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Blood Capsule #365

THE RETURN OF COUNT YORGA (1971)

Yesterday, I reviewed Count Yorga, Vampire.  I said I wasn't sure if I would review the sequel, but I guess I'm sure now.  Wouldn't it be weird if I still wasn't sure?  The Return of Count Yorga was patched together by the same creative team.  Robert Quarry is an aristocratic vampire again, although it's not explained how he survived being impaled in the first movie.  This is truly a random sequel.  At the top, I'll say that I didn't love this follow-up with as much execrated zeal (!?) as I was hoping.  I did appreciate the fact that Return attempts to tell a fresh story, as opposed to merely parroting the events of the original.  Our setting is an austere institution.  Count Yorga presents himself out of thin air (a result of the "Santa Ana winds," we are told) and falls head over wings with Cynthia, a teacher at an orphanage.  Exactly thirty minutes into the thing, his concubines rise from the earth and victimize everyone on screen.  It's a harrowing scene, and it would probably be the climax of a mediocre fright flick in the modern day.  But this isn't the modern day, now is it?

By the way, that's a minor spoiler.  It won't have an adverse effect on your viewing experience.  There is an hour to go, after all.  The second act does lag a bit, but generally speaking, the pace is kept cracking.  I dig how the camera backs off of the leads as they try to make sense of the horror that has found them.  It's a neat trick (used in the previous film as well) that lends a sense of voyeuristic dread to the exposition.  You get the feeling that Count Yorga could be watching them at all hours of the day.  Creepy, no?  The final stretch adds a few interesting wrinkles to the formula.  I definitely had fun with The Return of Count Yorga.  Fair or not, it doesn't quite compare to Yorga's incipient sojourn.  By the way, check out my prog rock band Incipient Sojourn.  We formed a couple of seconds ago, and by George, I think we have a shot at the Billboard charts.  In 1971.  Ahem...highly recommended to fans of Yorga-based sequels.

4-0-0?

Yesterday, I wrote Blood Capsule #375...we're closing in on the big 4-0-0.  If you're not aware, I've been YouTubing like crazy lately.  Click HERE to check me out over there.  I'll promote it more later on, but eventually, the idea is to embrace YouTube full time.  I now return you to your regularly scheduled nonsense.

Blood Capsule #364

COUNT YORGA, VAMPIRE (1970)

Where has this movie been all my life?  I knew of the title; I knew that Robert Quarry played an aristocratic bloodsucker.  I did not know that Count Yorga, Vampire was ten kinds of awesome in a five-pound bag.  Okay, maybe it's a six-pound bag.  Oddly enough, the film starts in slasher mode.  Following a seance sequence in which Yorga necromances the dead mother of partygoer Donna, a young couple is vamped after making love in a van.  This must be one of Jason Voorhees's favorite horror flicks.  The victims are not murdered, however.  Erica is bedridden and requires blood transfusions.  Her boyfriend is suspicious of the...um, suspicious Yorga, a Bulgarian mystic who dated Donna's mother in the weeks leading up to her passing.  It doesn't take long for our main coterie of characters to reach the grave conclusion that their suspect is, in fact, a handsome mosquito.  Paragraph!

Break!  So this should have been one of my go-to vampire romps for years.  Seriously, how has it eluded my eyeballs for so long?  In nearly every Blood Capsule that I've written, I have made it a point to reference pacing.  In my book (my figurative book, that is), it's of paramount importance if you're reading a review of a movie you haven't seen.  Yorga is paced to perfection.  It's never dull, nor does it feed you information in spastic fits of "plot dumping."  It goes without saying that the acting is engaged from all involved.  If it doesn't go without saying, well, that's why I said it.  There are times when I struggle to elucidate why I enjoy a film so much.  Count Yorga, Vampire is simply enjoyable.  Check back with me in a few years, and it's likely that I'll give it a full 5 Z'Dars.  Before you ask, yes, I do own the sequel.  It remains to be seen whether I review it or not.  Nevertheless, I have a brilliant chunk of random trivia for you.  We very nearly received a showdown between Yorga and Vincent Price's Dr. Phibes.  Holy cricket, how cool would that have been???

Disco!?

The beauty of this website is that it's programmed to update itself (well, I write the reviews...you know what I mean), so it's not going to matter that I'll probably lose power over the weekend.  Random Reviews Incorporated is a nonstop horror disco.  Until it stops.  But that won't be for awhile!

Blood Capsule #363

SLITHIS (1978)

I feel like this review needs a disclaimer of sorts.  Something along the lines of "this movie will not entertain most normal people."  I accidentally slid into Slithis (a.k.a. Spawn of the Slithis), but as it turns out, it's comprised of the stuff, the very physiognomy, that appeals to the horror-centric circuits of my brain.  It has everything I need from a cult classic, regardless of whether or not it qualifies as a cult classic.  Of course, there is a monster.  And it might...might be a fishman.  Soil samples contain traces of radioactivity that might...might be coming from nuclear reactor spillage off the coast of California.  The script mentions that this ooze might...might have seeped into a lagoon.  A lagoon!  To me, that spells "fishman."  I'm taking it and running with it.  It should be noted that Slithis is not terribly concerned with the viewer.  There is a lot of talking, a lot of sedentary "action" that only bogs down the pace.  But!  If the characters are talking about ridiculous pseudo-science (and most of the time, they are), I'm hooked.  Can't help it.

For a no-budget production, the creature design is pretty fantastic.  Apparently, the poor guy in the suit was stuck in rubber on 15-hour shooting days.  I say, give him every Academy Award, even Best Sound Mixing.  Speaking of which, Slithis deserves serious consideration in the category for Best Gore.  After removing objectionable violence to secure a PG rating, producers edited those scenes back into the movie before it was shipped off to theaters.  Ha!  So you see that I have to dig this flick on principle alone.  The cast does make an earnest effort to give implausible lines of dialogue some degree of gravity.  While I can't say that Slithis holds a candle to Humanoids From the Deep or Island of the Fishmen, it certainly ranks above Bog.  And Blood Beach.  It's way better than Blood Beach.  Don't watch Blood Beach.

The German one-sheet.

Matches That Time Forgot #70

Has it really been four years since I posted one of these?  This one was inspired by Hiroshi Tanahashi's recent retirement.  It's also inspired by watching a bunch of random Razor Ramon stuff.  Yep, it's a post-WCW (and pre-WWE) Scott Hall versus a very young Ace.  The Bad Guy takes an upset.  Pretty cool find!

Blood Capsule #362

This review was requested via Patreon.  If you'd like to request a review (and please do show mercy on me), click HERE.

FRANKENSTEIN AND ME (1996)

I feel like I'm the only one who isn't overly enthused about Guillermo Del Toro's Frankenstein.  I only mention it because it seems to lack a key element that I was able to find in Frankenstein and Me.  That key element?  Fun!  Remember fun?  It was what you experienced as a kid when you first saw the Universal horror movies.  I'm sorry, but I can't be frightfully ardent for a 150-minute period piece.  A love story, at that...perish the thought.  This obscure curiosity nails the kind of vibe I was hoping to sluice out of both Del Toro's Frankenstein and the recent stab at The Wolf Man (or as a friend called it, Rabies Dad).  I can't believe it slipped past me in the 90's, but that's why I take requests on occasion.  The cast is outright bizarre.  Burt Reynolds - who could have easily been played by Norm Macdonald - stars as a dreamer.  That's how he is described anyway.  He is the main character's father, and roughly 30 minutes into the film, he dies of sudden heart failure.  So that's a bummer.

Frankenstein and Me tells the story of how a little boy copes with the loss of a loved one.  How is it horror-adjacent, you may ask?  Valid question.  There is a pastiche of nostalgia-tinted daydream sequences that depicts young Earl as the mad doctor in Frankenstein or as the tragic lycanthropic figure in The Wolf Man.  These scenes are lovingly shot.  As a matter of fact, I loved 'em, and I have to imagine that any other monster kid would feel the same way.  Without revealing too much, we also get a secondary arc that deals with a carnival sideshow attraction.  I would have liked Frankenstein and Me to focus a little more on its sci-fi underbelly, but I'm quibbling.  This is an engrossing picture.  I think it premiered on the Disney channel, but I haven't come across any hard evidence to back up such a claim.  Random trivia!  This flick features the screen debut of Ryan Gosling.  Oh my God, you guys, he's so cute.

Click HERE to read my review of 2000's Believe.  Same director.  And strangely, same MPAA rating (PG).