Having struck a deal with famed Italian producer Carlo Ponti, iconoclastic New York filmmaker Paul Morrissey traded in the tinfoil-lined walls and DIY approach of Andy Warhol’s Factory studio for the Roman countryside and all the perks of a first-class Italian production unit. Made shortly after Morrissey’s Flesh for Frankenstein, Blood for Dracula is a beast of a very different sort. Through it traffics in some of the excessive grotesque humor that marked the earlier film, Blood for Dracula opts for a more melancholic tone in its empathetic tale of a woebegone vampire looking for love in all the wrong places.
The film opens with an infirm Count Dracula (Udo Kier) preparing to leave his ancestral castle in search of fresh blood, methodically blacking his hair and rouging his cheeks. This imagery toys with the notion in Bram Stoker’s novel that Dracula at first appears desiccated and ancient, only to gain youth and vitality after feeding on Jonathan Harker. Here, the blood-hungry Dracula has to appear youthful in order to attract young virgins. The gag is that Transylvania has been sucked dry, so he and his faithful servant, Anton (Arno Jürging), set off for Italy, supposing that the country’s strict family values and obeisance to the Catholic Church will keep Dracula in a steady supply of what he needs.
Things aren’t quite what they seem with the aristocratic family with whom Dracula comes to stay. The Marchese di Fiore (Vittorio de Sica) considers himself a connoisseur of names, extracting all sorts of supposedly benevolent qualities from his guest’s surname. But he soon scarpers off to leave his wife and four nubile daughters in the presence of the strange newcomer, who arrives with a coffin and wheelchair strapped to the roof of his black touring car. What’s more, three of the di Fiore daughters are being serviced by handyman Mario (Joe Dallesandro), a brutish proponent of the revolution that he believes is right around the corner.
Decades before the likes of Larry Fessenden’s Habit and Abel Ferrara’s The Addiction, Blood for Dracula employs the vampire as addict metaphor. A scene of Dracula pathetically, not to mention endlessly, puking up tainted non-virgin blood into a bathtub, absent the vampire aspect, just as easily could have been found in Morrissey’s earlier streetwise trilogy of Flesh, Trash, and Heat. On the flipside, witness the sweet ecstasy on Dracula’s face while he sucks the pure blood of a young girl that’s soaked into a loaf of bread, a sight that’s equally pathetic in its own way. But Morrissey never looks down on Dracula, instead training a humanistic eye on him, so that the film also can be said to participate in the “Dracula as tragic victim” subgenre.
Blood for Dracula also treads a fine line between humor and horror. Most of the comedy comes from Jürging’s shameless mugging and off-kilter line readings, not to mention Dallesandro’s Brooklyn-inflected take on classic dialogue like “Virgins? Then what’s he doing with you two hoo-ers?” Echoing that sentiment, pathos slips into outright bathos when Dracula declares, “The blood of these whores is killing me!” As for the gore, Morrissey saves the bulk of it for the film’s ending, when it comes as an all-out assault on characters and viewers alike. The final moments also revel in a sad irony, because Dracula has hitherto overlooked his one true chance at so-called happiness, only to discover how much has truly been at stake all along.
Image/Sound
Severin presents Blood for Dracula in both UHD and HD formats. The 1080p Blu-ray disc looks gorgeous, doing full justice to veteran cinematographer Luigi Kuveiller’s luminous work. Not surprisingly, the UHD disc delivers the bold scarlets and greens and profound blacks of the HD transfer with extra oomph. Fine details of the period décor and costumes are rendered with equally impressive clarity and depth. The Master Audio 2.0 mono track on both discs sounds excellent, keeping the variously accented dialogue front and center (with optional SDH subtitles), and providing an ideal platform for composer Claudio Gizzi’s sad, romantic score.
Extras
The three-hours-plus of interviews more than make up for the lack of a commentary track like the one director Paul Morrissey provided for earlier Criterion and Image DVD releases. Strong personalities make for compelling interviewees, and this production happened to be packed with them. While recounting the genesis and production history of the film, Morrissey manages to talk shit about Andy Warhol, Lou Reed, and Dudley Moore along the way, repeatedly claiming that “the world is a toilet” for good measure.
Stefania Casini delves into her acting career before, during, and after Blood for Dracula, including some interesting tidbits about her involvement with Dario Argento’s Suspiria, all while touring the Villa Parisi shooting location for Blood for Dracula. Joe Dallesandro speaks extensively about his involvement with Warhol and Morrissey, in particular shooting the trilogy of Flesh, Trash, and Heat, while also mentioning some of his other European-made films. And Udo Kier, deprecating and utterly hilarious as always, gets grilled about his many vampire-related roles across both film and television.
Elsewhere, composer Claudio Gizzi discusses his musical career, working with the likes of Luchino Visconti and Roman Polanski, and relates his intentions for specific musical cues from Blood for Dracula. Producer Andrew Braunsberg goes into his collaborations with Roman Polanski, convincing Carlo Ponti to produce back-to-back horror films, and selling the film to disreputable, mobbed-up Bryanston Distributing. Also on hand is critic Stephen Thrower, who provides a characteristically incisive reading of Blood for Dracula’s predominant themes. Last but certainly not least, Claudio Gizzi’s lovely soundtrack is included here on CD.
Overall
Severin’s presentation of Blood for Dracula, with its gorgeous transfer and bounty of worthwhile extras, is a release that you can really sink your teeth into.
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