"Blood for Dracula": Romance Is Dead

Blood for Dracula (1974)

Remake potential: Dracula’s old-world romanticism collides with contemporary sexual mores.

• Country: Italy/France

• Genre: Horror/Satire

• Director: Paul Morrissey

• Starring: Udo Kier, Joe Dallesandro, Vittorio De Sica, Dominique Darel

Blood for Dracula (1974), via IMDb

Clinical Overview

An ailing Dracula heads to Italy in search of virgin blood. An aristocratic family, made destitute by the father’s gambling, offers up its four daughters for marriage in hopes of reversing its fortune.

Diagnosis

The film takes aim at lampooning too many targets—Dracula, socialism, aristocracy, sex—to be funny.

Prescription

Make the story contemporary. Dracula remains courtly and old-world, a fish out of water. The daughters try to seduce him, but their sexual frankness makes him sick. He loses his bloodlust for virgins. The youngest daughter’s appetite for romance makes his heart go pitter-patter. His tragedy: He can’t kiss—only bite.