Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter (1974)

BUFFY, BLADE and Stephen Summers’ infantile VAN HELSING take a seat. The original and best fighting vampire slayer from the West is and forever will be CAPTAIN KRONOS!

Brian Clemens, a leading force behind Britain’s AVENGERS television series was brought in by the ailing Hammer Film studios, best known for their series of popular Dracula movies starring Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing, with an original concept for an action-oriented vampire movie meant to kick off a franchise and revitalize what had become a routine and tiresome trend in British horror. KRONOS was certainly something new. Instead of a frail old man who could only hope to impale his undead foe at an opportune and wholly predictable moment, Clemens offered up a samurai-wielding and pot-smoking Germanic action hero with a dark past, a womanizing streak and a hunchbacked sidekick capable of fashioning any inventive weaponry or gadget necessary to get the job done.

The stock gore and nudity that populated many Hammer films of the ’70s was mostly replaced by intrigue and swashbuckling heroics. Clemens consciously rolled Akira Kurosawa samurai films, John Ford Westerns, Sherlock Holmes, James Bond, and even a touch of kung fu into a 17th-century vampire movie and ended up creating one of Hammers’ best films at a time when they really needed it.

If you’ve never seen or heard of this film, you’re not alone. It was a commercial failure, shelved in the UK for two years before getting a local release and slapped onto an obscure double bill in the U.S. Clemens’ hopes of starting a franchise were dashed, his fledgling directing career was cut short and Hammer studios fell into sharp decline shortly after. It’s one of the great tragedies of cult cinema that this classic never had the success it deserved. But thanks to television and home video, it’s developed a cult following and 30 years on, KRONOS is still a fresh and entertaining actioner.

The movie begins as young women in a small 17th-century village are being drained of their life essence by an unusual vampire, one that feeds on youth with a single kiss. Dr. Marcus (John Carson), a local physician calls on an old army friend with an equally unusual profession. That friend is Captain Kronos (played by German actor Horst Janson), a seasoned vampire hunter who has a personal grudge against the undead and the means to act on it. His weapons of choice include a samurai sword, a fencing foil, custom stakes, and an extensive knowledge of popular folklore and the occult. Always at his side is Professor Grost (John Cater), an amiable and ever-resourceful hunchback.

The film introduces some new elements to the vampire mythos. Specifically, not all vampires are the same and neither do they die the same. As Marcus and the slayers team up to track the vampire, they must also figure out how to kill it and adjust their attack strategy accordingly. The leading suspects become an odd brother and sister who live with their ailing mother. Yet not all is as it seems. Once the truth does come to light, Kronos confronts the vampiric menace in an elaborate sword duel.

More so than any other, KRONOS is the film I remember most fondly from my youth when Hammer films used to air regularly on cable television in the ’80s, along with equally wonderful kung fu and Japanese monster movies. The images of Kronos hammering a stake into a vampire’s chest with no effect and when he rolls a carriage hit-and-run victim over to reveal a severed limb have been burned into my mind.

Then there are the sword fights. It doesn’t get any better as a kid than when you get to see sword fighting in a vampire movie. Often, going back to revisit a movie from your childhood becomes a bittersweet experience when you discover the “whole-wheat side” that dominates your adulthood no longer jives with your youthful “frosted side.” That’s not the case here. The limited budget and talent may show through on the campy effects, but Clemens’ concept and overall presentation is right on the mark. It helps that the cinematography, lighting and soundtrack are all excellent. The music is scored by Laurie Johnson who also worked with Clemens on THE AVENGERS and it greatly helps in smoothing over the film’s few rough spots with rousing and dramatic orchestral work that fits perfectly.

The swordplay is deserving of both praise and criticism. Clemens’ set up and framing of all the action is uniformly superb. Visually, he makes great use of perspective and foreground objects to enhance the scenes. The choreography is handled by William Hobbs, an accomplished fencer who has gone on to choreograph great Euro-style sword fights for many well-known action movies including THE FOUR MUSKETEERS (1974), THE DUELISTS (1977), ROB ROY (1995), and recently THE COUNTE OF MONTE CRISTO (2002). In KRONOS, Hobbs has one of his few acting roles as a vampire who ends up battling Kronos at the end. This match is quite good, even though very little preparation when into it by today’s standards. According to Clemens, a few hours of rehearsal mere hours before the shoot is all the actors had whereas today, actors might train for months. That said the fight is remarkably dynamic and intricate.

There are only two other sword fights in the film. The first is a fun barroom face-off between Kronos and three hired thugs led by the once-great British actor Ian Hendry. It’s a quick draw contest akin to a Zatoichi standoff that establishes the skill of Kronos and leaves the viewer wanting more. The second is where villagers, thinking that Kronos killed one of their own in cold blood, attack him on a cemetery hill. This is the fight that I was most disappointed with. While the framing is great, the choreography is sloppy. Kronos finishes with a rather goofy maneuver that should have been cool and could have been if tweaked a little.

As vampire hunter Horst Janson is the man. He has just the right combination of athleticism, charisma and stateliness to make the character engaging despite the fact that he remains rather aloof. Actors usually improve on their characters when they get to work with them frequently and I would have loved to see him recast in sequels so that he would have had time to grow more comfortable as a swordsman. He performed all of his own stunt work and does a fair job of it, but I would have liked to see what he could do with more experience in the role. On that note, this would have made a great television series, something akin to HIGHLANDER. Apparently, Clemens also pitched this idea and it was rejected. However, Clemens did go on to write for the HIGHLANDER series in the 1990s. This makes sense considering that he had originally envisioned Kronos as a warrior transcending time to fight vampires in different eras.

CAPTAIN KRONOS is a film near and dear to my heart as I was thrilled by it in my youth. As an adult, I find it still keeps me entertained and I hope that my bias doesn’t keep anyone from checking it out for the first time or from rediscovering it. If you compare it to modern vampire action, you’ll find that Clemens was well in tune with trends that are popular today. Hence, it holds up quite well. I would love nothing more than to see Clemens or his successor carry on with the character in new adventures employing more sophisticated action choreography and bigger budgets. It’s one of those creations that exhibit limitless potential in the right hands.