A master swordsman and former soldier and his hunchbacked assistant hunt vampires.
Vampire hunter and expert swordsman Kronos finds himself in a small village where several of the local young women have been found in an advanced state of age, their youth drained from them by a vampire's kiss. Kronos' search leads him to the Durward estate where he is met by the effete children of the apparently aged and sick Lady Durward.—Doug Sederberg <[email protected]>
Young girls are literally being drained of their youth, so Dr Marcus [John Carson] sends for professional vampire hunter Captain Kronos [Horst Janson] who brings along his hunchbacked assistant Professor Hieronymous Grost [John Cater] and Carla [Caroline Munro], a girl they saved from a stockade. After investigating the most recent murder, Kronos and the Professor stop at an inn along the way where a wiseass named Kerro [Ian Hendry] insults the hunchbacked professor and draws a sword on Kronos. In lightning speed, Kronos shows his skill with the sword (NOTE: cool scene).
Meanwhile, Dr Marcus goes to visit the Durward mansion where brother Paul [Shane Briant] and sister Sara [Lois Daine] live with Lady Durward [Wanda Ventham], their grieving mother who has been brooding since the death of her husband from a disease once treated by Dr Marcus. Riding away from the Durward mansion, Marcus meets up with a cloaked figure. Shortly thereafter, Marcus begins to turn vampire. Kronos tries to kill Marcus by staking and then hanging. No dice until Marcus is pierced by a small cross made of steel. Prof Grost fashions a steel sword with a cross handle, and he and Kronos go back into the words to search for the vampire. A coach goes by. Grost tosses a dead toad under the coach. After the coach passes over it, the toad is alive, proof that a vampire is in the Durward coach.
Posing as bait, Carla wanders up to the Durward mansion and requests shelter. Later, as she lies on a couch before the fireplace, she is approached by a woman who mesmerizes her. It is Lady Durward, who reveals that she is Karnstein by birth and that Lord Durward [William Hobbs] has been reawakened. Lady Durward offers Carla to him. Fortunately, Kronos enters the room and deflects Lady Durward's gaze, mesmerizing her instead. As everyone stands around mesmerized, Lord Durward and Kronos sword fight. Kronos drops his cross, but the professor tosses it to him in the nick of time. Lord Durward dies. Lady Durward attacks Kronos, but he kills her, too. In the end, Kronos and the professor ride off to go "anywhere, everywhere, wherever there is evil to be fought," leaving Carla behind. [Original synopsis by bj_kuehl]
