TRACK #443:

Drac’s Back by Nightmare

Drac is back indeed, as we’re gonna wind down this Halloween season with a selection of hard and heavy Drac-Tracks that have been patiently waiting in the bullpen for their moment on the mound.

You know who else is back? Nightmare. That UK shock-rock band which debuted last season on the Shindig with Boogie Bogie-Man. From the same album, 1985’s Children of the Night, comes Drac’s Back.

This one is fairly short but it packs a frantic punch that’ll set our Dracula block rolling. It’s a rare Drac-Tracker that’s from Dracula’s perspective, with Drac waxing lyrically about needing blood, looking for women to bite, warning listeners and generally being just fun Rock ‘N Roll Dracula.

I haven’t talked much about the samples lately as a lot of them have been fairly self evident, but tonight’s epic lead-in comes from an absolutely awesome in-theater gimmick that preceded Dracula A.D. 1972 called Horroritual. Only a bootlegged version of it exists on the internet these days, and you can watch that here. There’s a record that was released at the time as well, which I assume is the pure audio, and I’m definitely on the look out for that, so one day I might update this track.

The Horroritual features a narrator instructing viewers to chant together to call Dracula back from the dead. Well, this shit works and a Dracula rises from his coffin. He implores viewers to join the Count Dracula Society via recitation of The Oath, where audience members swear allegiance to The Count Dracula Society.

It might sound phony, but The Count Dracula Society was a totally real thing. It was founded in ’62 by a guy named Donald Reed for, as this membership card states “the serious study of Horror films and Gothic literature.” Nice. Wonder if this bullshit I got goin’ here could have net me an honorary membership.

The Society lasted until, well almost exactly after this movie, when it turned into The Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror Films. If you’ve ever seen a movie claim a Saturn Award on it’s video cassette, those were the guy’s handing ’em out.

Another interesting piece of trivia from The Horroritual; the vampire is played by Barry Atwater, who the very same year played another vampire in the Dan Curtis helmed and Richard Matheson penned TV movie The Night Stalker. This show, as I’m sure I needn’t tell someone reading this, jump started the hugely popular and influential television show Kolchak: The Night Stalker.

But enough about the 48 seconds before this song starts, here’s the tune. Let’s welcome back Dracula once again to The Shindig for another blood sucking block, with Nightmare’s Drac’s Back.