Blood For Dracula - Will's Review

When the Andy Warhol produced Flesh for Frankenstein came in under time and under budget. The same cast and crew (and remaining money) were utilised to produce this follow-up, which attempts to give a similar off-kilter treatment to the worlds most famous vampire.



In this version, the Count (Udo Kier) can only sustain himself by drinking the blood of virgins (pronounced 'wirgins').

The last if his family (save his sister, who is on her last legs) Dracula tavels to Italy on the advise of his manservant; believing that a catholic country will be a good place to find a wirgin who's family won't have geared of his own, and will therefore be happy to marry her off to a titled Romanian such as himself.

Sadly, the film fails on almost every level - it's predecessor was by no means a masterpiece, but this one isn't mad enough to coast by on insanity the way Flesh did.

It tries bless it, Dracula soon happens upon a once well-to-do family who have fallen on hard times, who are eager to get one of their 4 daughters married off; sadly (for the Count) the family only consider two of the daughters to be 'eligible'; unbeknownst to the parents, those two daughters are both having regular sex with the gardener (Joe Dallesandro who played a similar roll in Frankenstein) and occasionally each other.

I have a love/hate relationship with Dracula movies that change the rules, although here the rule changes are interesting; Dracula seemingly needs to eat food, although it doesn't keep him immortal, and any meat must be from virgin animals. Only the blood of a virgin human can restore his youth; without it he will age and die. When he drinks from a Virgin she will become a vampire, a non virgin will make him ill, and fall under his control (although not become a vampire). There's also an interesting opening scene in which Dracula, visibly aged and sick looking, applies made-up and hair die to hide his condition; Something I would have liked to see recur throughout the move, sadly it did not.

Ultimately, aside from the interesting mythology changes, and Udo Kier's wild overacting, this movie has nothing going for it. While FfF's particular brand of craziness was almost enough to make up for the lack of quality, I feel that the rushed nature of this effort shines through, and the silliness is just not well done enough to forgive the flaws.