A few weekends ago, the Totally Rad Vintage Fest rolled through my area. My friends had an extra early admission ticket, so I joined them in getting there early before all the good stuff was gone (These friends are also responsible for the expansion of our physical media collection, because they collect VHS tapes, and now my husband and I do, too). I scored a ton of great movies on VHS, including both Wayne’s World movies, 10 Things I Hate About You, Road House1, and many more. While waiting to check out at the booth where I bought the most tapes, I happened to look over and saw a VHS titled Andy Warhol Presents Dracula.
As a bit of a Warhol fanatic (less fanatical since growing up and learning way more about him), I was immediately intrigued. My internal monologue was something like, “I have never heard of this. How have I never heard of this movie? Is it any good? Do I care?” And just as quickly my brain shut out all those thoughts and said, “WE NEED TO BUY THIS ONE TOO.” Cell phone service was spotty at best in the big convention hall, so I couldn’t look up more info about the movie then. I did get to sit and drink an iced coffee and eat an elephant ear, though, and that was spectacular.
Once I got home, I found out this movie is a deep-cut cult classic also known as Blood for Dracula, Andy Warhol’s Young Dracula, and also as Andy Warhol Presents: Blood for Dracula. Four titles for one film? Count me incredibly intrigued. (Note: Blood for Dracula is the most widely-used name, so that’s what I’ll use throughout.) While we do have a VHS player, it’s one of those old built-in TV-and-VHS combo players that were popular when my sister went to college in 2002, but that are extremely small now, and I knew that I needed to watch this on a bigger screen. Turns out, it’s streaming on Shudder and you can rent or buy it on Amazon Prime. Please excuse my screaming, but:
HOW THE FUCK DID I NOT KNOW ABOUT THIS ADAPTATION OF A CLASSIC HORROR MONSTER/STORY PRODUCED BY ANDY WARHOL AND STARRING FACTORY STARS AND ALSO SOMEHOW UDO KIER????2
Sorry for yelling, but I’ve legitimately never heard of this. Part of the problem may be that, though I am a weird dark girl who reads some crazy horror shit, I don’t like horror movies. I hate jump scares; I hate excessive gore. Somehow, I’ve seen a decent amount of horror movies in my time, but I do not actively seek them out to watch. I do, however, love camp. Give me a campy movie above almost anything else, baby.
This movie was written and directed by Paul Morrissey. If you don’t know who that is: He was part of Warhol’s entourage from the mid-1960s into the early/mid 1970s. He filmed and directed a lot of Warhol’s films including Space; Flesh; and Trash, while keeping up his own separate career. Sadly, he did not produce the infamous Warhol short film Blow Job, but he did manage the Velvet Underground for like a year, and he co-conceived the Exploding Plastic Inevitable with Warhol (but he named it, and gets a thumbs-up from me for that).
Joe Dallesandro plays the working-class man who yearns for class revolution in this film. He was a Warhol Superstar, and is still a working actor. This is also how I found out he plays Walter’s dad, the manic preacher, in Cry-Baby and I had a full-blown existential crisis because how did I not know that, either?! Anyway, Joe was an underground gay sex symbol due to his sexy work with Warhol and early modeling career. Fun fact: He identifies as bisexual! Hooray for Joe!
Considering that the movies have two important Warhol Factory men involved, and Warhol apparently produced it and leant his name to two of its possible titles, I knew I needed to try and watch it. TW: While Joe plays a socialist communist who wants to overthrow the ruling class, his character is also a rapist. Like, for real. Can’t be a 1970s horror movie written by white men without it, right?
Let’s make several things clear: This movie follows absolutely zero vampire lore minus the name Count Dracula, not eating garlic, lack of a reflection, and a bit about virgin blood. In this way it’s pretty similar to Once Bitten, where vampire lore is also thrown out the window. I do think the opening scene, of Count Dracula applying makeup and hair paint in order to look younger, was the inspiration for the opening scene of To Wong Foo, Thanks For Everything, Julie Newmar. Watch both and tell me I’m wrong!
Anyway, most of the vampire lore you know and love is thrown out the window pretty early on. How, you ask? For starters, within the first ten minutes of the movie, we see Dracula out and about during the day. Full sun. No reaction from him. He doesn’t even sparkle!! We also find out pretty early that he doesn’t sustain himself solely on blood.
The basic overview is that Count Dracula is dying because he hasn’t been able to find virgin Romanian blood. It’s so bad that his younger sister sacrifices herself and decides she should die without virgin blood while her brother gets to go on a jaunt to Italy where all the virgins apparently live because they’re all religious? The logic in this movie does not logic well, which means it’s absolutely a Warhol joint, even if all he provided was money and credibility. Another example: the Count can also eat non-blood food items, like greens with lemon, cheese, grapes, and bread. “He’s vegetarian,” and “We’ll make your salad in your room” are actual things his valet says. My brain is broken, though the vegetarian line is honestly pretty incredible.
Dracula and his valet find themselves in a small town in Italy and quickly make their way into a down-on-their-luck, formerly wealthy family with four eligible, allegedly virgin daughters. “I’m sure they are religious; they have a very nice house,” says the valet to Dracula, and I that might have been the hardest I’ve ever laughed. Spoiler alert: The eldest daughters are fucking Joe Dallesandro the handyman3 together and separately, and they’re also in an incestuous relationship, because why not go all the way in the softcore scenes? Oh yes, there are softcore scenes; what more could you expect from a vaguely Warhol movie? At least the cinematography and settings are GORGEOUS, so everything looks beautiful while you watch two “sisters” half-heartedly make out.
The mother is insistent that one of her daughters marries this man, as weird as he might be, because it will mean fortune will be restored to their family … except for her fourteen-year-old, who is too young to marry off.4 One small instance of common sense! Note there is no proof the Baron is important except that his valet insists that he is. Sure! Also, Dracula is physically ill and spends a lot of time in a wheelchair because he’s too weak to even walk due to a lack of appropriate food, aka, the grapes and cheese are gone and he needs that sweet, sweet pure virgin blood. The daughters are lackadaisical, don’t seem to care much either way about getting married to this pale, weird man, and even though Dracula keeps insisting to the entire family and the girls individually that he NEEDS to marry a virgin, the two slutty daughters seem to think they’re okay marriage material and lie that they’re virgins.
Dracula tries to drink the blood of these non-virgin daughters in two separate instances, and he gets physically sick both times.5 Weirdly, the scenes of him in agony are strangely moving and beautifully shot? This cinematographer was wasted on this source material. Somehow, draining their blood does not kill these two girls, who then walk around with scarves around their throats and do not run around screaming, “THIS GUY IS A VAMPIRE.”
Instead, everyone finds out that they’re not virgins and, therefore, he cannot marry them.6 Their parents are slightly disappointed but also don’t care that much? Anyway, if it were me and the person who was trying to marry me or one of my sisters started sucking the blood from our throats, I’d say something. I suppose we could use it all as a metaphor for the treatment of women in society and how much they have to bear in secret, but I do not think this movie is that deep/considerate of women.
Joe Dallesandro, the communist/socialist handyman of the working class, cannot stand Dracula. He cites Dracula’s poor health as symptomatic of the ruling class in general, and he’s honestly not wrong. Y’ever look at some royal families? Woof. I just wish he wasn’t obsessing over raping the youngest daughter and then maybe I could’ve rooted for him as he figured out that Dracula was a vampire who needs to be destroyed with a stake through the heart. But considering his conduct and straight-up admission to wanting to rape a 14-year-old girl….
Regardless of that, nobody else seems to even know what a vampire is? Joe tries to tell everyone what Dracula really is, and nobody seems to understand what he means. I find that hard to believe, personally. If Joe’s room in the barn or wherever can have a red hammer and sickle painted on the wall, everyone should know what a vampire is.
I won’t spoil the ending for you, but the last few minutes are what really turn this into a horror movie. The rest of it is softcore porn, bad acting, bad men, and Udo Kier doing an accent that can only be described as Dracula cum Christopher Walken while chewing the scenery and making every convulsion from his sickness sound overly sexual. Plus, again, amazing cinematography and set design. For the last six minutes it’s a bloodbath, but a very campy one.7 You know that scene in the first The Addams Family movie where Wednesday and Pugsley sword fight for the school talent show? That’s relevant. Even horror novices should be able to handle the ending of this movie with relative ease, but in my opinion, movies this bad shouldn’t have such beautiful cinematography. Or, rather, if we want a campy movie, maybe make the sets and cinematography match the rest of what’s going on here.
Did I love it? No. Did I hate it? Honestly, no, but I would have liked it more without the whole 14-year-old daughter subplot. It was certainly campy horror, so if that’s your thing, watch it with the knowledge that I lacked beforehand if you feel so inclined.
Of course, after it was over, I found out this was the *second* Warhol-produced horror movie. The first one is called Flesh for Frankenstein, and it’s part of the Video Nasties list, as is this one! They’re also both part of the fucking Criterion Collection!!! While I did watch Flesh, I’m going to let our resident Video Nasty Man, Rob Gonsalves, tell you all about that one on October 30th, so keep your eyes peeled!
Blood for Dracula is streaming on Shudder and Amazon Prime, if you dare.
- Editor’s note: Pain don’t hurt. -RA ↩︎
- You’ve absolutely seen this man in at least one film or TV show, but a short list you might recognize him from: the original Suspiria, Melancholia, Grindhouse, Blade, Armageddon, and the first Ace Ventura, to name very few. ↩︎
- This man is cute and also a socialist/communist, but he says and does some *truly horrific* things that remind me both how far we’ve come, and how things never change. TW for a whole bunch of r*pe stuff! Thanks, men making movies in the 1970s! ↩︎
- Naturally, Joe Dallesandro’s character mentions how much he wants to r*pe her, and makes attempts/might be successful in his final attempt under the premise of “OMG he’s a vampire let’s get rid of your virginity.” ↩︎
- Potential TW for my fellow emetophobes except the scenes where he throws up blood are SO over the top and overwrought it’s not even triggering, it’s almost funny? Like he’s almost screaming and somehow nobody hears him in this giant house until it happens a SECOND TIME? Okay. ↩︎
- Explained toward the end as, basically, “He couldn’t make them vampires because they are not virgins, but they’re under his control.” It was just hard to tell because the whole movie they’re aloof and slutty, and now that they’ve been bitten they’re still … aloof and slutty. (Aloof and Slutty, new band name, called it.) ↩︎
- Let me be clear: I prefer practical effects I can see and recognize as “of the time” over any sort of AI that is hyperrealistic and devoid of soul. ↩︎
