[魔鬼之血] 1974 BD MiniSD-TLF

Shot immediately after production on Flesh for Frankenstein has finished, and using the same main actors, Morrissey's Andy Warhol-sponsored take on Dracula is no less weird, although in many ways it may be the better film, though it's less over the top. Instead of the weird Doctor Frankenstein, we get Dracula as a sort of aging silent film star a la Valentino, dyeing his hair black and moping around in outrageous costumes, and that's before we get to the most literal take I've seen on the "vampires as aristocrats sucking the working classes dry" metaphor seen, with Joe Dallesandro playing a literal Marxist farmhand who is the only one to realize the threat of Dracula, in between sleeping with his employers' daughters. It's weird, campy, and not exactly good, but it's fascinating to watch, and Udo Kier's all-in performance as a sickly vampire confined to a wheelchair for lack of virgin blood is kind of mesmerizing. Count Dracula is dying, since there are no virgins left for him to feed on, and he leaves his sister, who is even worse off (and is never mentioned again) in the castle's crypt before leaving Romania for Italy, where his manservant has convinced him there are more virgins available, since "it's a very Catholic country." At their arrival, they're quickly put in touch with the Di Fiore family, whose patriarch, the Marchese Di Fiore, has gambled away most of the family fortune, but whose four daughters are all supposed to be virgins and available for marriage. However, it turns out the two daughters that are of appropriate age are having lots and lots of sex with the estate's farmhand, who is also an avowed Socialist who rails against the family and the upper classes in general, and while the family is either oblivious or gradually being seduced by Dracula, he might be the only one who can stop the threat.