“Yes, black is beautiful!”

There have been some ill-advised pieces of nonsense reported on as part of this long-running survey of British horror cinema, but none quite so ill-advised as this travesty.

Vampira wastes what is a pretty stellar cast (for the time) on a horror/sex comedy that is neither horrific, funny, or particularly sexy (despite the presence of Nicky Henson in his 70s pomp and Linda Hayden’s resolute refusal to do up any of the buttons on her blouse during her limited time on-screen).

The jokes come thick and thicker. Dracula’s residence is candle-lit because the electricity has been turned off. He reads Playboy magazine for the jugular veins on display. Etc.

I’d suggest we’re talking Carry On levels of humour here (and in fact, hello Bernard Bresslaw), but they really aren’t that good. Yes, you read that right.

Anyhoo, the real Dracula (David Niven, yes really) has fallen on hard times and has opened his castle to the public as a Dracula theme park. Which is vaguely meta, but also doesn’t make much sense. Mark Williams (Henson) is a horror author who has booked Castle Dracula for the party to launch his latest book, and will be accompanied there by an assortment of “Playboy bunnies” (because boobs).

Speaking of boobs, here comes Linda Hayden and her performing blouse. And if that’s how people dressed in the early 70s, I’m surprised more didn’t catch their deaths. She’s a student with a variable eastern European accent and an attitude problem, who’s working at the castle. Dracula puts the bite on her to make her more compliant, but over-does it and turns her into a vampire (“At least her teeth will be realistic for our guests”).

He then welcomes his guests, there’s a bit of sexy talk around the dinner table (“Can you believe that organ? It’s giving me goosebumps!” says one wide-eyed bunny, about the musical accompaniment. “Yes, and big ones too!” comes the predictable reply).

So anyway, you may be thinking this sounds okay – a crappy example of 1970s cinema, trotting out a few recognisable character actors from the time – the kind of thing that has Bank Holiday Monday on ITV3 written all over it. But (and it’s a big but), did I mention the misguided “jokes” about race? Take that as your trigger warning, because although we’re not talking about any overt isms here, most of the film is given over to the kind of tired tropes wheeled out by middle-aged British white people who have never really interacted with black people, and think it’s perfectly okay to talk about woodpiles, playing cards, watermelons or outdated paint shades because they “don’t mean it really, it’s all a bit of fun, and it was alright back then, you never heard anyone complaining, did you?”, and then continue to use the word “coloured”, not vindictively but because they think that’s the correct term enlightened people use these days.

Dracula’s bride, Vampira, is currently ensconced in a Doctor Phibes-style crypt beneath the castle, and he is searching for the right kind of blood to bring her back to life. So he’s syphoning off the blood of his guests while they sleep and testing it out in his laboratory. One of the bunnies provides the right type, he gives it to Vampira, and hey-presto, she’s alive. And also black (cue double-take). Very.

“You don’t think the deep freeze wasn’t working, and she’s gone orf?” is the first of many statements about this situation that must have been a tad orf themselves, even in 1974.

Quite rightly, Vampira (Teresa Graves) is very taken with her new look and asks why she can’t stay this way.

“It’s a small town,” comes the reply. “People might talk”.

After an odd exchange between Dracula and his minion Maltravers (Peter Bayliss) about white socks in the laundry getting accidentally dyed and how to rectify this (me neither), they embark on a baffling quest to find the right blood to put Vampira right. This involves following the girls (and Mark) back to London.

Back in the big smoke after what is apparently some time away, we get another clue as to the demographic/thought processes of the writers, as Dracula surveys the foreign restaurants, sex clubs and piles of rubbish that strew the streets with the air of a man out of time who thinks it’s all gone to shit.

And then there’s a weird shift in tone as that shit gets real, seemingly out of nowhere. A mugger and would-be rapist attacks Carol Cleveland in a car park, and Dracula saves her by graphically stabbing the man in the foot. He lets her go, though (eh?), and the next time we see him, he’s buying a house from Frank Thornton. From Monty Python to Are You Being Served in one bound. The house has a dark history, which means it’s exactly what Dracula is looking for.

He takes Vampira to the “talkies”, and eschewing quality cinema like Climax or Snow White And The Seven Perverts, she chooses a Blacksploitation film, and comes out spouting lines like “You could really be a groovy old dude!” and “You jive turkey!”

So, on one side of the film we have this eyes-to-the-ceiling nonsense, which surely must have seemed a tad out-of-step with the times, even in 1974 (he repeated). Then on the other side, we have Nicky Henson’s sexy shenanigans, which history has shown us was very much in-step with the times. When he’s not trying to sleep with the girls’ chaperone, Angela (Jenny Linden, who of course starts off the film as a glasses-wearing “frump” and ends up a sexy as the rest of the female cast), he’s indulging in an Austin Powers-style photo-shoot with the Playmates, or chatting up Vampira. There’s a very real danger that he’s going to do himself an injury if he carries on Carrying On like that.

Mark ends up under the control of Dracula (because hypnotism), and it’s worth pointing out here that despite everything, Niven comes across as an absolutely lovely bloke throughout. But back to the plot, such as it is. Dracula has hypnotised Mark to do his bidding to collect the blood using fake vampire teeth and a drug, which seems overly complex and clearly the cue for shenanigans. The code word for said shenanigans is “vampire” (of course), and afterwards, Mark remembers nothing.

As he and his fake fangs work their way through the Playmates, Angela gets kidnapped and things get more and more farcical (literally) from that point onwards, with hypnosis not working properly, teeth getting swapped, dumb waiters being employed and LOTS of dancing.

There’s an attempt at tension towards the end as Angela faces a spot of mild peril, before the film’s piece-de-resistance, when Dracula’s plans backfire, or to put it another way, blackfire. I think you can probably guess where they went. Yes, they did.

“What can I do? Where can I go?” asks a changed Dracula. “Well sir,” comes the answer, “It’s carnival time in Rio…”

I dunno, maybe I’m being overly prissy here? Maybe Vampira is, as suggested by its American re-titling as “Old Dracula”, in fact a clever anti-racist statement a-la Mel Brookes’ output of the time?

I’ve just taken a moment to re-think, and the answer’s no. It’s a stupid film with one of the most ill-conceived endings I think I’ve witnessed. Don’t get me wrong, the people in it are doing their best, and it’s absolutely stacked with recognisable horror and comedy faces. But even that can’t save it.