Bad combination of Horror and Western about a gun for hire that’s a vampire. TV stars and character actors are stuck in this mess. The horror mostly comes from the awful dialogue and in the beginning the horrible overacting of Jimmy Murphy as the son of a rancher out for revenge.
Why are young girls dying? Doc Carter (John Hoyt) can’t figure it out but Preacher Dan Young (Eric Fleming) can’t help but notice two neck wounds on the girls. Carter gets back home after the latest death and sees his son Tim (Jimmy Murphy) has been worked over. His daughter Dolores (Kathleen Crowley) tries to calm Tim down. He says that Buffer (Bruce Gordon) damned the waterway. When Tim tore it down some of Buffer’s boys tore him down. Tim wants to get revenge.
Carter tries to get the sheriff (Edward Binns) to do something about Buffer but he’s powerless to act. When Carter gets back home he dies. At the funeral Dan sees those two neck wounds. What he doesn’t see is a man climb into a coffin. The peace doesn’t last long as Buffer tears down a fence on the Carter ranch. Tim has had it and storms into town and heads right for the saloon. After some liquid courage Tim taunts Buffer into a gun fight. That’s it for Tim and the sheriff was a witness.
Dolores tries to hang posters offering a hundred bucks for a gun for hire. The sheriff keeps tearing them down and tells her he’ll keep doing that every time she posts one. Passing by is Drake Robey (Michael Pate). He takes a poster into the saloon and Buffer gets a little nervous. One of his boys draws and shoots first. Drake shoots second and kills him. Buffer’s guy swears he put a bullet in him. Buffer thinks he’s nuts and fires him.
Drake rides out to see Dolores. Dan is there and Drake gets a little edgy when he sees a pin on Dan’s lapel that’s a cross. Dan gets upset when Dolores hires Drake and tells him he can stay at the ranch. That night while she sleeps Drake sneaks into her room. He’s a vampire and takes a taste of Dolores’s neck. Back in town Dan gets Buffer to agree to stay in the boundaries of his ranch and pay for any damage at the Carter ranch.
Dan convinced Dolores to get rid of Drake. But that doesn’t work as Drake returns and gets hired as a night guard at the ranch. He says he can’t work during the day because the sun hurts his eyes. Dan finds a diary among John Carter’s stuff written by the original owner of the ranch. It’s an account of how one of his sons killed the other when he caught his wife fooling around with him. After that he stabbed himself to death. The killer’s name was Don Drago Robles. Hmmm…that’s very similar to Drake Robley.
Later Drake hears the sheriff try to convince Dolores to fire him. When the sheriff rides back to town Drake is waiting. There’s now a job open for a town sheriff. The movie creaks along and there’s a map which explains the real boundaries of the ranch. That doesn’t make Buffer happy. There’s a saloon confrontation between Buffer and Drake and things aren’t too harmonious between Dan and Dolores. But..Dan has a trick up his sleeve.
This movie is just bad with no quality at all. Do yourself a favor, despite the mostly good cast, skip it.
Eric Fleming was known to TV fans as Gil Favor on “Rawhide” (1959-65).
Bruce Gordon appeared in many movies and TV shows. His most famous role was likely as Frank Nitti on “The Untouchables” (1959-63).
Even vampires need a snooze after a gunfight
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