Bryanston Distributing released Blood for Dracula in the United States on 6 November 1974. Many other companies were responsible for its distribution elsewhere. West Germany and Japan saw the film months before it came to the US.
It is a remarkable film. It looks beautiful. And the script is sly. The problem is that it is a comedy in the mold of Steven Spielberg’s 1941. That is: it’s a great film but one that is almost impossible to find funny. Dracula falls to the floor and licks the blood of a virgin who was just deflowered. I know it is funny in theory. It’s funny in the way The Metamorphosis is.
What I most like about it is that Dracula is anemic and weak. And he lives a life of boredom and pain. No one would want to change places with him. He is the most pitiable vampire ever.
There is one part of the film that’s hard to take. The hero rapes a 14-year-old virgin girl so that Dracula cannot take her. That might be okay if the girl didn’t quickly get into the rape. I don’t know quite what to think about that. But the whole idea of virgins drives me crazy. I don’t even know what the concept means anymore. And I certainly don’t think having coitus changes the nature of blood. But Catholics believe in transubstantiation, so who knows?!
Regardless, the last ten minutes of the film are awesome. Dracula finally gets the virgin blood he needs. So he’s all set for the final confrontation. Mario the handyman (with a ridiculous Brooklyn accent) chops off all Dracula’s limbs before staking him. It really is worth sitting through the rest, which is largely just a melodrama with a hint of danger
If I seem a bit down on the film, that’s doubtless just because I’m not keen on vampires as characters. I want vampires to rip out throats. When I see two tiny holes, I don’t know what I’m supposed to think. Do vampire fangs have holes in them that they suck blood into? Vampire films should always be extremely bloody. And they never are.
But Blood for Dracula is definitely one of the better vampire films. At least Dracula is a villain, which is something you can’t say for a lot of vampire films over the past few decades. So on this 51st anniversary, let’s watch it. But I won’t hold it against you if you skip to one hour and 38 minutes!
Personally, I think you are better off watching Dracula AD 1972. But that could be just me. It combines the Gothic with the Groovy.
Blood for Dracula (1974) poster via Wikipedia under Fair Use.
I recently wrote how the “faux documentary” style can be useful in comedy or horror (and it can be overused, too). But there was one time it mixed both! That one “What We Do in the Shadows” episode where the inept poseur “vampire hunters” find a house full of REAL VAMPIRES, and the vampires just start murdering all the “documentary” film crew. It’s scary, and it’s hilarious — breaking the fourth wall with Vampire Murder.
I did as instructed and skipped to 1:38. Dracula gives me Joel Grey/”Cabaret” vibes. The guy in suspenders who kills him has the basically exact same costume/hairdo as Brendan Fraser in “The Mummy.” I wonder if Fraser or that movie’s costume designer was a fan of this movie. For that matter, I wonder if one of the Pythons was! VERY “it’s just a flesh wound” stuff!
I wouldn’t doubt that it influenced later films. I actually think you could recut the film and make it hilarious. The whole thing seems to have been edited to make it *not* funny, even though it actually is. And now that you mention it, he *does* seem like Joel Grey in Cabaret! That’s hilarious!
Wilkommen, bienvenue, drink blood… gotta do what you gotta do, it’s tough to be a vampire
I mostly liked What We Do in the Shadows. But while watching it, I thought a lot of how I would kill myself if I became a vampire. I don’t see the appeal at all.