Blood for Dracula

I have always been fond of vampire films. One of the most unconventional vampire films of cinema history is Paul Morrissey’s Blood For Dracula. The film is also known as Andy Warhol’s Dracula despite the fact that Warhol had nothing to do with the film artistically (like most of his ventures). Unlike Paul Morrissey’s under appreciated “flesh trilogy” Blood for Dracula seems to have an actual budget and even set design. Like Morrissey’s “flesh trilogy,” Blood for Dracula is essentially an auteur piece. God bless Paul Morrissey for making two brilliant “horror comedies” in the culturally rich country of Italy.

Blood for Dracula opens with Dracula (played by a young Udo Kier) putting on some ridiculously gothic makeup. Dracula even decides that he needs to put black paint in his hair so that all those that seem him know that he is a tragic figure. After all, Dracula is a member of the archaic and dying European aristocracy. He tells people that he is “the last of his kind” while speaking in a depressing yet accepting tone. Dracula can’t even find a virgin girl for blood in the newly degenerate Italy.

The rival of Dracula is a young peasant and handyman named Mario played by the infamous Joe Dallesandro. Mario is a self proclaimed Marxist idealist who has plans of destroying both the aristocracy and petty Bourgeoisie. Mario feels that he shouldn’t have to work so that others don’t have to. Mario is firmly against the natural order of class distinction. After screwing a sluttish Bourgeoisie girl, he rants about revolution. Mario even has an “iron & sickle” hanging over his bed. Marxism has become Mario’s reasoning so that he can rape and pillage those that have more than him. Somehow this peasant learned how to read and Karl Marx has showed Mario the light. When he encounters the decaying aristocrat Dracula, contempt fills Mario’s spiteful heart. The written lies of Karl Marx has convinced Mario that he is “owed” something. This sort of mentality resulted in around 65 million people dead in the Soviet Union alone.

With Blood for Dracula, Paul Morrissey portrays the death of Europe and western civilization via classic horror story. The half civilized worker (or as Marxist’s say “proletarian”) has become the liberator of humanity. The weakening aristocracy is finally exterminated by the angry little “worker.” Out of all the anticommunist filmmakers, Paul Morrissey executes his message best. What other director could perfectly execute a satire of Marxist revolutionary mass murdering mindset? Paul Morrissey, always a minimalist, put more thought into his films than money.

Dracula suffers from the poisoning of “bad blood” various times throughout Blood for Dracula. The assumed “virgin” girls in the film have already been defiled by a worker. I doubt I will ever see a man vomit blood with such expertise and elegance as Udo Kier in Blood for Dracula. In film, Joe Dallesandro also probably gives his greatest cinematic performance. Holocaust survivor and child molester Roman Polanski also makes an appearance in Blood for Dracula as a swindling peasant. How good can a film get? Blood for Dracula is mandatory viewing for serious fans of Sinema.

-Ty E