Attendees at a horror-film convention in San Francisco keep disappearing. It turns out that the guest of honor is a real vampire, and his henchmen are kidnapping the convention guests.
Attendees at a horror-film convention in San Francisco keep disappearing. It turns out that the guest of honor is a real vampire, and his henchmen are kidnapping the convention guests. A horror writer, a Sherlock Holmes fan and an Israeli Nazi-hunter set out to stop him.—Anonymous
Horror film enthusiasts -- Professor and mystery novelist WinslowSeabrook [Dan Caldwell], fashion coordinator Cindy O'Flaherty [Barrie Youngfellow], and amateur sleuth Phillip "Scotty" Scott [ John Cochran] --have organized the 1st Annual San Francisco Horrorcon tobe held at the Palace Theater. In advance of the actual convention, theyvisit the theater to prepare for the arrival of the guest celebrity,Hollywood's top box-office horror star, Malakai [Jerry Walter], reknown for his roles asthe vampire in the immensely-popular "Fangs Over London," "The ZaroffDoom," "Nightmare in Blood," and "The Crypt Ran Red." Malakai is one ofthose actors who lives his part, sleeping in a coffin during the day andmaking appearances only at night, but he sure draws in the box-officemoney, $10 million and counting.
Joining the organizers are SCotty's fiancee Barbara Castle [Yvonne Young]; KTVU'shost of "Fright Flicks," George Wilson [Morgan Upton], who plans to pitt ProfessorSeabrook against psychologist Dr Karl Unworth [Justin Bishop], who feels that horrormovies and Malachi have contributed to the deterioration of the young mindand who has expounded his theory in a book _Rape of the Young Mind_;Wilson's cameraman, Harry Marsdon [Stan Ritchie]; and Malakai's publicity agents, Harris[Hy Pyke] and Billy "B.B." Boyd [Ray K. Goman], whose job it is to ensure that the strict rules ofMalakai's contract are followed to the letter, e.g., making Cindy removethe crucifix she wears around her neck, and to take pictures of theorganizers and their friends.
A black hearse delivers Malakai's coffin, with him in it. AfterMalakai has signed autographs for his groupies and viewed hisaccomodations, Harris and B.B. lead him down to a secret subterraneanlaboratory where it becomes apparent that the three of them have nefariousintentions. They busy themselves hanging photos of the Con coordinatorsand their acquaintances. Interestingly, one of the photos they take downis of a Palace employee who was murdered just yesterday by Harris and B.B.[shown in the opening sequences]. Harris tosses a cleaver at the photos,and it lands on Barbara Castle. Later that evening, they go over toBarbara's European Health Spa and slit her neck while she's swimming inthe pool [think "Cat People"].
Meanwhile, the Horrorcon organizers -- Seabrook, Cindy, andScotty -- visit comic store owner Gary Arlington [Drew Eshelman], who has agreed to decoratethe theater for the Con. A bit later, Seabrook appears on "Fright Flicks"[the actual set used on "Creature Features"] and, as Wilson planned, sparswith Dr Unworth. To everyone's surprise, Malakai suddenly shows up on theset and tonguelashes both Dr Unworth for his views about horror movies andhost George Wilson for his tongue-in-cheek or, as Malakai puts it,slap-in-the-face portrayals of the horror genre. Around midnight, Cindygoes to Barbara's spa for a late night swim and finds her dead in thewater. Cindy notices a bearded man coming out of the spa, assumes that heis the killer, and runs off screaming.
He's not the killer. He is Tobias Ben-Halik [Irving Israel]. Malakai, Harris, andB.B. know him as "The Avenger," and he's been after them for the past 25years. They intend to kill Ben-Halik, too, but in the meantime they mustmake another selection (i.e., choose another victim). They need the bloodand certain internal organs from six people in order to brew up a potionevery two years that makes Harris and B.B. immortal. (Malakai is alreadyimmortal, so he just drinks the blood.) They have two victims now (thetheater employee and Barbara Castle), so they need four more. Next victimas determined by cleavertoss is going to be Harry Marsdon, George Wilson'scameraman. They kill Marsdon while he's playing a round of golf.
Seabrook and Scotty are beginning to suspect that Harris and B.B.aren't just publicity men. First, they are caught paying for a coffee withan 1824 sixpence. Then, Scotty overhears them talking about "Surgeon'sSquare" and does a bit of research. He discovers that there was aSurgeon's Square in Edinbourough where an anatomist, Dr Robert Knox,received freshly-killed human bodies from bodysnatchers Bill Burke (B.B.?)and Hare (Harris?) in the 1820s. Burke was ultimately executed, but Harrisdisappeared and was never heard from again.
Ben-Halik breaks into the theater and tries to open Malakai's coffin.Seabrook et al catch him and have him carted off to a mental hospital.Cindy sees Ben-Halik being taken away in the ambulance and recognizes himas the man she saw running away after Barbara's murder. Scotty doesn'tbelieve that Ben-Halik is Barbara's murderer and goes to visit him in thehospital. Ben-Halik tells him how, in his work as a nazi hunter, he firstcame across Malakai, who carried out his experiments among the Jews inHilter's death camps. However, as evidence mounted (posters from as longago as the 1800s, all featuring drawings of Malakai using anagrams of hisname [think Carmilla or Roman Castevet], Ben-Halik came to realize that Malakai was actually a vampire andhad been preying upon humans for the past several hundred years.
Scotty helps break Ben-Halik out of the hospital and just in time,too. B.B. and Harris are on Ben-Halik's trail. But first they have to killGeorge Wilson, and then Dr Unworth. All totalled and including a custodianthat Malakai killed, they now have the six bodies they need for Malakai tobrew up his immortality formula, which he injects into both B.B. andHarris.
Seabrook, Scotty, Cindy, Gary, and Ben-Halik -- united as a vampirehunting team -- go looking for Malakai. No sign of him backstage, no signin the auditorium, so let's split up and search. Armed with stakes,Seabrook and Cindy look around the backstage area, Scotty and Gary takethe basement, and Ben-Halik will check the front part of the building.Seabrook and Cindy encounter B.B. hiding behind a curtain, but when theytry to shoot him, he gets back up. "He's immortal, so guns aren't going towork," Seabrook reasons. They decide to electrocute him just like JamesArness was cooked in the 1951 version of "The Thing." Luckily, Seabrookremembers an electric cable along the floor. They pick it up and, whenB.B. comes after them with a knife, they zap him [think 4th of Julysparklers]. Bye bye B.B. In the basement, Scotty and Gary find thelaboratory and begin to smash all the equipment. When Harris comes afterthem with a meat cleaver, they shoot him. Like B.B., Harris gets back up.Scotty runs him through with a pole and dumps sulfuric acid on him. Boohoo, Harris.
Ben-Halik, after having checked the front part of the building,decides to check Malakai's coffin. He lifts the lid to find Unworth'sbody. Malakai sneaks up from behind and grabs him. Ben-Halik shootsMalakai but it does no good, of course. Malakai bites him in the neck, butBen-Halik is able to slap a star of David pendant on Malakai's forehead,which burns his skin, while each of the vampire hunters take turnsthrusting a stake through his body. The vampire and his ghouls are dead.Unfortunately, so is Ben-Halik.
Epilogue: It is opening night of the Horrorcon. Cindy straightensSeabrook's tie, and Seabrook walks out on the stage where he gives arousing speech about how we all love horror in novels, film, and comicsbecause we know that these creatures do not exist. But they DO exist, heassures the audience, and we must band together to fight them.Beware the monsters. They walk among us. [Original Synopsis by bj_kuehl.]
