Customer Reviews

Andy Warhol's Dracula [VHS]

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

The strength of this otherwise unfortunate movie is Udo Kier's sterling portrayal of Count Dracula. Envision, if you will, Count Dracula sitting lethargically before a baroque vanity mirror, generously painting black dye over his hoary white hair with a brush large enough to swipe a gutter. This chilling, haunting, otherworldly scene sets the tone for all that follows. Faced with doom and obscurity, Dracula must leave his moribund abode and embark on a secret quest to secure the wirgin blood required to maintain his eternal existence. He must lamentably say farewell to his sister, and then board the family car with chauffeur/evil toady Anton for a lengthy road trip.

Operation: 'Wirgin Blood' has now begun.

Eventually Dracula is directed to a large estate, where an aged farmer has in his care a whole stable of absolutely hideous daughters. (It should be mentioned that this film's continuity is backwards or inverted, not unlike that of the Crime Syndicate of Amerika; e.g.: hideous daughters are super-hot; Count Dracula, Prince of Darkness, is powerless; the movie's hero is a lowlife Communist/rapist.) The father invites Dracula into his once-lavish home, and proudly confirms the fact that all of his daughters are in fact good, wholesome, corn-fed wirgins. Count Dracula begins to stalk his prey one by one...

How does the 'Udo Kier' Dracula differ from the conceptual Dracula?

(A) 'Udo' Dracula not only lacks superhuman strength and reflexes, but lacks even the vigor required to fight a frail wine-addled captive wirgin into submission.

(B) 'Udo' Dracula has no demonic powers such as augmented senses, shapeshifting or unnatural magnetism; quite in fact the wirgins are repulsed by 'Udo' Dracula and they mock him behind his back.

(C) 'Udo' Dracula not only lacks a vampire's powers, but is also vulnerable to any ordinary attack or weapon. You could kill 'Udo' Dracula with a compass, a tire iron, or even a stale loaf of bread if you pummeled him enough times.

When Dracula fails in seducing trying to seduce the wirgins, he changes tactics and tries to overpower them physically. Eventually, one of the daughters contemptuously submits to him, and only after biting her and drinking her blood does the horrified Dracula realize that the girl's wirgin blood is NOT in fact wirgin blood! Dracula is forced to vomit the blood into the bathtub, heaving and gurgling as he indiscriminately curses the rodent-like Anton.

Enter the hero: a decidedly non-Van Helsing-like stable boy---a slouching, foul-mouthed, malingering lowlife who balances his time between assaulting the farmer's daughters and spewing pseudo-Communistic rhetoric. Operation: 'Wirgin Blood' is now compromised! Anton self-servingly betrays Dracula in an effort to save himself, and is killed. Ultimately Dracula fails in his quest and is attacked by the stable boy, the latter being armed with an old-fashioned wood axe. The stable boy begins chopping Dracula apart, limb by limb, while the Dracula runs like the wind, a hobbled armless creature with his evil cape streaming behind him. In the end, the stable boy whittles Dracula down to a head and torso.

Defiantly, the defeated Dracula enigmatically exclaims: "You fool, you can't kill me! I'm not one of you!" Form your own conclusion.

Short of the epic thriller Expose, aka The House on Straw Hill, this is probably the most enjoyable of the Udo Movies. Look for the upcoming sequel, Operation: Wirgin Blood vs. Plan 9 From Outer Space.

Different is what this movie is. I liked the movie for one, it dares to go off in directions the mainstream of film makers usually don't go. The second, I agreed with one reveiwer that you either like the film or you don't. The traditional Dracula plot is non-existent (He can only survive on the blood of virgins and for some reason there are none in his own home town). This movie is more of a parody and is fun to watch if you enjoy the unusual world of filmdom offerings. I would highly recomend this film in DVD format for the director commentaries and publicity stills included. Viewers should also be aware, this movie is not for the younger viewers, due to high explicit sexual content and nudity.

Blood for Dracula is an interesting take on the Dracula legend. Dracula is in this film, a weak, sickly, even depressed vampire. who seems to detest everything in life except for his faithful assistant. They travel to early twentieth century Italy from Romania, in search of "Wergins", so Dracula can feed. They settle in an aristrocratic mansion, where the Lord of the Manor has three sexy daughters, and a 14 year old girl as well. Also, a "fieldhand", who enjoys getting it on with the daughters. This character is misplaced in the film, and his contemporary Brooklyn accent, along with his poor acting skills dont help the film. There is also a disturbing scene where he rapes the 14 year old, in order to deny Dracula her virgin blood. Other than that, the film is a hit. It is high on erotisism, and the two better looking daughters spend much of the film naked, and all over each other or the fieldhand. The neck biting scenes are some of the finest on film, but poor Dracula, he cannot live on tainted blood! All in all, a good film, funny, bloody, and a little sad even.

If you have a good sense of humor you could laugh at parts of this film. Really only for the die-hard Andy Warhol/Morrissey fan, this film really focuses on the whole sexual side of the Dracula legend--graphically at some points. Good for a laugh.

When I see a film with "Andy Warhol Presents" near the title, I cringe. For the record, I think that a guy who paints pictures of Campbell soup cans and passes it off as satiric art deserves my scorn. Moreover, I think a society reveals its moral bankruptcy when it elevates an odd duck like Warhol and his acolytes into figures worthy of worship. My personal opinions about Warhol and his "Factory" caused me a good measure of turmoil after I watched Paul Morrissey's "Blood for Dracula." This campy retelling of the Dracula legend is, by all accounts, closely associated with Warhol's forays into various forms of media, so if I despise Warhol I must necessarily despise this picture. I can't make that leap, however, because I discovered much to my liking in this cheesy movie. Discovering that Criterion actually released this on DVD might well be the biggest shock of them all; anyone familiar with the home video market recognizes Criterion's reputation for releasing some of the finest films ever made. Oh, how I dislike these dilemmas!

"Blood for Dracula" opens with a pathetic Count Dracula lumbering through his musty castle in Romania. It's the early twentieth century, and Drac finally realizes that the good old days are long gone. Once upon a time, a hard working vampire with charm and a little money could easily woo plenty of young virgins and sup on their blood at leisure. Now with those pesky modern ideas, a gal just doesn't keep herself pure until marriage anymore. This causes the Count a lot of trouble, especially since he suffers violent spasms whenever he imbibes the blood of a deflowered youngster. This poor guy's starving to death until his personal servant Anton proposes a brilliant idea: why not move to Italy? Virgins abound in that sunny clime, assures the valet, because with the Catholic Church's influence in the region all of the girls assume a dignity sorely lacking in the bleak atmospheres of the East. With nothing to lose, the good Count agrees to leave his castle and head to Italy. Like most tourists, he's just looking for a good meal. The fact that the Count's car sports a wheelchair and coffin strapped to the roof doesn't faze these two travelers in the least. All one need say is that the coffin holds a loved one headed for burial in Italy.

Once Count Dracula and his assistant reach Italy, they quickly fall in with a decaying noble family with four lovely daughters. Now all the Count must do is find out which one is the virgin and his health will improve in direct proportion to the amount of blood he drains from her neck. The only problem with this plot concerns the nature of this family. None of the marriageable daughters possess virginal attributes. In fact, these young ladies are complete degenerates who spend most of their waking moments down at the handyman's cottage or in each other's arms. To further complicate matters, the handyman subscribes heart and soul to the doctrines of communism, and he definitely does not like the Count's aristocratic manners or the idea of one of his young conquests married off to this Romanian intruder. This young communist soon discovers the Count's secret and dispatches the vampire in a sufficiently gruesome manner.

"Blood for Dracula" assembles the necessities for a campy film: atrocious acting, cheesy gore, and laughable dialogue. Simultaneously, the movie contains lavish set pieces, good costumes, lots of nudity, and several nifty twists on the Dracula legend. Morrissey's film also throws in a charming musical score by Claudio Gizzi that seems out of place in such a trashy film. You would think this movie is high art after listening to the quaint sounds of piano washing over the menu screen, and you would be wrong. This production attains a high cheese content from the opening sequence to the closing credits. That doesn't mean the film dives for the gutter all of the time: the plot adroitly deals with European class issues through the characters of the Count and Mario, the commie handyman. Many of the erotic sequences include dialogue about the rich versus the poor, and the handyman's sexual power over the wealthy daughters hints at the triumph of the working class over the decadent rich.

The acting steals the show in "Blood for Dracula." I've watched thousands of films throughout my thirty odd years of existence, and I've rarely seen overacting reach these heights. Everyone's guilty here, but Udo Kier as Dracula, Joe Dallesandro as the handyman Mario, and Arno Juerging as Dracula's servant Anton are the most egregious offenders. Dallesandro gives a new meaning to the term "wooden," with facial expressions carved from granite and dialogue delivered in a Brooklyn accent totally out of place on an Italian estate. Udo Kier screams his lines in a German accent so over the top that my ribs hurt from the concussive blasts of laughter rocketing out of my mouth whenever he appeared on screen. Arno Juerging takes his accent one step further, if that's possible, with every utterance simmering with implied threat. Why are Dracula and Anton so angry all the time? Who knows, but it's hilarious to watch. Overkill is the name of the game in this film.

I chortled and guffawed through every scene in this movie. I went in expecting to hate "Blood for Dracula" and emerged with an excellent opinion of the proceedings. If you enjoy cheese as much as I do, you must pop this classic in the DVD player soon. Criterion throws in a commentary with Kier and Morrissey, a stills gallery set to the beautiful musical score, and a great transfer of the movie to conclude the package. I can't recommend it enough.

Some people may ask about the title of this review, and all I have to say is, watch the movie. Everything campy and cheesy is present here, including completely hammed up accents. While "Flesh For Frankenstien" felt more like a horror movie, this film comes off as something of a soft core porn romp with a character who only slightly resembles Dracula. Instead of the pure Mina we are given incestuos bi-sexual sisters. Instead of a noble Dracula, you get a whinny, sickly Dracula. And instead of the usual dashing hero you get a rapist with a thick Brooklyn accent. And on the subject of our hero. I have never wanted to kill the hero in any movie more than this guy. The actor, who appears to be a pet of Warhol's, does a decent job (he actually was much better in Flesh for Frankenstein) but is character is disgusting. He forces himself on at least three girls in the whole movie (numours times, as well as one being a 14 year old).

If it wasn't for the hero of the story I would have given this movie four stars, but as it is, well, it falls flat and to be honest, at times becomes nothing but a cheap 70's porn flick. I would suggest Flesh For Frankenstien over this one any day.

When I saw Warhols Frankenstein in the origianl 3-D (Still have the glasses) at the age of 15, snuck in. I was blown away. And now Blood For Dracula. This one is great too but in a suttle way. I was struck at how such an inexpensive film($340,000)could look and sound so good. The first thing I noticed was the great musical score, just loved it. And of course the photography was rich and handsome too. I knew this was a super cheesey film and boy was it great. If you know what you are getting into for 100 or so minutes then you will be delighted. But it is the accents that rule in this movie. Man I love this film. As a companion piece to Frankenstein it is grand. Great gore, soft core sex scenes and lots of butchered english dialogue make this one a keeper.

This review is for the Criterion Collection edition of the film.

This film, also recieved an X rating by the MPAA and was heavily cut for the R rated version.

The film is a loose and more modern adaptation of Bram Stoker's novel. In this version set in 1920's Europe, Dracula is dying. He must drink the blood of a female virgin to survive. Hhe is too well known in Romania to get close to any women and virgins are rare, so he and his servant drive to Italy as they believe the influence of the Roman church would encourage women to remain chaste. He then stays in the home of a family with 4 daughters. He interviews them, but they lie about being virgins and Dracula gets very sick from drinking their blood.

The film is violent and has several disturbing sex scenes in it.

The music in the film is very nice though and it seems unfit for a movie of this type.

The DVD special features include audio comnmentary and an 11 minute slide show of publicity photos with the excellent musical score in the backround.

Joe Dallesandro's surly Communist peasant answers his own question: "They had a revolution, that's all." He tells this to a pair of decadent Italian sisters in bed, between bouts of antagonistic, power-tripping sex. Meanwhile, Count Dracula (a moaning and groaning Udo Kier), in another wing of the house, is a guest under what turns out to be false pretenses: he's been lead to believe that Italy is full of virgins ("because of the Italian church," huffs his manservant) and that this old estate in particular has 4 juicy virgins to choose from. According to director Paul Morrissey, the fact that his Dracula can subsist ONLY on the blood of virgin girls proves how out-of-date his vampire is. (The story takes place in the 1920's -- "the beginning of the modern era", as Morrissey sniffs on the DVD's commentary.) That this traditional figure of evil is too "moral" for his modern, corrupt prey is a rather heavy-handed point, perhaps. (Certainly for the horror genre.) And the contrast between the sensitive Dracula and the rather vicious Communist gardener who works on the estate makes Morrissey seem like just another political spin doctor. Equating Communism with Dallesandro's rapist mentality in the movie is pretty easy for an American who's never had to live with Europe's unique social problems. This lack of subtlety in regards to its themes is why I don't think *Blood for Dracula* is quite as satisfactory as its sister production, *Flesh for Frankenstein*. *Dracula* was made right after *Frankenstein*, and the resultant deflating of energy and inspiration is obvious. But NOT deflated altogether. The re-imagining of the vampire myth is quite inventive: I LOVE the virgin-blood business, even though it leads to at least 2 scenes of Udo Kier vomiting up "impure" blood for minutes at a stretch. (But, as Kier points out in the commentary track, "Vomiting looks great if you're wearing a tuxedo.") This Dracula, LIKE THE ORIGINIAL IN THE BOOK, by the way, CAN stand sunlight -- Kier simply shields his face with his hat when he steps outside. And he doesn't shriek in horror at the presence of a crucifix: it merely leads him to hide the thing in a dresser-drawer, while pouting, "This room is TERRIBLE!" Indeed, our affection for Drac here is due mostly to the delightful Udo Kier.

A completely unique film which is many things at once: sometimes it is a biting parody of pretentious Italian neo-realist cinema, other times it presents thought-provoking social criticism and yet other times it is a raunchy, campy gross-out crowd pleaser. The music/montage is great, as is Paul Morrissey's and Udo Kier's commentary, the "restoration" quality varies but is dazzling compared to the grainy VHS release. You decide if it's art or schlock.