Blood for Dracula
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| Blood for Dracula | |
|---|---|
 Blood for Dracula, 1974 |
|
| Directed by | Paul Morrissey |
| Produced by | Andrew Braunsberg Andy Warhol |
| Written by | Paul Morrissey |
| Starring | Joe Dallesandro Udo Kier |
| Distributed by | Bryanston Distributing Company |
| Release date(s) |  March 1, 1974 27 November 1974 |
| Running time | 103 min |
| Language | English |
| All Movie Guide profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
Blood for Dracula is a 1974 Andy Warhol film directed by Paul Morrissey, starring Udo Kier, Joe Dallesandro, Maxime McKendry 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.
[edit] Plot synopsis
A sickly and dying Dracula who must drink virgin blood to survive travels from Transylvania to Italy thinking he will more be more likely to find a virgin in a Catholic country. He meets the De Sica character, an impecunious landowner with a lavish estate falling into decline, who wants to marry off his daughters to a wealthy aristocrat.
Of De Sica's four daughters, two regularly enjoy the sexual services of the estate gardener/handyman, played by Joe Dallesandro, a bemuscled Marxist with a hammer and sickle painted on his bedroom wall. The youngest and eldest are virgins, but the latter is thought too plain to be offered for marriage and the youngest is only 14. Dracula obtains assurances that all the daughters are virgins and drinks the blood of the two who are considered marriageable. Both, being non-virgins, make him ill. The Dallesandro character realises the danger to the youngest daughter in time and rapes her for her own protection. However, in the meantime, Dracula has drunk the blood of the eldest daughter and turned her into a vampire. Dallesandro must then kill them both.
[edit] Themes
In one interpretation, De Sica 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.
Continuing in this vein, Modernity is depicted as seducing the young and innocent. It is conceptualized as a combination of Marxist beliefs and American pragmatism (as represented by the Brooklyn-accented Joe Dallesandro); Morrisey is saying that the conflict of the day is not Capitalism vs Communism but rather Modernity vs Traditionalism.
