Shocktober 2025 - Count Yorga, Vampire (1970)
“You really are a …?” - Dr James Hayes
Let’s kick off with a little bit of historical perspective.
In the sixties, American International Pictures had carved out a reputation as pretty much the American reply to the British film industry’s Hammer Films. Much as Hammer has made household names of Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee with their series of gothic Frankenstein and Dracula films, so had AIP with Vincent Price in a series of loose Edgar Allan Poe adaptations (some so loose, the only link was the title.) Both production companies flourished creatively on minimal budgets, churning out films that looked better than they had a right to considering what little they cost to make.
The writing was really on the wall in the late 1960s, films like Rosemary’s Baby and Night of the Living Dead had been released in 1968, changing the face of the horror industry. Gothic horror with snarling vampires, striding majestically toward their cowering next meals weren’t as disturbing as the terrors of the modern day, so Hammer and AIP had to respond or face extinction. Unfortunately, their response was too little, too late. In Hammer’s case, gratuitous (for the time) nudity was added to their films, and in 1972 they took the step of bringing Dracula to the (then) modern day which only kept Christopher Lee in action until 1973 until he was out for the Count.
Over at AIP, the feeling (according to Vincent Price’s autobiography, which was completed by his daughter) was that Price was getting long in the tooth to appeal to the youthful audience watching their movies at drive-ins. (Similarly, Hammer had just tried to reboot their Frankenstein series with a young Ralph Bates replacing Peter Cushing for the same reason.) The new golden boy at AIP was set to be Robert Quarry, and his debut film was Count Yorga, Vampire.
AIP didn’t have an ongoing horror antagonist character, and they didn’t have a dapper vampire, so it was time to create one from scratch and hey, let’s drop him in modern day Los Angeles and have our groomed for stardom new face of horror be the vampire. What could possibly go wrong. (Oh boy, let me count the ways.)
It’s never a good sign when the title card of the film doesn’t match the title of the film on the poster, or the Blu-ray box in this case. Hence, we’re apparently watching a movie called The Loves of Count Iorga, Vampire. The reason? The film we’re about to watch was originally intended to be a softcore porn movie, but that was abandoned and any footage shot for that version is apparently no longer in existence.
The film opens with footage of a coffin being unloaded from an airliner and transported to the city on the back of a pickup. No explanation, really. Then we’re in a séance, which is being hosted by Donna (Donna Anders) overseen by the evidently mysterious mystic/hypnotist Count Yorga (Robert Quarry) who has recently moved to California from Bulgaria. The object of the séance is to contact Donna’s late mother, in the weeks before her recent death and insisted that she be buried, not cremated as per her stated wishes. Further, nobody remembers seeing him at the funeral. (He seems to have got a lot done that we didn’t see since the titles.)
This is the point where my earnest attempt to take the movie seriously kind of evaporated.
The Count gets a lift home from one of the couples in attendance, in their hippie type VW camper van, but having dropped him off, they get stuck in some mud and Yorga reveals himself to be a vampire by attacking them, knocking Paul (Michael Murphy) unconscious and biting Erica (Judy Lang). Neither can remember the incident the following morning. But Erica seems anaemic when inspected by Doctor James Hayes (Roger Perry). Later, concerned about her, this sharp lot conclude there’s something REALLY wrong with Erica when they visit her home and discover her behind the fridge, eating a kitten.
Back at the Yorga mansion, in a head scratcher of a scene, Yorga has converted his basement into a throne room and laid out on slabs are his brides, the aforementioned Donna’s mother (Marsha Jordan) and someone else. Anyhow, he commands them to have sex, (which doesn’t go much further than hand holding) while he wanders off to see Erica again (she’s now had a transfusion and she’s, I guess, full of kitten) and drains her of blood before taking her back to the mansion.
Our séance Scooby Squad are now wise to the Count, who summons Donna telepathically to his mansion, reuniting her with her mother. But help is on its way as the surviving friends arrive with their makeshift crosses. Yorga is eventually staked, as is Donna’s mother but Donna herself is spared and in the final frame shows exactly why you just can’t trust vampires.
All in all, it’s a very standard story but needs a bit more motivation than the vampire’s attempts at survival. The film’s scant budget is clear at the amount of information we’re told, not shown. Some backstory would’ve helped the film a great deal. But then, so would a decent actor at the helm. Robert Quarry has absolutely zero charisma. He’s a complete blank, hamming his vampiric hissing in a weak attempt at emulating Christopher Lee’s Dracula. Count Yorga needs some majesty about him which is sadly lacking here. He might also benefit from maybe a more animated performance. We can only dream of what Vincent Price would’ve brought to the role.
Somehow though – Count Yorga got a sequel.
