Count Yorga, Vampire

I was a bit surprised by this rather low budget 1970s incarnation of vampire films. That's because around this same time period, vampire films were getting a bit stale and silly--with too many Hammer Dracula films (the franchise was getting weaker due to so many sequels) as well as dumb films like OLD Dracula and the Blacula films (which weren't terrible, but they sure were silly). However, despite my fear that this would be another stale film, this one turned out to be better than average and well worth a look. While only a nut would compare this to the greatness of Dracula or NOSFERATU, it still is a decent example of the franchise.

Before talking about the plot, there was something odd I noticed and that was how sexy the film was and it looked, at times, like it was a soft-core porno movie. However, again and again when it looked like it was going that direction, the movie abruptly changed direction--sometimes as if scenes were edited out to make this a film for general viewing. I checked IMDb for this and was not at all surprised to find that this was indeed the case. For example, a lesbian sex scene seemed about to occur--then the scene just ended. In another case, a woman was wearing a very revealing nightgown and began a very torrid scene with Iorga (there were two spellings in the film) and this just ended as well. There was also a very gratuitous scene involving a couple making love in a van for absolutely no reason--but again, with creative editing you really didn't see anything! As a result, the film is still quite sexy--but also one you could probably still let your teens watch.

Iorga/Yorga lives in the Los Angeles area in a house that looks more like a castle than a house. Even in crazy L.A., this house was definitely out of place! The film begins with his having a séance with three couples and it's soon apparent that the Count has magical hypnotic powers. Soon, it also becomes rather obvious that the Count is a heterosexual vampire--with strong desires for the three women but only a desire to kill off the men.

Many elements are taken from Dracula--even including a Dr. Helsing-like character. Despite the familiarity, the decent acting and nice update of the old tale make this worth a look. Plus the performance by the guy playing the Count was pretty cool.

At the time this film was made, vampires were almost always slow and hypnotic. This was really the first vampire film that treated them as swift and animalistic. That made this film surprisingly effective. It was even more surprising since it was originally supposed to be a pornographic vampire film called THE LOVES OF COUNT IORGA. It is flawed, but I still think it is the most effective vampire film I have ever seen. And I have seen quite a few.

Not owning the rights to the Bram Stoker creation, AIP decided to invent their own vampire myth: the result is Dracula-in-all-but-name, being suave (sporting gracefully graying hair), cunning (even when caught off-guard, he manages to assert himself and turn the tables on interlopers), psychic (amusingly, he doubles as a medium at private séances!) and feral (his creepy dashes for prospective victims, seemingly out of nowhere, with blood-red eyes and arms outstretched actually gave me a jolt on a couple of occasions!). As played by Robert Quarry, he is quite creditable and effectively gave Christopher Lee (Hammer Film's Dracula incarnate) a run for his money.

Incidentally, he anticipated the other Count's transition to modern times by 2 years and actually managed it a whole lot better (with, thankfully, little resort to Camp). That said, in the attempt to look at the phenomenon with a contemporary mindset, we get a contradiction – people repeatedly scoff at the idea of vampirism in our age, claiming it is a fabrication of literature and cinema, which rather suggests that they are aware of what it entails…and, yet, they are still surprised at what should be its predictable outcome and are required besides to pore over ancient tomes in search of a way to fight it! Though the film was given the alternate title of THE LOVES OF COUNT IORGA, VAMPIRE {sic}, which is actually borne by the copy I watched (for the record, this had been shown on local TV in my childhood but I first caught it years later on British Cable TV), it does not overstress the romantic angle. Indeed, one girl is shown quenching her unnatural thirst for blood by literally draining the life out of a kitten! The presence of a sinister (that is to say, hulking and deformed) acolyte is, admittedly, a bit of a cliché – but Yorga himself seems to have moved with the times (in spite of his traditional attire), since he is shown jadedly presiding over a lesbian vampire show in his living-room!

The stylish film was produced by Michael Macready (who also assumes the requisite heroic persona on-screen, though the doctor-turned-vampire-hunter played by Roger Perry actually has an even more central role!), son of distinguished character actor George Macready (who generously supplies the portentous narration here and which, at the start, erroneously refers to vampires as "The Living Dead"{!}: indeed, the whole film – scripted by Kelljan himself – aspires to a certain literariness but often merely results in being verbose…which, however, it often works around by having characters conversing about the unusual events in which they had been thrust presented as voice-over laid on exterior crowd scenes!). The climax is a downbeat one: while Yorga is almost comically disposed of by being pierced (typically, through the heart) with a splintered broomstick, the lone-survivor hero sustains a vampiric attack from his own girlfriend (herself newly-inducted into the ranks of the Undead)! AIP presumably turned a fast profit with this one, seeing how they immediately commissioned a sequel (and whose own viewing followed that of the original in the current "Halloween Challenge"). However, they would soon come up with yet another (and even more outrageous) variation on vampire lore with the cult Blaxploitation offering BLACULA (1972) – which, in turn, led to the as-yet-unwatched SCREAM BLACULA SCREAM! (1973; helmed by Kelljan himself!)...

In this alternate take on the Dracula story, the titular count (from Bulgaria) holds a seance to contact the mother of young Donna. Donna's mom died of some kind of anemia, which of course fits in with the movie's theme. The seance doesn't go as planned, but Yorga is able to implant some post-hypnotic control on poor Donna, and soon enough bodies are piling up as Donna and her friends try to figure out what's what. There's even a henchman who's (apparently) a werewolf! But aside from the present-day (well, 1970) atmosphere and setting, this is a movie useful only as a cult hit. Tired of the same old vampires? Try Count Yorga, sort of a Diet Dracula. As with many genre pics of the period, the acting and direction are pretty nondescript, and the whole thing looks like it was filmed through a screen door.

You have to know what you're in for when you sit down to watch a movie like "Count Yorga." Leave your expectations of lavish special effects, intricate plotting, and deep character development at the door. This movie is about what most vampire movies are about – cool confrontations with the undead, spiced with some lightweight eroticism. If that's your bag, you should like this.

But I'm already sounding too critical. I honestly think that "Yorga" has several strong points which elevate it above the standard bloodsucker flick. Chief among them is actor Robert Quarry, who cuts a striking figure as the Count. His performance walks a very fine line between camp and credibility, and somehow he pulls it off. He plays the best kind of vampire – suave and smart and friendly, until of course he decides to dispatch his opponents with almost animal savagery.

There are some memorably horrifying moments, including the infamous cat scene and Roger Perry's final confrontation with Yorga in the crypt. I also enjoy the séance - a funny way to set the scene and introduce the characters (such as they are). On the downside, Perry is a faintly annoying actor (I much prefer the secondary hero, Michael Murphy, who later played the thankless role of the mayor in "Batman Returns"), and there are some strange cuts in the action where sex scenes were apparently excised.

On the whole, though, I have little to complain about. It seems that vampires are always up to the same tricks – putting the bite on women and fighting off their vengeful boyfriends – but as long as the vampires are cool and the women are pretty, I'll tune in.