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nTitle: Blood for Dracula (1974)
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nDirector: Paul Morrissey
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nCast: Udo Kier, Joe Dallesandro, Vittorio De Sica
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nDuring the 60’s and 70’s Andy Warhol was one of the biggestnnames in pop art, he was a rock start of the art scene. Warhol was a creative tour de force, one ofnthe many offshoots of his art was film, he directed over 60 films and some 500nblack and white short films. Some of the more amusing ones I can mention arenVinyl (1965), which was an early adaptation of Anthony Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange, and Batman Dracula (1964),na short film Warhol did without the permission of DC Comics which paid tributento the famous comic book characters! I bet you didn’t know Warhol had done that! Warhol’snfilms were sexually charged, including graphic sexual acts, drug use,ntransgender characters, homosexuality; basically, the dude didn’t care fornconservative views. He wanted to shake things up! Some of the films were reallyntrippy and experimental stuff like for example his first film was called Sleepn(1963), it consisted of six hours of a poet named John Giorno, sleeping. He also made another film callednBlow Job (1964) which consisted of 35 minutes focused on the face of someone receivingnoral sex. So anyhow, sometimes he’d show these movies to the world in artnexhibits, porn theaters or nightclubs because regular theaters wouldn’t darenshow them. Since his films were considered “socially unacceptable” ornoffensive, well, theaters would get raided, and cast members even arrested!
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nA pic from Andy Warhol’s Batman Dracula
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nThis was a crazy period in Warhol’s life, Warhol and hisnpals would get together in a studio of his called ‘The Factory’ where theynwould have orgies, take all sorts of drugs and make films and art together.nThat all ended on June 3, 1968 when a lady named Valerie Solana attempted tonmurder Warhol by shooting him in his own studio. After that life changingnevent, Warhol became more reclusive and entrepreneurial, one of his manynbusiness ventures included producing commercial films, two of these Warholnproduced films ended up being horror films: Flesh for Frankenstein (1973) andnthe film I’ll be talking about today, Blood for Dracula, also known as YoungnDracula. Warhol had nothing to do with the creative side of these films, henonly produced them, Paul Morrissey was the guy who directed them. Blood fornDracula is all about Dracula taking a trip to Italy in order to find a virginnhe can marry. In a nutshell, Dracula needs to drink the blood of a virgin or henwill die! So Count Dracula takes a trip to Italy, because according to Anton,nItalians are very religious people and are more inclined to have virgins inntheir families! Dracula tells his servant: “If you really were clever, Anton, younwould bring me a Virgin from Italy and I wouldn’t have to go!” Not a bad idea Dracula,nbut then we wouldn’t have a movie now would we?
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nI found Blood for Dracula entertaining for various reasons,nnumber one being that it felt like a Jean Rollin film because it mixesnbeautiful vistas and locations with nudity and gore. This is something I love aboutna lot of these low budget vampire films from the 70’s they always shot innbeautiful locations and real castles. In the case of Blood for Dracula,ndirector Paul Morrissey decided to shoot in Italy. Since it was Andy Warhol, annartist, who served as producer, the filmmakers were given the freedom to go totallynnuts and film whatever the hell they wanted, which was probably the reasonnBlood for Dracula was given an ‘X’ rating. It was cut down and edited a fewntimes when it was first shown in theaters, but thank the film gods we can nownsee the complete version of the film in all its sexually charged, blood soakednglory. I recommend the Criterion edition of this film, and the version releasednby Image films, because they are the most complete versions you can get outnthere, this way you’ll get all the gory goodness you’re supposed to get withnthis film.
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nNow, what makes Blood for Dracula a keeper? Well fornstarters it’s got this over the top performance from Udo Kier! Both Flesh fornFrankenstein (1973) and Blood for Dracula were career defining films for Kiernand now I can finally see why, this Dracula looks kind of weak and flimsy, he doesn’tnseem to pose much of a threat, yet slowly but surely he finds his way intonthese girls beds. A huge part of what makes this film entertaining is Kier, henis unintentionally funny. When he doesn’t get his blood fix, he goes into thesenhilarious fits, where his whole body shakes, you gotta see it to believe it. Whennhe drinks blood from a non-virgin, well, he starts to vomit all the blood henjust drank, and well, Kier plays it extremely over the top, it also makes for ancool visual. So yeah, this version of Dracula is kind of funny. You haven’tnlived until you hear Udo Kier screaming at the top of his lungs: “The blood ofnthese whores is killing me!” Funnier still is watching Dracula discuss social issuesnwith a communist/farm boy. This film reminded me a bit of Jean Rollin’s ThenLiving Dead Girl (1982) because it saved the best of its gory goodness for thenlast ten minutes, the gore is pretty impressive. But then again, Udo Kier wasnno stranger to gore and violence, one of the very first roles to put him on thenmap was an extremely violent film called Mark of the Devil (1970), that one wasnso gory they offered you barf bags at the door in case you suddenly wanted tonvomit mid picture!
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nLike a Jean Rollin film, Blood for Dracula has excessive amountsnof nudity and erotic scenes. The nudity is gratuitous, but since this film wasnproduced by Andy Warhol an artist known for graphic nudity in his own films, itnreally shouldn’t surprise anyone that Blood for Dracula has lot nudity in it,nin fact, I’m sure it was expected from film goers and used as a selling pointnby the studio. So what we got here is a sexy, erotic version of Dracula, whichnmakes perfect sense; eroticism has always been an element that permeates anyngood Dracula film. Dracula has always served as an allegory for male sexuality.nHe is often times played as this incredibly strong sexual presence that willnmelt the ladies away. With its overt sexuality and communist political views, Bloodnfor Dracula was a film that was fighting the status quo of things, a film tailornmade for members of the counter culture. Mario, the strapping young servant ofnthe house, is one of the characters used to push communist political views, henis disgusted by rich people and pretty much does whatever he wants even thoughnhe is a servant of the house. He has sex with all the ladies in the filmn(sometimes two at a time), thinks that rich people are trash and that socialismnis the future! Again, the dialog is hilarious, in one scene Mario is having anconversation in which one of the girls tells him that Dracula’s interested innmarrying a virgin and then he asks “So what’s he doing with you two whores?” Injust couldn’t help laughing at some of the bits of dialog and situations. Inguess we could say this is an unintentionally funny version of Dracula, but anlot of it has to do with Udo Kier and his performance, which is verynentertaining, he’s like this bitchy whiny version Dracula.
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nI see these Paul Morrissey/Andy Warhol horror films as anresponse to the success that the Hammer horror films were enjoying back in thosendays. Warhol simply saw a way of making some money. I gotta say the resultsnwere pretty entertaining and highly watchable! I have no idea if these filmsnwere successful or not, my guess is they weren’t because we didn’t see more ofnthem, but I would’ve loved to see Andy Warhol’s take on other monsters. ImaginenWarhol’s take on The Wolfman? With Kier as the Wolfman and Joe Dellesandro asnBen Talbot? Or Kier as The Mummy? Kier and Dellesandro could have easily beennto Warhol’s films what Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee were to Hammer Films,nbut alas, we only have the two horror films they produced, which is good enoughnfor me, these films are a fun watch and bonafide cult classics, highlynrecommended for a night of sexy silliness, Paul Morrissey style!
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nRating: 4 out of 5
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