Dracula in a Coffin (관 속의 드라큐라, GWANSOG-UI DEULAKYULA, 1982)

"Dracula in a Coffin" is 1982 Korean horror film, featuring an European or American actor as Dracula. This film is very notorious among the Horror movie fans in Korea or among the hilarious movie fans in Korea. This movie is so notorious that it is once mentioned as a funny trivia in Korean trivia themed TV show.

Despite of its notorious reputation, I am sure that this movie is not that bad, and it is not that hilarious. There were tons of bad movies in 70s and 80s of Korean film industry. I do not think this film is an extreme example. The problem is this movie is just relatively not very bad. What I am saying is: in place where there are tons of trashes, you can not smell one particular rotten fruit. But anyway you must not eat that fruit.

The most apparently unique thing in this movie is the movie makers of this movie casted an European or an American actor as Dracula. This is Korean film and non-Korean actor was very unique at that time. In other words, this means this is the movie about the actual original Dracula from Europe, and about Dracula coming to Korea, attacking Korean women. This sounded very ambitious at that time.

The actor who played Dracula was one who called "Ken Christopher". The last name, Christopher, often reminded people Christopher Lee at that time. Because Hammer horror films were really popular in Korea. And Christopher Lee was regarded as the best Dracula in the history. The movie marketing of this "Dracula in a Coffin" went like this: This is a movie featuring some Christopher guy, and he can be regarded as another Christopher Lee. After a while, there came some rumor like the guy who played Dracula in this movie is the new generation of Christopher Lee, and somebody began to say the guy in this movie was really good actor like Christopher Lee. Finally somebody started to say there was real Christopher Lee in this movie.

Today, there are a few theories about who this guy who played Dracula, called Ken Christopher was. Some document found from a newspaper archive says this guy is a French person. And some other people have their theory of this Ken Christopher is a random American soldier who were enjoying his funny kind of vacation from his American army base in Korea. Nobody knows the exact fact about who he really was, and how he could be a new Dracula in this notorious film.

The film naturally has its general bad points like usual bad movies. Editing is so bad that the scenes look like scenes not in one continuous film. Acting is bad, too. And the story dose not make sense and is very hard to understand what is happening. There are senseless love themed stories that are not even completed in the movie and  there are meaningless erotic scenes, which are not directed in really erotic way. There are so many things that break the integrated movie structure or the one structured story.

On the other hand, there are hilarious points. The face of Dracula is very not real and this makes audience excited in some way. And the only thing that Dracula can say in this movie is lousy noise that he makes when he attacks people. This means there is not even one complete meaningful line of actual words that this foreign actor could say. Another thing that you can enjoy in this film is the mind blowing logic of the battle against Dracula. In some scenes, Dracula is really strong and invincible. But in some other scenes, Dracula is really weak and dumb, that anybody can kill him.

The most well-known hilarious thing in this film is its fighting scene, which shows Buddhist monk like a Shaolin monk fighting against Dracula. They are doing some sorts of weird super natural power battle, like Jedi or something. And it dose not seem to be credible at all. Do you think introducing only one religion in the movie is a little unfair? Do not worry. This movie also contains a Catholic priest who wants to fight against Dracula.

I think this film must be affected from a Hong Kong film called "The Legend of 7 Golden Vampires". Because that Hong Kong film back in 70s also has its theme of Dracula attacking far oriental cities and is very hilarious, too. That film was also made because of the popularity of Hammer Horror films. In fact, in that Hong Kong film, there is real Peter Cushing. And lots of the film makers from Hammer worked together on that film.

One more thing. In the trailer of "Dracula in a Coffin", you can hear the narration guy saying "if you have not so strong heart, then please do not watch this film."