It starts off at a port by the sea where a sketchy looking guy is picking up a wooden coffin and tosses it in the back of the truck. Nothing shady about that!
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| I wouldn't want to be behind this on the highway |
At least put a tarp over it! Anyways, shortly after the truck arrives at a gated estate, we cut to a seance led by Count Yorga (in non-vampire form). There are three couples at the seance, and they are attempting to contact the recently deceased mother of Donna (the mother who also happened to be in a brief but passionate relationship with the Count). After we establish the skepticism of several of the guests, the lights go out and some weird stuff starts to happen. Donna, who seems *way* too attached to dear old mom ("I need you [mother] - I never want to be alone!") goes into hysterics, and the Count hypnotizes her to calm her down. His evil intentions are made clear (as if the title of the film didn't give it away) when he telepathically instructs Donna to "do everything I say, whenever and from wherever I say it." The seance party winds down, and one of the couples (Erica and Paul) offer the Count a ride home. But before he leaves? "I believe I had a cape." Ah, the 70's.
Erica and Paul drop Yorga off, but their awesome VW van gets stuck in a mysterious mud patch while they're still on Yorga's property. Despite being sketched out by the Count, they decide to just sleep in the van. And of course have sex in it. Nothing like candles in a van! That night, Paul and Erica are the victims or our first vampire attack. Although they remember nothing, Erica is clearly not the same the next day.
At first, it seemed like Donna (from the seance) would be our main character. Then, after the van attack, Erica seems to be the focus. But after about 45 minutes, we land on the Doctor who is looking into Erica's strange behavior. Dr. Hayes (the awesome Roger Perry) ends up taking the Van Helsing role and decides he must investigate and potentially destroy Count Yorga.
Mostly, this movie succeeds based on the strength of its characters and the actors playing them. Quarry is a hoot as the exceptionally charming Yorga. He's got the sophisticated gentleman act down pat, from his demeanor to his dialect. It's not hard to imagine that the ladies would fall under his spell. It's got to be a fun role for an actor to play - when he's not a (literal) lady-killer, he just gets to talk up how intelligent and amazing he is. If actors are known for their massive egos, I can imagine how being cast in a vampire role would feed into that.
Also, our vampire hunter Dr. Hayes is pretty damned great too. He almost plays the part like a holdover from a late-50's monster flick - he's all about his posturing and doling out large chunks of exposition very matter-of-factly. His stoic delivery on lines like "I think we need to kill Count Yorga" and "It's just a bit possible that he might get us" had me laughing out loud and cheering for him at the same time. It's the kind of leading(-ish) man you don't really see anymore.
The actresses, unfortunately, don't fare so well - mostly because they aren't really given much to do. After the Count does his business, they are mostly just zombies. Erica (Judith Lang) gets the meatiest female role as she gets to exhibit not only some (pre-bite) infatuation with the Count, but some (post-bite) vampiristic tendencies. In what is easily the grossest part of the movie, she is shown eating a kitten. I was sad to find her on imdb and see this was her last role. I would have loved to see her in some other horror films of the era. Maybe the kitten thing grossed her out? It does look a little too real - my hope is that it was drugged or something and they put some meat on it. But, 1970...
Donna Anders (as Donna) does fine too, although she is more or less just required to shamble around in a daze. After looking at imdb though, I see she was in a Werewolf biker movie (Werewolves on Wheels) the very next year. I'll need to check that out. The supporting actresses though, are noteworthy, and not in a good way. I gather they may not have been selected for their roles based on their acting chops - there are a couple of bit speaking parts that are just distractingly bad.
The overall plot honestly isn't anything all that special. Pretty typical "vampire seduces a few women, and their men go to kill him off." It's the style in Count Yorga that really won me over. From the decoration of the sets to the clothes everyone is wearing - it hits that vintage sweet spot that I love:
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| Outfits like this: why I wish I was alive in 1970 |
And there isn't much fat on the story. Things move along briskly, and there isn't an awful lot of time to get bored. There is a lot of style in the shooting of the film too. There are some interestingly framed shots - I loved the scene where a guy is seemingly trapped by a spiderweb, only to pull back so we can see he's been grabbed by Yorga's Torgo-esque henchman Brudah.
I had expected this to be kind of trashy - and it is in some parts. But for every unnecessarily transparent nightgown or needless (implied) sexual assault, there is an impressive shot or legitimately good scene of tension/horror. It's not super gory either - it's PG-13 and there are a couple of icky parts, but overall it'd be mostly safe for general audiences.
Ultimately, I was really happy with Count Yorga, Vampire. Apparently, enough other people were too, and there was a sequel made the following year. I'll be checking in out soon! Things here seemed rather "Final," so I'm interested in seeing how they rectify that. Again, 1970 and all that jazz, but it's groovy.
I would recommend this film.
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