Shocktober 2025 - The Return of Count Yorga (1971)

“At a time like this, even Jesus Christ would fabricate his intentions.” – Rev. Thomas

I admit that I wasn’t particularly kind to Count Yorga, Vampire when I was covering it for this year’s Shocktober. But in the interests of being fair, I waited a few weeks before screening the sequel to write it up (I’m actually writing this on June 30, having watched the film three days ago.) I wanted to approach the sequel with a clear mind, much as I approached the original.

Count Yorga, Vampire amassed enough of a following to not only take a respectable $1.5 million on its U.S theatrical release, against a budget of $100,000. (These are 1970 figures.) It helped American International out of its financial fugue, so a sequel was set into production the following year. Not only that, but over the years, it and the sequel have become cult favourites with horror fans.

I have to admit that the sequel is, in my opinion, far superior to the original movie which came across, to me at least, as a lacklustre by-the-numbers vampire movie with its novelty value being that it has a classical vampire, elegant formal evening wear, cape and all, set in modern-day Los Angeles. This was before the likes of Dracula AD1972, Blacula etc followed suit. But my main issue, apart from the cliche ridden script, was/is with the casting of Count Yorga himself. Robert Quarry wasn’t up to the task, and seems to wander around the sets, delivering his lines with a haughty distain. He doesn’t come across as either elegantly suave, or savage, or indeed even funny. He comes across rather as someone you’d avoid, not for fear of your life, but fear of the overwhelming urge to give him a good, hard slap. As I said in my review of Count Yorga, Vampire – I can only imagine the relish that Vincent Price would have brought to this role. But at the time according to Price’s autobiography, American International considered Price too expensive and too long in the tooth and were grooming Quarry for horror stardom. The move was ill-advised and the notion was relatively short lived.

As you’re reading Shocktober, I’ll go ahead and assume that like me, you’ve seen enough vampire movies over the years to know that you can’t keep ‘em down, and if the box office is good enough, they’ll come back. Sometimes their resurrections make no sense, and such is the lack of coherent reason here. Both Count Yorga (Robert Quarry) and his disfigured manservant Brudah (Edward Walsh) are back in action with no real explanation how they survived their fates at the end of the previous film, apart from some half assed mention of it having something to do with the strange Santa Ana winds. But, in any event they’ve relocated from Los Angeles to San Francisco, and are in residence in a stately residence, next to an orphanage.

Despite the setup being somewhat murky, it, and the film itself as a whole work pretty well. There’s a sense of otherworldly weirdness here that was absent from the first. Even the day for night photography which is usually unconvincing to say the least, adds to the sense of something being not quite right, which adds to this oddly menacing tone which pervades the film. It’s this ambience that instantly propels this sequel ahead of the more pedestrian first film. That and another huge plus (as far as I’m concerned) which is the casting of Mariette Hartley as the female lead. Like every other Trekkie on the planet, I have my list of the best of the best episodes. Among my list of immortal greats is “All Our Yesterdays” from the third season. Actually, it’s the last but one episode of the original series and features Spock and McCoy in a time travel scenario where they’re trapped in an ice age wasteland in a planet’s far history. There they meet Zarabeth (Hartley) who has been exiled there and the story becomes a Spock based love story. To me, it’s one of the best written of the third season and Hartley’s standout performance makes her character one of the best played “guest of the week” spots.

The film had me hooked from the first scene, which is one that carries a visual punch that lingers in the mind. A child from the orphanage is playing in the grounds, and wanders a little further from the orphanage boundaries, chasing kicking and his ball at twilight, as the Santa Ana winds begin to arrive in the form of a breeze. The mood, the lighting and the camera angles are all used to optimum affect as the kid finds himself in a graveyard. Behind him, female arms begin to work their way through the soil, as Yorga’s vampire brides rise from their shallow graves. Soon the kid is surrounded but runs into Count Yorga himself (Robert Quarry).

Mariette Hartley plays Cynthia, a teacher at the Orphanage. She has arranged a fundraising concert by the children that evening. Yorga drops in for a bite, and despite his somewhat effete mannerisms, becomes infatuated with Cynthia and later, back at his home, orders his vampire brides to go and wipe out Cynthia’s entire family, with the intention of then convincing Cynthia to stay at his place “to keep her safe”. He hypnotises her to wipe out the memory of the vampiric massacre. Apart from Cynthia, the only other survivor is the child with the ball, Tommy (Phillip Frame) who is now acting under Yorga’s influence – like a pre-pubescent Renfield.

Here's where the film gets a little confusing. I can understand the return of Quarry as Yorga and Edward Walsh as Brudah. But also returning from the cast of the first film is Roger Perry, in an entirely different role. Sort of. He’s still playing a doctor. But a different doctor. But he’s still the one who first suspects they’re dealing with a vampire.

As far as the plot goes, there’s not much of it. Yorga falls for a girl, girl rejects him as the memories of the massacre of her family resurface, eventually she kills him with a battle axe and he falls off a balcony, presumably dead – even though he wasn’t staked through the heart or exposed to sunlight.

Yorga stayed dead this time, despite there being plans for a third film where a broken Yorga was reduced to living in the sewers. There were even plans for a crossover movie where Yorga would encounter his ultimate nemesis, Doctor Anton Phibes (Vincent Price). Now THAT would’ve been something to see.