DVD Count Yorga, Vampire

More amazing is the fact that, three years later, Hammer Films couldn't as successfully pull off the same feat with its "Satanic Rites of Dracula," complete with all time horror greats Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing, and, presumably, a much larger budget.

The film opens during a then-trendy seance with Robert Quarry playing suave, arrogant Count Yorga--a sort of dilletante who wears a cape, is twenty something years older than his hosts, and probably was the sort that hung around those sorts of early adulthood gatherings during the seventies because he wanted to slide up to some young body(ies). In this case, however, sex isn't on the older mans mind--his interest lay (as it were) in leaving his mark--two of them, to be precise--right in the neck.

The film's credit must go in large part to veteran actor Robert Quarry, whose performance as the Count was wonderful, and to Bill Butler (cinematographer) and Bob Kelljan (director)...The rest are merely bit (as it were!) players...

Great fun throughout and, although a bit choppy at times, holds its own even thirty years later.

The movie starts off with a scene of a large cargo ship sitting at a dock off some California coast, and a large, coffin shaped crate being loaded on a truck. As the truck drives away, we are treated to voice over that sounds like a mix between Ricardo Montalban and Harvey Fierstein talking about the vampire mythos. The truck continues until it comes to a secluded driveway with a large gate.

Next we go to a séance in progress, being conducted by Count Yorga, who, if you're familiar with the title of the movie, is a vampire. He ends up secretly putting the whammy on one of the women present, and then gets a ride home from a couple in their VW minibus...I have to say, it was kind of funny seeing this young couple and the aristocratic Eastern European (we learn that the Count came to America from Bulgaria) and very sophisticated Count crammed into the front bench seat of a minibus. Anyway, the couple drops the Count off after declining his offer to come into his home, and they get stuck in some mud along the Count's long driveway. This starts a five-minute discussion about mud. Where did the mud come from? How did we miss it come in? How come the rest of the ground is dry? Blah, blah, blah...it's scenes like this that really dragged this movie down. I guess, among the Count's other supernatural powers, creating wind and lighting, manipulating objects with his mind, mind control over animals and humans, super natural strength, he can also create mud. After hearing a wolf howl, the couple decides not to trek back to the Count's house but to spend the night in the minibus, and after a little lovin' in the back of the van, they are soon visited by a dark stranger (two guesses who).

As the movie progresses, the Count takes a couple of women (Count Yorga needs women!) in the way vampires do, and the men begin to suspect something is wrong, and whatever it is, it's directly linked to Count Yorga. They start throwing around the theory of vampirism, with some willing to believe once offered proof, while others refuse to accept even the possibility as they think the idea is purely a work of fiction.

After much goofy dialogue, two of the men decide to take matters into their own hands and try to sneak into the castle and convince themselves that Count Yorga is a vampire. They take along a female character, as they fear to leave her alone (great idea, take her into the lair of a suspected vampire). If they are able to confirm that Count Yorga is a vampire, they intend to kill him, and their friends who have been turned, as there is no cure for bloodsucking other than a wooden stake in the heart...the last twenty minutes or so things the pace picks up pretty well, as the two men confront Count Yorga and his brides from hell. And how could I write a review about this movie without mentioning Brudah, the Count's mostly mute, brutish servant? Oh man, he is good for a few laughs...he walks around the entire movie looking like a transported cavemen in a bad sport coat and tie. I kept injecting my own lines for poor Brudah when he had none...I imagined when he spoke, each sentence would be preceded by his own name..."Brudah want woman"..."Brudah drive car"..."Brudah need shave"....

The dialog throughout the movie is rather clunky but oddly realistic at times. The actor playing Count Yorga, Robert Quarry, was the highlight of the movie, really getting into the part creating a truly believable and scary character. I vaguely recognized him, but then remembered seeing him in Dr. Phibes Rises Again (1972). The direction was passable, but got annoying at times, especially during scenes with conversation, as the director would make many needless cuts back and forth between characters, sometimes showing the back of a character who was speaking... there was some blood and one scene in particular, with a cat, that was pretty ugly. The one actor most will probably recognize in this film is Michael Murphy, who played the mayor in Batman Returns (1992) and has been in a few Woody Allen movies like Manhattan (1979) and The Front (1976). The scares were mostly of the cheap kind, things popping out at the viewer accompanied by a loud sound effect or startling music. The film has a 90-minute run time, but I thought some trimming would have been useful, and would have quickened the pace.

The presentation on this disc looks really great, and special features include a trailer for the film and a neat reproduction of the original movie poster on a little card on the inside of the case. Age hasn't been kind to this movie, as the dating is very apparent in the wardrobe and hairstyles of the various actors, but I think the movie is worth looking into if you are a horror movie fan, mainly for Quarry's performance. A sequel was released a couple of years later titled The Return of Count Yorga (1972).

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