#32 - Blood for Dracula (1974)
(dir. Paul Morrissey)
Produced by Andy Warhol and starring Udo Kier, this is one of the strangest versions of Dracula I've ever seen. Most of the usual characteristics of the story are subverted here. Instead of handsome and imposing, Kier's Dracula is a thin, weak vegetarian, who acts more like a heroin addict than a vampire. He needs virgin blood to survive, so he travels to Italy in search of a "bride". He ends up staying with the Di Fiore family, who have four unmarried daughters, but he soon finds out that "unmarried" definitely does not mean "virgin" with these girls. They have already been corrupted by the family's servant Mario, who is the real villain of the movie - he is a rapist, misogynist, and communist, who pretty much only gets away with it because he is strikingly handsome.
The Dracula story has always been a metaphor for sex and rape - he appears to be a charming and handsome man, but is secretly a monster who visits women in the middle of the night and penetrates them against their will. In this version, though, Mario is a literal rapist, while Dracula is actually physically repulsed by impure women - when he drinks the blood of non-virgin, he gets ill and ends up vomiting it all up. Dracula is a pathetic and outdated relic here, replaced by a more everyday evil.
Besides being an interesting take on the story, this is also a pretty funny and campy movie. The acting is way over the top, and the actors and actresses use their native accents without trying to sound authentic at all - one of the daughters has a strong French accent, while Mario sounds like he could be from Jersey. There is also a lot of totally unnecessary nudity and sex, although this isn't really unexpected - this is still a campy exploitation film at its core. If a campy subversion of trashy 70's Euro-horror sounds good to you, I recommend checking it out. Currently available on Netflix Instant.
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