Wanted: Undead or Alive (2)
Billy the Kid and the Green Baize Vampire
This past weekend, Cinema Year Zero provided programme notes for a double bill screening of two cowboy vs vampire films. Presented at The Cinema Museum by programmers Kit Ramsay and Jack Higgins, Wanted: Undead or Alive paired Billy the Kid Vs Dracula (1966) with Billy the Kid and the Green Baize Vampire (1986), the latter playing on a pristine 35mm print.
Below, it’s Blaise on Baize: Blaise Radley tackles Billy the Kid and the Green Baize Vampire. We published Ben Flanagan on Billy the Kid Vs Dracula here.
Billy the Kid and the Green Baize Vampire (1985, Alan Clarke)
Britain might not be able to lay claim to many aesthetic sensibilities, but camp is certainly one of them (not to be confused with its boisterous US equivalent, schlock). You can find it in Ealing Studios, Hammer Horror, and Doctor Who serials; in the Carry On films and Rocky Horror (1975). Yet, in recent years it’s been pushed to the cultural peripheries, limited to drag shows, local pantomime, and, occasionally, Inside No. 9 (2014-2024). Indeed, it’s hard to imagine a modern British auteur, except perhaps Peter Strickland, risking their reputation on a style so out of fashion—let alone on something as offbeat and tasteless as Alan Clarke’s wonderful snooker vampire rock opera, Billy the Kid and the Green Baize Vampire (1985).
