Count Yorga, Vampire

Sometimes cheesy, sometimes brilliant, Count Yorga, Vampire is, above all, important.

In 1970, English horror powerhouse Hammer Film Productions released Taste the Blood of Dracula and Scars of Dracula. Meanwhile, in Spain, Jesús Franco directed Christopher Lee in his first non-Hammer Dracula adaptation. These films all featured varying levels of violence and nudity, but all were formulaic, period Gothic horrors—the domain of vampires.

But Count Yorga, Vampire, released by independent studio American International Pictures (AIP), would force a serious, modern take on the story, transplanting vampires into contemporary times, out of the old world and into the new, resuscitating the stagnant genre.

The film opens in the Port of Los Angeles. Voice-over narration intones the legend of the vampire as a large crate is unloaded from a European freighter and deposited in a truck which traverses the city’s freeways to an old mansion.

The sequence proves one of the film’s flashes of brilliance. The Gothic narration contrasts with modern, sunny Los Angeles. Writer-director Bob Kelljan would have done well to let this sequence bridge the Gothic to the modern, but he can’t quite let go of the Gothic tropes, to the film’s detriment.

The next sequence places us in a modest home where the titular Yorga, played by Robert Quarry, conducts a seance with a group of twenty-somethings. In an early break from Gothic tradition, the guys are clowning around, thinking the whole affair a joke. But once the seance gets underway, things take a strange turn when one of the young people, Donna, undergoes a kind of possession. The lights cut out and she screams, causing her boyfriend, Mike, to stop the seance.

In the confusion, Yorga steps in to calm the panicked Donna, secretly planting a hypnotic suggestion in the process. Once complete, the lights come back on. Donna claims no memory of the seance, and is disappointed when Yorga announces he must leave. Another young woman asks if he has a ride.

Consider everything the scene does. It establishes the two primary couples, their relationships to each other and Yorga, and shows us Yorga’s menace and charm, all while starting us as far-forward in the story as possible. It’s perfect, until Kelljan has Quarry, as he prepares to leave, ask Donna, “I believe I had a cape?”

This trend of punctuating more modern sequences with Gothic tropes recurs throughout the film.

The next sequence sees Erica and Paul (the couple who gave Yorga a ride home from the party) stuck in the mud on the windy road leading up to Yorga’s mansion. They opt to sleep in the van, and the film proffers a sex scene tame enough to air on modern late-night network television. After, Paul steps out to relieve himself. Over the darkness, we hear the crickets and frogs.

He returns to the van shaken, feeling another’s presence. He peers out the van’s windows but sees nothing. The couple try to fall asleep.

In an inspired move, Kelljan ramps the night noise volume, cranking the crickets and frogs to maddening levels, mirroring the character’s unease. Erica checks the window again and discovers Yorga’s leering, fang-filled face staring back.

Another great scene. Kelljan manufactures dread and suspense via the ambient soundscape, an ingenious idea likely driven by budget constraints. The scene also shows us Yorga won’t be stymied by modern conveniences like automobiles.

But then we see Yorga, now sporting his “vampire” look complete with pancake makeup and black eye shadow and clad in a red-lined cape. The garish color evokes a cheap Dracula costume and elicits guffaws as Yorga grabs Paul and yanks him out of the van and to the ground.

Cut to the next morning. Paul’s discussing the attack with Mike, saying he never got a look at his attacker and Erica claims no memory of the incident. Paul tries Erica on the phone but can’t reach her. Worried, he and Mike hurry to her house, which they find in disarray. They call her name but get no response. Finally, they find her in the kitchen, face awash in gore, her cat hanging bloody and lifeless in her arms.

Yet another great scene, this one with no Gothic tropes to undermine it, just a terrific modernization of the vampire tropes, necessitated by the film’s low budget, but highlighted by Kelljan’s presentation. First he shows us Erica’s feet as she stumbles around her apartment, the floor littered with trash, then Paul and Mike’s reactions, then the grisly shot of Erica and the cat, all in flat lighting devoid of any stylish Gothic shadows to lessen the realism. Great stuff.

Then Kelljan cuts to a wordless sequence. We see Yorga awaken from his coffin and walk downstairs into the torch-lit basement where his vampire brides lay sleeping on sepulchres. Again clad in his red-lined cape, he sits down on his throne and mentally wakes his brides, who proceed to make out with each other. It’s a laughably silly scene that makes no sense and feels tacked on to check an exploitation box.

Fortunately, Kelljan recovers. Mike and Paul call on their friend, a doctor named Jim, played by Roger Perry, who specializes in blood research. Jim suspects Yorga’s true nature, but before he can act, Erica disappears, taken by Yorga. Paul rushes after Erica and falls prey to Yorga.

Jim, Mike, and Donna rush after Paul. In the film’s standout sequence, they arrive at Yorga’s mansion in the early hours of the morning. Both parties feign surprise at the other being awake at such an early hour. Jim and company invite themselves inside and engage Yorga in conversation. A subtle battle of wills ensues. Yorga tries to end the visit, but Jim seizes every opportunity to stay. As dawn beckons, Yorga excuses himself and Jim, puts his cards on the table asking, “Do you, um…, do you believe in vampires?”

Yorga turns, his face a dispassionate mask of ice, and says, “Yes.” Jim baits him further. Yorga responds, then turns and walks away, toward the camera.

Behind him, Jim, desperate, asks, “Isn’t it true that vampires must be in their resting places before the sun rises? That if the rays of the sun hit them, they will disintegrate?”

Quarry stops, offers a slight hint of a smirk, and turns. “I shall save the answer for that question for the next time we meet,” he says, then, his voice lower, “and you may be very comfortable in knowing, Dr. Hayes, we shall, most definitely, meet again.”

I loved everything about this scene. Perry and Quarry play off each other to terrific effect, and Kelljan milks the inherent tension without any idiot-plot machinations. Quarry’s nuanced performance conveys his combination of menace, bemusement, and outrage, while Perry exhibits a tone-perfect combination of fear and curiosity.

The scene also sets up a sort of reversal later, where Jim and Mike show up to rescue Donna and kill Yorga, but Yorga catches Jim outside and invites him indoors. The pair retake their earlier seats, but now it’s Yorga who’s in control.

In contrast to the earlier, well-lit scene, this time the light comes from the fireplace, framing the characters with ominous shadows, further emphasizing Yorga’s position of power. Yorga even asks to see Jim’s makeshift-stake and regards it with amusement before handing it back and asking Jim, “Would you care now to see that which you hoped not to see?”

What a great line.

The finale, while not a total loss, underwhelms. Yorga’s dispatched far too easily given Jim and Mike’s ineptitude. But this proves a minor quibble as the finale’s nihilistic resolution still surprises.

So what to make of the film? At times, it’s unintentionally laughable and the characters lack meaningful arcs. Yet, when it works, it’s gangbusters.

Kelljan’s stylistic approach can prove surprisingly effective. Besides the aforementioned cat scene, the finale’s setup shines. Framing Yorga’s mansion in silhouette against the night sky, Kelljan transforms it into a looming monolith. As Jim and Mike approach, Kelljan lights them with a single flood. Another decision likely borne from budget, the lack of artifice creates a documentary feel that enhances the immediacy and realism.

Yet he fumbles other sequences. When Yorga attacks Paul, he lunges at him by running across the room, arms outstretched Frankenstein style. It’s laughable.

Indeed, I can’t claim the film to be great, too many scenes elicit guffaws, but Quarry’s performance makes it worth seeking out, especially for fans of vampire films. The nuance Quarry brings to his non-monster scenes shines.

Contrast his performance with the likes of Bela Lugosi and Christopher Lee. When Donna, Mike and Jim show up, Quarry’s playing a piano. He’s expecting them, of course, and when their car pulls up, Quarry half rolls his eyes and half smirks before rising to answer the door. Lugosi and Lee’s period aristocrats precluded such range, but Quarry embraces it, giving his antagonist a dark sense of humor.

Kelljan never lets this tip into comedy, however, and also keeps the rest of his cast reined in, eschewing theatrical dramatics for more muted performances.

Vampire fans and genre scholars may also appreciate the film’s contribution to pop culture. Astute readers will recognize the film’s story as a pared-down retelling of Dracula. Indeed, Count Yorga, Vampire plays an important role evolving the Dracula mythos. Consider:

Bram Stoker wrote Dracula in 1897. Thirty-four years later, Todd Browning directed Universal’s Dracula, starring Bela Lugosi, which pared down the story and gave us the iconic “Dracula” look: cape, pendant, widows peak.

Twenty-seven years after that, Hammer Film Productions released their version of Dracula, which further pared down the story, added buckets of Technicolor blood, and transformed the Van Helsing character into an action hero. For the next twelve years, Hammer repeated the basic formula, upping the gore and nudity as the censors would allow, but never really innovating.

Enter Bob Kelljan’s Count Yorga, Vampire, which transplanted Dracula into modern times. He retained the classic look, including the cape and pendant, but the stalwart Van Helsing was now a hesitant academic trained in modern medicine, the setting wasn’t London but Los Angeles, and the gore wasn’t eye-popping red, but nauseating rust.

Two years later, AIP produced Blacula, which also transported the Dracula character to modern Los Angeles. That same year, Hammer released Dracula A.D. 1972 which saw Dracula resurrected in contemporary London.

Three years after that, Stephen King published ‘Salem’s Lot, which transplanted Dracula into a small town in Maine, added a child protagonist, and cribbed Hammer’s third act twist.

Ten years after ‘Salem’s Lot, Tom Holland wrote and directed Fright Night, which transplanted Dracula into the suburbs, ditched the cape and pendent, added a teen protagonist, amped the antagonist’s dark humor, and replaced Van Helsing with an actor who’d played Van Helsing in the movies.

Viewed in this broader context, Count Yorga, Vampire proves the bridge between the period Draculas and the modern incarnations. Everything that came after built upon its idea of transplanting Dracula into a modern setting. Some, like Blacula, had their Dracula “wake up” in modern times, and others, as in 1979’s Love at First Bite, played the fish-out-of-water scenario for laughs.

All owe a debt to Bob Kelljan’s sometimes ingenious take on Bram Stoker’s story, which, warts and all, still packs some of the best lines in any adaptation. Consider, as they’re preparing to go after Yorga, Mike and Jim scrounge for stakes. Mike approaches with his makeshift weapon. Jim eyes him warily and asks, “What is that? A broom handle?”

“Yeah,” replies Mike.

“Why not?” says Jim, with a tone-perfect mix of desperation and bemusement.

And so, dear reader, if you’ve made it this far, I can imagine your skepticism. Part of me shares it. Could Count Yorga, Vampire, a lesser-known movie that’s near equal parts unintentional comedy and inspired horror really be this significant? In the end, I come back to Jim’s line: Why not?

Why not, indeed.