Blood for Dracula (1974, Paul Morrissey) (Patreon)

47/100

Thought for a while that I much preferred this to Flesh for Frankenstein, and was mentally drafting remarks about my divergence from what I think of as the psychotronic crowd (which feels the opposite way, from what I can gather). Dracula is less memorably outrageous, but it's far superior (albeit still no great shakes) as an actual film, in terms of such mundane aspects as performance, score, editing, and just general tonal coherence. Some of the improvements are mysterious to me, given that the two films were shot back-to-back—I have no clue, for example, why Arno Jürging fares so much better as Dracula's unctuous manservant than as Frankenstein's mewling assistant, since there's no real evidence in either case that he can act. Just better suited to over-the-top prissiness, I guess. Other advantages, like casting Vittorio De Sica in a key supporting role and keeping Dallesandro mostly offscreen for the first 40 minutes, are fairly obvious. Also really dug the concept of a frail, sickly Dracula who's anything but terrifying and spends most of the movie vomiting "impure" blood; Kier has fun with the role in a way that I didn't remotely anticipate. Unfortunately, things get grotesquely rape-y once Dallesandro's de-virginizer moves front and center, activating my absolute intolerance for "no really means yes yes oh god please yes." Frankenstein mostly bored me but ends strongly; Dracula mostly held my attention but ends appallingly. Pretty much a draw. (47 vs. 46.) Happy to see the one and only bar trick I know, in which you bet someone (s)he can't mimic your every simple action and then spit your drink back into the glass a minute or so after you'd presumably swallowed it. A classic that I'd read about somewhere long ago but had never seen depicted in a movie until now.