Plot
Los Angeles woman Donna hosts a séance in hopes of contacting her recently deceased mother.[2] Overseeing the seance is Count Yorga, a Bulgarian mystic and hypnotist who has recently moved to the states from Europe. Yorga dated Donna's mother's weeks before her death and insisted that she be buried rather than cremated per her wishes. Donna cannot recall seeing him at the funeral.
After the party is over, Donna's friends Erica and Paul drive the Count home. Their van later gets stuck in the mud outside his mansion, although Paul insists the road was dry a minute ago. They resign themselves to spending the night in their van. After having sex, they settle in to sleep. Yorga knocks out Paul and bites Erica. The following day, the couple returns to the city. Paul did not see their attacker, and Erica does not remember anything.
Doctor Jim Hayes inspects the bite wounds on Erica, who now seems despondent and listless. She also has lost a lot of blood. Shortly after, Paul and Donna's boyfriend Michael try to call Erica's phone, which she drops to the floor without answering. They drive to her home and find everything in disarray, with a hysterical Erica eating her kitten. After noticing their presence, she first threatens with violence and then attempts to seduce Paul before coming to her senses and breaking down.
They restrain her and call Hayes, who begins an emergency transfusion. Afraid, Erica begs Paul to forgive her and to kill her.
Yorga awakens in his manor and heads to his basement which has been converted into a throne room. He awakens his two vampiric brides and commands them to have sex. One of them is Donna's mother.
That night, Yorga visits Erica. Promising her immortality, he seduces Erica, drains her of her blood, and takes her body to his manor. Upon finding Erica missing, Paul goes to Yorga's mansion to rescue her. Yorga chokes him to death and has his servant Brudah (who has seemingly supernatural strength) break his back.
Michael alerts Hayes that Paul has gone to the mansion. Hayes' girlfriend suggests involving the police, citing a similar case of a baby being found in the woods, drained of its blood with bite wounds on the neck. Hayes calls the police but is rejected as a prankster following a recent rash of such calls. Hayes, Michael, and Donna go to the mansion to inquire about Paul's whereabouts and keep Yorga active until sunrise. While Hayes distracts Yorga with questions about the latter's occult experiments, Brudah rebuffs Michael's attempts to explore the mansion. Michael and Hayes switch places to keep Yorga off his guard. However, Yorga becomes insistent that his guests must leave.
After leaving the manor, Hayes and Michael plan to attack that afternoon in the hopes of killing Yorga in the daytime. Michael and Donna rest while Hayes studies vampire lore until he, too, falls asleep.
Yorga awakens Donna telepathically and has her sabotage Michael's alarm clock before having her come to the mansion. On her arrival, Brudah rapes her. When Michael awakens, he finds Donna gone. It is nearly evening when he calls to awaken Hayes. Despite knowing how dangerous their chances are, they stock up on stakes and makeshift crosses before heading to the mansion as night falls. The two split up, and Yorga confronts Hayes. He leads Hayes into his basement where his brides lie dormant. Hayes finds Erica's body among them, finding no heartbeat or pulse when he examines her. He then attacks Yorga with a cross and stake, while yelling out for Michael. Despite being held back by the cross, Yorga silently commands his brides to awake and attack. Hayes is fed on by the vampire women.
As Yorga reunites Donna with her mother, Michael finds Paul's mutilated body. Brudah attacks Michael, who mortally stabs him. At the throne room, Micheal finds Hayes. Before dying from blood loss, Hayes reveals where Donna is. Erica, now a vampire and under Yorga's control, and another bride attack him. In the ensuing fight, Erica pauses, giving Michael a chance to stake her. However, despite seeing she is no longer the Erica he knows, Micheal cannot bring himself to do kill her.
Michael then encounters Brudah, who eventually dies of his wounds. Michael reaches upstairs and confronts Yorga and Donna's mother. Yorga pushes her into Michael's stake and flees. Michael goes after Yorga, who eventually ambushes him intending to choke him. Michael rams Yorga with his stake, killing him. Donna mourns her mother a second time before Michael collects her. The two watch Yorga turn to dust.
While starting to leave, they are confronted by Erica and the other bride. They chase Michael and Donna until repelled by Michael's cross. As the vampires are forced back toward a cellar, Michael locks them in and drops his cross, believing the danger is over. However, as he turns to leave, Donna lunges at Micheal, fully transformed into a vampire and kills him.
Production
The film opens with a narration by character actor George Macready, whose son, Michael Macready, produced the film and also played "Michael".
Origin of the film
The film was originally to have been a soft core porn film called The Loves of Count Iorga, and some prints of the film display this as the on-screen title. Quarry told actor/producer Michael Macready he would play the vampire role if they turned the story into a straight horror film.[3]
Difficulties with the MPAA
Stephen Farber's 1972 book, The Movie Rating Game, details the problems that the film's distributor American International Pictures had in securing a GP rating (formerly known as M, later renamed to PG) from the Motion Picture Association of America, which initially was divided as to whether to give the film an R or X rating. AIP insisted that they needed an unrestricted GP rating for the film in order to get the film released into the largest possible number of theaters, most importantly drive-in theaters.
The film ended up going before the MPAA ratings board six times before being granted the GP rating, and two or three minutes of violent and sexual content were ultimately removed by AIP. Alterations to the movie's soundtrack were also required to lessen the impact of violent scenes that remained in the film.
Reception
Variety wrote that Robert Quarry had an "aristocratically handsome look and plays the part with a certain sinister intelligence (and) even a sly humor that befits a guy who has been around for several hundred years," adding that "The dialogue has a believable sound to it, and the playing of the principals is low-key and convincingly realistic."[4] Roger Greenspun of The New York Times called Robert Quarry "the best chief vampire I have seen in years."[5] Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune declared it "the best horror film of the year."[6] Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times wrote that "writer-director Bob Kelljan has freshened up the formula pretty well ... he and his attractive cast of unknowns do succeed in persuading us to go along with the hokum for the duration of the film's fast-moving 90 minutes."[7] Kenneth Turan of The Washington Post called it "as good a horror film as we have had for some time" and "90 minutes of supremely diverting entertainment."[8] Kenneth Thompson of The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote that "the understated acting and the tightly controlled, increasingly staccato tempo make this the most distinctive essay in the macabre since Night of the Living Dead."[9]
Legacy
After the sequel The Return of Count Yorga, a third Yorga film was planned, which would have featured a broken Count living in Los Angeles's sewers and creating an army of undead street people, but it never materialised.
American International Pictures had planned at one stage to revive Count Yorga as an adversary for Dr. Anton Phibes in Dr. Phibes Rises Again.[10] This plan was dropped, however, and Quarry appeared as the artificially young Dr. Biederbeck.
Home video release
Count Yorga, Vampire has been the subject of several home video releases in nearly all formats since the 1980s. In April 1991, the film was packaged as a Laserdisc double feature (Catalog Number ID7661HB), paired with the Vincent Price horror film, Cry of the Banshee; both films were not letterboxed, but employed a full screen, pan-and-scan process.
In 2004, MGM's Midnite Movies DVD line (which redistributed much of the American International Pictures horror catalog previously owned by Orion Pictures Home Video) released Count Yorga, Vampire and its sequel, The Return of Count Yorga as a DVD double feature. Both films were presented in the widescreen format, and included original theatrical trailers.
