I Watch Films: Count Yorga, Vampire

Count Yorga, Vampire

A mysterious box is carried out the Port of Los Angeles while a narrator talks to us about vampires. Then we find ourselves at a séance, with a number of characters. Count Yorga, the boyfriend of Donna’s late mother, is trying to contact her for Donna. Donna get over-excited and Count Yorga uses hypnosis on her. One couple offer him a lift home where we discover he has a weird man-servant and a dog. Their van gets stuck so they prepare to spend the night, but are attacked.

The next day the woman discovers she is tired and anemic and has to bite marks on her neck. A doctor and other characters spend a bit of time working their way up to deciding that maybe – maybe – there’s some vampire nonsense going on.

The film lays it out fairly clearly; things like bite marks, Count Yorga insisting that Donna’s mother be buried not cremated, his insistence on not meeting during the day etc. are all talked about by people who haven’t figured it out.

Yorga is smarter, stronger and faster, though not that smart, it’s just everyone else tries to tackle him on his own. Sometimes because they can't convince anyone he's a vampire, but also because they insist on splitting up in the vampire's mansion. His downfall – like Dracula – is that he’s too horny, his objective is to seduce women more than to take control or make himself secure. The original production plan was to have made this a soft porn horror film and this is woven into the plot if not the actual on-screen vision.

This is a slightly awkward 70s vampire thriller, lifted a little by the central Count Yorga who manages to do the simultaneously superior but driven by his desires thing that vampire films don’t always mange to do.

Watch This: A fun 70s vampire horror film
Don’t Watch This: Essentially it’s fraud, necromancy, rape and murder