Rainey Dawn It's good to see Count Yorga again after years of no see. It's a better film than I remembered it to be. A GOOD Vampire film - fun to watch.Count Yorga is playing a spirit medium to help a girl speak to her recently deceased mother. She brings a group of her friends to help with and to be witness at the séance Count Yorga is conducting. What they don't know but will find out the Count is a good hypnotist and eventually suspect him of being a real Vampire! This one I would recommend to fans of horror and Vampires. It's a makes for a great late night film. It's got enough eeriness and jump scares strategically placed to have you leery of the shadows on your walls.9/10

Prichards12345 Personally I found Count Yorga, Vampire a breath of fresh air. For one thing it actually makes vampires creepy and disconcerting again. And if you disagree, fine, but just think about my little cat reference in the summary.Robert Quarry was at one time being groomed by American International Pictures to replace the Merchant Of Menace himself, Vincent Price. And it's clear from this movie why they thought so highly of him. Quarry makes a terrific vampire Count, capable of a charming urbanity that Hammer Films rarely allowed Christopher Lee to display; and fully portraying the demonic fury bit that Lee was so good at. For me this is a much better film than Hammer's Scars of Dracula and The Vampire Lovers from the same year, and I say that as a Hammer fan! The movie does have some flaws, of course. Not all the actors are good and Yorga's comedy servant could have done with a, er, revamp. The photography, especially at night, is a little on the murky side. Perhaps this was just the print I saw.And of course in a way, the vampires win. Which must be a first. This is a good little low budget horror movie that deserves to be better known.

MARIO GAUCI Not owning the rights to the Bram Stoker creation, AIP decided to invent their own vampire myth: the result is Dracula-in-all-but-name, being suave (sporting gracefully graying hair), cunning (even when caught off-guard, he manages to assert himself and turn the tables on interlopers), psychic (amusingly, he doubles as a medium at private séances!) and feral (his creepy dashes for prospective victims, seemingly out of nowhere, with blood-red eyes and arms outstretched actually gave me a jolt on a couple of occasions!). As played by Robert Quarry, he is quite creditable and effectively gave Christopher Lee (Hammer Film's Dracula incarnate) a run for his money.Incidentally, he anticipated the other Count's transition to modern times by 2 years and actually managed it a whole lot better (with, thankfully, little resort to Camp). That said, in the attempt to look at the phenomenon with a contemporary mindset, we get a contradiction – people repeatedly scoff at the idea of vampirism in our age, claiming it is a fabrication of literature and cinema, which rather suggests that they are aware of what it entails…and, yet, they are still surprised at what should be its predictable outcome and are required besides to pore over ancient tomes in search of a way to fight it! Though the film was given the alternate title of THE LOVES OF COUNT IORGA, VAMPIRE {sic}, which is actually borne by the copy I watched (for the record, this had been shown on local TV in my childhood but I first caught it years later on British Cable TV), it does not overstress the romantic angle. Indeed, one girl is shown quenching her unnatural thirst for blood by literally draining the life out of a kitten! The presence of a sinister (that is to say, hulking and deformed) acolyte is, admittedly, a bit of a cliché – but Yorga himself seems to have moved with the times (in spite of his traditional attire), since he is shown jadedly presiding over a lesbian vampire show in his living-room! The stylish film was produced by Michael Macready (who also assumes the requisite heroic persona on-screen, though the doctor-turned-vampire-hunter played by Roger Perry actually has an even more central role!), son of distinguished character actor George Macready (who generously supplies the portentous narration here and which, at the start, erroneously refers to vampires as "The Living Dead"{!}: indeed, the whole film – scripted by Kelljan himself – aspires to a certain literariness but often merely results in being verbose…which, however, it often works around by having characters conversing about the unusual events in which they had been thrust presented as voice-over laid on exterior crowd scenes!). The climax is a downbeat one: while Yorga is almost comically disposed of by being pierced (typically, through the heart) with a splintered broomstick, the lone-survivor hero sustains a vampiric attack from his own girlfriend (herself newly-inducted into the ranks of the Undead)! AIP presumably turned a fast profit with this one, seeing how they immediately commissioned a sequel (and whose own viewing followed that of the original in the current "Halloween Challenge"). However, they would soon come up with yet another (and even more outrageous) variation on vampire lore with the cult Blaxploitation offering BLACULA (1972) – which, in turn, led to the as-yet-unwatched SCREAM BLACULA SCREAM! (1973; helmed by Kelljan himself!)...

Poseidon-3 Made on a decidedly low budget, this contemporary vampire story is noted for placing a Dracula-like figure in a modern setting for perhaps the first time and for the captivating performance of Quarry in the title role. Anderson plays a young lady who holds a séance with her boyfriend and two other couples along with Quarry who leads the event. She is trying to connect with her recently deceased mother, who was also the lover of Quarry from three weeks prior to her death. Following a jarring and somewhat harrowing experience in the séance, the party breaks up and young Murphy and Lang give Quarry a ride home. Lang becomes intrigued by Quarry, a recent transplant from Bulgaria who lives in a musty castle on a gated estate. Before long, Quarry has nibbled on Lang and enticed her to his side while Murray and pal Macready prepare to do battle with him. They enlist the aid of blood specialist Perry, who acts as a sort of modern day Van Helsing, trying to come up with ways to combat the vampire. Quarry is a striking presence as Count Yorga (actually meant to be Iorga, and pronounced that way in the film, but changed by the distributing company in order to be more easily pronounced by the movie-going public!) The actor clearly relishes the chance to perform this type of role and brings a gravity to it, despite some of the lighter and campier aspects of the movie. Perry gives a skilled, knowing performance as well, obviously aware that a blend of seriousness mixed with levity was called for in the production. Lang is attractive and reasonably good (soap fans will be interested to know that her daughter Katherine Kelly Lang has played Brooke on "The Bold and the Beautiful" for many years!) Murphy, who would grow into a prolific character actor, isn't bad either, but most of the rest of the cast is weak. Macready, who produced and directed the film (and enlisted his more famous father to provide a ripe, flavorful voice-over), while nice enough looking, is almost laughably expressionless and wooden during most of his screen time. Initially conceived as a sort of T & A horror flick, it eventually morphed into a standard horror outing, though some sexually prominent elements remain. Quarry watches as two of his undead brides ALMOST make out and Lang has a self-caressing sequence as she's falling under his spell. Perry has a bedmate who was clearly chosen more for her body than her ability to recite dialogue, though he scene is amusing whether intentional or not! The low budget is revealed occasionally such as when two men carry on a conversation done entirely in voiceovers as they are shown walking, in long shots, through L.A. (these scenes afford priceless glimpses at the city at that time, however) and in the Volkswagon minibus scenes in which the actors are clearly emoting during daylight hours for a scene that takes place late at night! However, the visible snags are all part of the charm, for the most part. The non-polished production aspects lend the film a somehow more realistic and accessible feel. Memorable moments include Quarry enduring a late night tete-a-tete with Perry and Macready and Lang experiencing a gruesome encounter with her cat. The popularity, primarily at drive-ins and other theaters of that ilk, led to a sequel ("The Return of Count Yorga") one year later.