Blood
for Dracula
AKA: Young Dracula, Andy Warhols Young Dracula, Dracula, Andy Warhol's
Dracula
France/Italy 1974, color 103 min. |
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Director |
Paul Morrissey |
Producer |
Andrew Braunsberg |
Photography |
Luigi
Kuveiller |
Music |
Claudio
Gizzi |
Screenplay |
Paul
Morrissey |
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Udo
Kier |
Dracula |
Arno
Juerging |
Anton |
Joe
Dallesandro |
Mario
Balato |
Maxime
de la Falaise |
Comtessa
di Fiori |
Vittoria
de Sica |
Count
di Fiori |
Milena
Vukotic |
Esmeralda |
Stefani
Casini |
Rubinia |
Dominique
Darel |
Saphira |
Silvia
Dionisio |
Perla |
The
Dracula Clan is experiencing great difficulties, as they urgently
need virgin blood to keep up their vampire existence. Morrisseys
somehow weird vampires cannot digest the blood of sexually experienced
women. The problem is that virgins have become rare in Rumania of
the 20th century this being the reason why Count Dracula, the last
of his kind after the "death" of his beloved sister, and
his assistant Anton decide to travel to Italy, where people are
said to be very religious and the fair sex is brought up in chastity.
What a false reasoning!
Dracula,
who by the way, once more walks around in bright daylight (or respectively
rolls around in is wheelchair when he is too weakened), takes crucifixes
off the walls by himself, eats vegetarian food and even drinks wine
is warmly welcomed by the family of the Count di Fiori. Being impoverished
aristocrats they consider Dracula a potential rich husband in accordance
with their rank for one of their four daughters. The pretended big
spender is surely up to something completely different. But we all
know this: when times are bad, it always gets worse.
The
two Fiori daughters Saphira as Rubinia assure the count that they
are still virgins, whereupon Dracula greedily sets on them. But
this time he had back luck, both of them having for a long time
experienced the exchange of body fluids with the sexy servant Mario,
a devoted socialist, who from the very beginning is suspicious towards
Dracula. After having consumed the "impure" blood the
poor vampire who has already suffered so much has to puke as hell.
Left in a weakened condition there's only the 14 year old Perla
left for supper, but also in this case Mario has been faster, deflowering
Perla for the sake of her own protection. He has long ago seen through
Dracula's real character and hunts him with down with ax and pale.
In the Grande finale first Dracula's servant Anton dies, followed
by the Comtessa Di Fiori, then it's Esmeralda's turn and in the
end the Count himself encounters his death, after having been dismembered
with an ax (in a scene that very much reminds us of "Monty
Python's Holy Grail") before the pale is being rammed in his
heart. Note: we have just witnesses a scene of profound symbolism:
It's the victory of the working class over the noble blood sucker.
The
reviewer shouts out in dismay: rubbish, nonsense of the worst kind!
This
is surely one of the most unusual movies bearing the name "Dracula"
in its title (and we mean unusual not in the positive sense) next
to another name being Andy Warhol. Well - the only thing Warhol
had to do with this movie was giving the authorization to use his
name in its title, quite different from the predecessor "Andy
Warhol's Frankenstein", also put in scene by Factory film maker
Paul Morissey with Udo Kier and Joe Dallessandro in the leads, where
Warhol was still the executive producer. The funny thing is that
the shooting for "Andy Warhol's Dracula" was started the
very day "Frankenstein" was completed, crew and cast being
nearly the same. Well, the motivation was great but the budget was
low. There's rumors saying that co-director Anthony M. Dawson, took
over the responsibility for the staging, which seems quite possible
when you have a closer look at the style and make of this cocktail
of sex and violence.
If the one or other who has watched this movie is now wondering
Sex? Violence? it has to be said that there's different more or
less cut version of this movie, some of them being completely soft.
Sure,
there's one or two original ideas. Udo Kier is doing a great job
when playing his role as Count Dracula (by the way: he's the only
one in this movie) and it's quite sad that he has fewer scenes than
the bare behind of Joe Dallessandro, a beaux and wanna-be-actor
coming from the Warhol surroundings, which is quite characteristic
for this movie. Even if this might sound quite trashy, the movie
is not at all as entertaining as it appears. And today the movie
isn't as "provocative" and "shocking" as it
might have been in the 70s anymore - the only shocking thing is
how Morrissey deformed Bram Stokers themes.
If
anybody still feels the urge to watch this movie he should watch
the original English version and enjoy the funny accents of the
actors.
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