Blood for Dracula

Infobox Film | name =Blood for Dracula


caption =Blood for Dracula, 1974
director = Paul Morrissey
producer = Andrew Braunsberg
Andy Warhol
writer = Paul Morrissey
starring =Joe Dallesandro
Udo Kier
cinematography =
music =
editing =
distributor = Bryanston Distributing Company
released = flagicon|Germany March 1, 1974
runtime = 103 min
language = English
budget =
amg_id = 1:2340
imdb_id = 0071233

"Blood for Dracula" (also known as Andy Warhol's Dracula) is a 1974 film directed by Paul Morrissey and produced by Andy Warhol and Andrew Braunsberg. It stars Udo Kier, Joe Dallesandro, Maxime McKendry, Stefania Casini, and Arno Juerging. Roman Polanski and Vittorio de Sica appear in cameo roles.

The film was shot on locations in Italy and was partly improvised as the filming of "Flesh for Frankenstein" by the same team had been quicker and less costly than expected.

Plot synopsis

A sickly and dying Count Dracula, who must drink virgin blood to survive, travels from Transylvania to Italy. With a shortage of virgins in Romania and thinking he will be more likely to find a virgin in a Catholic country, Dracula befriends Marchese di Fiori (played by de Sica), an impecunious Italian landowner who, with a lavish estate falling into decline, is willing to marry off one of his four daughters to the wealthy aristocrat.

Of di Fiori's four daughters, two regularly enjoy the sexual services of Mario, the estate handyman (played by Dallesandro), a Marxist with a hammer and sickle painted on his bedroom wall. The youngest and eldest daughters are virgins, but the latter is thought too plain to be offered for marriage, and the youngest is only fourteen years old. Dracula obtains assurances that all the daughters are virgins and drinks the blood of the two who are considered marriageable. However, both are non-virgins and their tainted blood make Dracula ill. Mario realizes the danger to the youngest daughter in time and ostensibly rapes her for her own protection. But in the meantime Dracula has drunk the blood of the eldest daughter, turning her into a vampire. After more carnage, the peasant Mario commands the estate.

Themes

In one interpretation, di Fiori and his family represent European traditional values, and Morrisey produces a narrative of a doomed Europe that is self-destructing as the bourgeoisie attempts to survive making an alliance with the aristocracy while the aristocracy (represented by the pathetic Dracula in what some consider one of Kier's best performances) is losing the battle of power against the powers of industry and modernity.

External links

*imdb title|id=0071233|title=Blood for Dracula
* [http://www.criterion.com/asp/release.asp?id=28&eid=43&section=essay Criterion Collection essay by Maurice Yacowar]
* " [http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/blood_for_dracula/ Blood for Dracula] " at Rotten Tomatoes