31 Days of Horror: Day 16- Flesh for Frankenstein (1973)/ Blood for Dracula (1974)

Despite the gruesome creatures, flying limbs and buckets of blood, horror as a genre can feel pretty stale. For every excellent film there is a dozen forgettable or terrible ones. And there are so many that it takes a lot of wading through the rubbish to get to the interesting stuff. For each day in October I’m going to recommend a different horror film or film about horror.  For the most part they won’t be the accepted classics. My selections range from the genuinely excellent to the delightfully strange with a few that are more fascinating than they are great. Hopefully there will be something for everyone and you’ll find something new to give you a scare or maybe a laugh. This is my 31 days of Horror and today I’m talking about: Flesh for Frankenstein and Blood for Dracula.

Today I’m mixing it up with a double feature. They were both produced by Andy Warhol, shared some of the same cast and were directed and written by Paul Morrissey (although Tonino Guerra writer of Amacord and Blow-up also contributed but was un-credited). They are the gloriously campy Flesh for Frankenstein and Blood for Dracula. Both star Udo Kier in the titular role with Joe Dallesandro showing up in both as a crass buff dude. The films tell original stories with these classic characters, mixing in more overtly sexual overtones in comparison to the source material too. There is a lot of European and Eastern European actors struggling to speak English and unending strangeness. Both films are full of intentional and unintentional comedy, amazing one-liners, excellent performances and beauty. They straddle between being so-bad-it’s-good type movies and being purposefully artistically bizarre. Flesh and Blood are a pair of entertaining oddities and go very well together.

In an effort to create a perfect Serbian race, Baron von Frankenstein with the help of his servant Otto cobble together different body parts. He is focused on physical beauty as well as reproductive urges. Not only does he need beautiful people but also he needs beautiful people that will willingly procreate enough to create a new race. The Baron also seems sexually attracted to the creatures he is making in dead and living form. But his work is making him neglect his frustrated wife/sister. She brings in another man to fulfil her desires but he may prove to be the undoing of the Baron’s evil deeds.

Count Dracula is dying. In this version of the vampire lore he must only drink the blood of virgins but his notoriety and the lack of virgins in his home has left him thirsty. He moves to Italy (as it is a Roman Catholic country in his eyes) in search of virgin blood and takes residence in a home of a landowner. The man has a large estate but his funds are waning. They agree to marry one of his daughters to the wealthy Count but he has to figure out which of them could be a virgin. Also, a local buff dude who has been sleeping with two of the landowner’s daughters may prove to be the undoing of the Count’s evil deeds.

So there’s definitely a lot of symmetry between the films but they are still very different experiences. Both star Udo Kier as a demented oddball and Joe Dallesandro as a ripped guy whose hammy acting and brashness is a major obstacle for Kier’s nefarious deeds. The thing that separates them though is the feeling of each film as well as the humour. Flesh often seems to be unintentionally funny while Blood definitely knows what it’s doing. Kier is brilliant but his accent in Flesh clearly makes it hard for him to speak English very well. At times his pronunciations can bring hilarity to the outwardly macabre story. Not only his performance but the lines he is given to say are just so unusual. Saying that though, regardless of what he’s saying he always gives it his all. Udo Kier is always entertaining and he’s a guy I love to see in films (his poster for Lars von Trier’s upcoming Nymphomaniac shows his greatness). For Kier, at this point, the main thing holding his acting back is his accent. Joe Dallesandro on the other hand is not a very good actor. Despite his lacking ability he is a good physical presence and his stilted deliver has an “Aw shuck’s mister” type charm to it. As if he is a crude but well-intentioned young boy in the body of an Adonis fighting against two of literatures greatest monsters. Dallesandro and Kier’s limitations are put to much more purposeful use in Blood than in Flesh. Flesh is played somewhat straight and it’s really the straight-faced weirdness that brings out the humour. Like when the Baron is inexplicably traveling on a tiny horse or lines like “To know death Otto, you have to fuck death in the gallbladder!” (Immediately proceeded by Kier sticking is arm into a cadaver’s stomach). Blood on the other hand really exploits the overt campiness of everything. Kier’s performance is off-the-chain-crazy and Dallesandro is given a much more intelligent character. His character in Blood is a determined Marxist who waxes lyrical about the plight of the common man. Except it’s coming out of Dallesandro’s mouth and he says it like he’s about to get in a fight with some guy at the local pub. Blood’s story even throws in a bit of farce too. The Count goes from woman to woman with the idea that they are all virgins and each time he feeds he gets a nasty surprise. The somewhat unintentional camp of Flesh for Frankenstein followed by the more intentional camp of Blood for Dracula mixes up the type of humour without making things any less enjoyable.

As much as I have emphasised the absurdities of these films there’s also some excellent qualities to them too. Both are incredibly beautiful, Flesh has one of the grandest and most striking laboratories out of all of the cinematic portrayals of Frankenstein. Any of the apparent luridness is outdone by the lavishness of the sets and visuals. There is a unique mix of artistry and schlock with extra campiness thrown in. A lot of the sets are very simple and clean. At times they are reminiscent of 50’s horror movies but then the bloodshed and each films sensibilities bring in modernity. And that’s really what each of these films are doing. They’re bringing modern ideas, beliefs and characters into very traditional stories. Morrissey and Warhol try to vamp up classic stories for a new generation and their attempts at doing so are something to behold.

From Udo Kier repeatedly retching up non-virgins blood to a preposterously terrible looking beheading, there is comedy to be found in grisly stories. There are also fun little things like legendary director Vittorio De Sica (Bicycle Thieves, Umberto D) in a small role in Blood as well as a Roman Polanski cameo. They are two films that are quite unlike anything else. For some they might seem trashy and to others they will be art, personally I think they’re a perfect blend of both. Visually striking and endlessly silly, they are a treat to watch.

James M Macleod

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Adam Cook

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