädchen vom Treffpunkt Zoo (1979 / music), one the last feature exploitation films of the great German jiggle king Walter Boos (22 Nov 1928 – 22 Nov 1996).
** The Italian Martell, born Pietro Martellanza (30 Sept 1938 – 1 Feb 2010), was part of many an interesting spaghetti western, giallo, horror, and science fiction film in his day — including Terror-Creatures from the Grave (1965 / trailer, with Barbara Steele), War between the Planets (1966 / trailer), The Cobra (1967 / trailer), Omicidio per appuntamento (1967 / opening credits), The Violent Four (1968 / trailer), The Forgotten Pistolero (1969 / trailer), Franco's Night of the Blood Monster (1970 / trailer, with Maria Rohm), The Unholy Four (1970 / trailer), The French Sex Murders (1972 / trailer), Death Walks at Midnight (1972 / full film) — before killing his career with Franz Marischka's "sex comedies" like Clattering Chastity Belts (1974), Laß jucken, Kumpel 3. Teil - Maloche, Bier und Bett (1974) and Liebesgrüße aus der Lederhose II. Teil: Zwei Kumpel auf der Alm (1974), most of which you can find online at porn-streaming sites.
Killer Barbys vs. Dracula, if viewed as a serious project, is deep point in the careers and non-careers of everyone involved in the project. Don't bother, for you will truly find it a waste of your time — and probably won't like it even if you are a fan of the by now defunct Spanish band Killer Barbys, a Jess Franco completionist, a fan of Franco's wife and long-time muse Lina Romay, or a fan of vegan Bela B.
Killer Barbys biggest hit —
They Came from Mars:
A public service announcement from a wasted life:
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