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Nosferatu among the suburbanites, a concept so unbearably comic that even the characters can barely stifle a giggle during the opening séance. Yorga (Robert Quarry) is a dapper mesmerist out of Bulgaria and into modern Los Angeles, his bachelor pad is tastefully equipped with a dungeon for his undead brides. Stranded in a Volkswagen van while wolves howl in the distance, the hip couple (Michael Murphy, Judy Lang) decide to "take advantage of this ghoulish situation" until their romping is interrupted by the fanged visage in the window. The lass after the attack grows anemic and feasts on the cat, at night she receives the Count in half-open camisole. Enter a diffident Van Helsing, the "blood specialist" (Roger Perry) who must improvise: "How would you feel about driving a wooden stake through somebody's heart?" "Marvelous." "You got a broom handle?" Bob Kelljan helps himself to the milieu of Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, just the transitional fin de décennie for a Eurotrash vampire to give the New World a try. ("One must be vulnerable to all superstitions," narrates George Macready from some unseen crypt.) The dry satire pivots on the roué's air of discreet irritation at the cuckolded mortals trying to save their girlfriends by keeping him up until daylight, asking questions about the occult. Hammer horrors plus California naturalism, the raid on the castle builds to a note of thrift-store Polanski. "Would you care to see now what you hope not to see?" Rothman (The Velvet Vampire) and Romero (Season of the Witch) are among the beneficiaries. With Michael Macready, D.J. Anderson, Edward Walsh, and Julie Conners.
--- Fernando F. Croce |