Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter

Before Buffy donned her cheerleader uniform or found out she was the chosen one, before the life essence sucking space vampires of Lifeforce were found in the tail of Haley's Comet, before dapper Van Helsing ever set out to do battle with CGI monsters, there was Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter. Kronos being a stylish 19^th century swashbuckling vampire hunter, late of the Imperial Guard, with a flair for the melodramatic. Just don't ask whose Imperial Guard as I have not a clue. With veteran actress Caroline Munro (Starcrash, At the Earth's Core, The Golden Voyage of Sinbad, Dracula A.D. 1972, et al) as the comely lady in distress cum love interest and his faithful hunchbacked sidekick, Grost, Kronos has sword and will battle the supernatural!

Listed Running Time: 91 minutes

MPAA Rating: R.

Cast: Horst Janson, John Carson, Shane Briant, Caroline Munro, John Cater,

Lois Daine, William Hobbs, Brian Tully, Robert James, Perry Soblosky,

Paul Greenwood, Lisa Collings, John Hollis, Ian Hendry, Wanda Ventham, et al..

Director: Brian Clemens.

AKA: Kronos/ Vampire Castle

A bit slow at first the movie quickly picks up and reaches a final scene crescendo not to be missed. Released to theatres in 1973 Kronos is a moody and atmospheric tale that combines elements of traditional vampire myth and twists them into a new cinematic mythos with an imaginative flair peppered with pseudo-occult folklore to create an entirely different type of vampire movie. Sadly it did none too well at the box office and thus has all but faded into obscurity. Until now. The movie should be relatively easy to find on DVD, though as with most Hammer Horrors it will probably not stay in print for long. As the video quality is excellent I’d suggest adding this to your video library.

Captain Kronos, late of the Imperial Guard, is wandering the country side with faithful sidekick, Professor Grost, on his way to see an old friend, Dr. Marcus. Upon arriving at the town Kronos is told a strange tale for, it seems, local peasant girls have been found mysteriously drained of their youth and vitality. What could this mysterious phenomenon mean? Why that the town is infested with Vampires of course! Good thing Kronos just happened to be wandering into town just as this vampire outbreak occurred, sort of like Kevin Sorbo’s Hercules with his “wherever there is evil (or whatever) there will be Hercules” spiel. Seems almost too convenient, doesn’t it? Ah well it’s best not to dwell on such matters.

The Setting: 19^th century Europe.

The Story: Wandering swashbuckler has sword and will fight supernatural beasties.

The Characters: Very archetypal. Captain Kronos is your typical hero with a sidekick (Grost) ala the Hercules or Xena model. In fact Kronos is pretty much exactly the same archetypal wandering hero. So there should be little difficulty in translating Kronos into game terms. Professor Grost, on the other hand, is a different matter. He’s an amalgam of archetypes. One minute a dutiful sidekick and the next a independent secondary character. Then there is the tag along gypsy (?) woman played by Munro. If ever there was a prototype for Gabrielle (Xena: Warrior Princess) this character is it! Only the sexual relationship between her and the hero is out in the open rather than tauntingly hinted at as a ploy to generate ratings. Which is the difference between TV and the movies. Alas the villagers and other background characters need development.

The Vampires: The vampires in this movie are not your typical bloodsuckers. In fact they are quite the departure from the usual Hammer vampires portrayed in movies like The Vampire Lovers, Horror of Dracula, Vampire Circus, Twins of Evil, or even Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires. First, despite what some reviewers have indicated elsewhere it is never directly shown that the vampires can walk around in daylight. Rather we see a mysterious cloaked figure that we, the audience, are left to assume is the vampire. Note that Nick Knight, Spike, and Angel have all since walked around in the day time under the cover of a blanket or cowl! Thank Kronos for that. Second, the life essence of victims appears to be drained with a kiss. However, unlike in Lifeforce, where a CGI effect is used to show the transfer of energy, the only visible sign we are shown is a trickle of blood from the victims mouth. Third, the vampires are really never shown, undead and in the flesh, so to speak, until the last act of the movie. Pay attention to the given family name. Hmm. I wonder what trilogy Hammer might have been planning to link this movie with? Shame no further movies were made so we could find out.

Moral: Pretty peasant girls shouldn’t let strangers kiss them?

Kronos is a tale of swashbuckling adventure in a mundane post Renaissance world where lurking supernatural horrors stalk the living. Which means for any single role-playing game to capture the full scope of the style of this Hammer Horror it needs stylish rules for swashbuckling action, the ability to convey a proper sense of the unusual through a creature crucible stocked with ample supernatural creatures, and to deliver a set of rules suitable for melodramatic occult adventure. So is there a perfect single game out there for Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter? Probably not. Though the first game that comes to mind that may be easiest to adapt to the general theme is Ravenloft.

However Ravenloft is a setting unto itself with a slightly different approach. Atill it also has, or had, a very large base of supporting supplements. Alas many of the original supplements are OOP. Which means we‘ll need to find not just a RPG with a solid set of core rules but also healthy supplementary support. The two main RPG rule sets with this scope of support that spring to mind are GURPS and D20.

GURPS is one of the few generic universal role-playing systems on the market with a broad supporting product line. The main books of concern here will, of course, be the basic set and GURPS Fantasy. Either of which should be a good base upon which to build a game centered on the world of Captain Kronos. However, in addition to the GURPS basic set, world books like GURPS Swashbucklers, GURPS Horror, GURPS Dark Places, GURPS Undead, or GURPS Age of Napoleon may be required to fully flesh out the setting. That’s quite a lot of books to track down.

But is D20 any better?

Technically the core of the D20 rules can be obtained free, whereas the above only offers a bare bone GURPS Lite, but the SRD really exists solely to get people to want to either develop third party product for, or buy, the Dungeons & Drangons core rules. That is the facts of the D20 marketing scheme. Problem is D&D is designed for high fantasy play in worlds of sword and sorcery. That means D20 similarly defaults to being a high fantasy rules set designed to simulate play in worlds of sword and sorcery. Not good as the world of Captain Kronos is simply that of 19^th century Europe with a bitter twist of the occult and paranormal. Thus perhaps something like Ars Magica or Chivalry and Sorcery would be a better place to start?

For a movie that was intended to kick off a new Hammer franchise, but did not do well at the box office at the time, this is a surprisingly good movie. So much so that many will feel it is sad that the swashbuckling adventures of this heroic vampire hunter became merely one more in a long list of could have been but never were movie franchises. Not that this stopped John Carpenter or the producers of Van Helsing from resurrecting the basic idea. Then again ideas are a dime a dozen. It’s the story and acting that counts.

Overall Kronos has a very good suspenseful build to the final act containing a unexpected plot twist that, once revealed, if you were like me when you first saw it years ago, you‘ll be shaking your head at missing the subtle clues. Though to be honest the movie has a slow to plodding start. It’s almost as if the director couldn’t decide what direction he wanted to go; action adventure or suspense filled drama? The movie is a little of both and sadly lacking in Hammer’s usual titillation. An effort is made but, in this reviewer’s opinion, it’s mediocre at best. Otherwise the video quality is very good, not quite superb, but probably better than anything released to VHS.

Rating: 7 ½ out of 10 golden apples.

Perspective: Released in 1973 this costume swashbuckler is a product of Hammer Studios declining years. Compare this with Hammer’s equally atmospheric Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires, another technical box office flop from 1974, and it’s obvious that Hammer’s unique style and cinematic vision had run aground on the sandbar of the fast changing times. The 70s were a decade of transition, mores were looser, and the sexual revolution was in full swing, thus leading to an upsurge in the acceptance, however brief, of exploitation cinema and sleaze. Especially in the now all but extinct drive-in theatres. While such movies had been around since the late sixties it would take the seventies to give their tarnished directors wind to raise full sail and cruise heedless onto the shoals of experimental counterculture Z-grade filmmaking. Also, FYI, the progressive evil of disco was descending upon an unsuspecting world.

Indeed the 70s produced a cornucopia of low budget B-movies and unique exploitation films that we’ll never see the like of again such as Blackenstein, Zardoz, Switchblade Sisters, The Gore Gore Girls, Foxy Brown, Caged Heat, Saló , Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill!, the Ilsa quadrology, a host of Emmanuelle movies (including dozens of knock-offs using variant spellings of the title character‘s name), and Deep Throat. The latter of which actually played to acclaim in some mainstream theatres! Looking back it would appear that Hammer’s traditional costume epics could scarcely feed audiences salacious hunger for seventies sexploitation sinema. Then again the seventies weren’t all about sex, drugs, and rock and roll. Witness the 1977 blockbuster Star Wars.

Life is all about cycles. This is never more evident than in the film industry where one chance hit sees dozens of imitations released for years to come. Which is what makes Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter such a great movie, within it you can see shadows of things to come. Alas, in the end, despite everything that Hammer studios might have been there was very little innovation in the last few films the studio produced. Sadly all good things must come to an end though the influences of these films, and the actors that starred in them, lives on. Remember that film, Star Wars, mentioned above? It had a Hammer alumni playing one of the heavies, as does the new trilogy.

Negatives: There‘s not a lot of extras, not even trailers for other Paramount titles. Considering Paramount is a major commercial studio with a plethora of titles to push this omission struck me as odd. Too, the DVD cover art is rather dull and has the look of a quickie photoshop hack job. Seriously, I almost didn’t notice the DVD when I first saw it on the shelf. The art here just was not designed to grab the eye and is just sort of there. Like a flat tire. What’s worse no where on the cover or spine does bold font appear proclaiming this to be a “Hammer” title.

Positives: Good picture quality. Interesting story. Perfectly suited to Halloween themed movie nights.

Availability: This title was put out by Paramount so it should be available in most, if not all, video stores.

A PDF version of this review complete with screen captures can be found here.

Coming soon: Web of the Spider!