Classic Spanish Paul Naschy-starring horror movie Count Dracula’s Great Love finally makes it to Blu-ray from Vinegar Syndrome
Vinegar Syndrome’s glorious restoration of director Javier Aguirre’s surreal 1973 Paul Naschy romp Count Dracula’s Great Love is cause for celebration and it’s one of the most important vintage European horror releases of the year. Of course, speaking subjectively, it’s the most important release in the past 30 years because that’s when I saw it first, when I was 12 and I’ve been waiting for a clean release ever since. I caught the film in its butchered – but still sensual and macabre – 75-minute TV print state at 4am on Toronto station CFTO under the title Dracula’s Great Love. Well, the on-screen title was accurate but the print was so brutally panned and scanned that the word “Count” came off as “unt.” I taped it off TV then and when I showed it to my friends, they laughingly referred it to it as “Cunt Dracula’s Great Love.”
But I digress.
I was profoundly affected by the film. It was romantic and cruel, violent and sexy, lush and ludicrous. The music was shrill and overbearing; the English dubbing was brilliantly off; the tone and rhythm were wonderfully alien and there were charming little pubic hairs flickering in the peripherals of the eerily worn and faded print that only added to the movie’s sumptuous otherworldliness.
And at the center of all, playing the good Count himself (more or less) was a hirsute, barrel-chested hombre named Paul Naschy. Looking a bit like a sun-kissed John Belushi, Naschy (real name: Jacinto Molina) seemed like the least obvious choice to play the quintessential King of the Vampires and yet, somehow his hangdog, sad-eyed visage was oddly appropriate.
Ultimately, my reaction to both Naschy and the film itself was one of intense bewilderment – I had never seen anything like it. Once the picture wound down to its rather abrupt and dramatic climax, I knew I had fallen in love with it. And yet I couldn’t properly articulate as to why that was.
Made in the wake of the more explicit late period Hammer Horror films pumping out of the UK and Naschy’s own classic Hollywood monster rewrites, the film was a bit of a sidestep. By the time it was released, Naschy had already established himself as a hero of Spanish terror, playing the equally-miserable werewolf Waldemar Daninsky in popular and equally-abstract genre romps like Fury of the Wolfman, Frankenstein’s Bloody Terror and my personal favorite of the Daninsky Cycle, Werewolf Shadow (aka The Werewolf Vs. The Vampire Woman). Hiding under a face of fur seemed to suit the stocky former weightlifter, defining his legacy.
But Naschy’s Dracula is something radically different. After a carriage full of lovely ladies and their manly-man chaperone (played by Naschy’s Horror Rises From the Tomb co-star Vic Winner) bust a wagon wheel and get stranded, the intrepid crew wind their way to Dr. Wendell Marlow’s remote country sanitarium where they are put up for the night by their gracious host. The thing is, the good doc is actually the legendary Count Dracula in disguise and not only is he hungry for blood… he’s looking for love.
Soon, each comely cutie is vampirized, first by a wandering, bug-eyed, bloody-necked stray ghoul (who got bitten by Drac after dropping off a coffin to the clinic in the creepy, skull-splitting pre-credits opening sequence that famously repeats and repeats ad nauseaum), then by the now inexplicably lesbian-ized undead women themselves. All become fang fodder, except the sweet, virginal Karen (the equally lovely Haydee Politoff) who catches Dracula’s eye.
There’s plenty of weirdness here and plenty of sex. When I was in my early teens, I scrimped and saved and ordered a VHS from California-based mail order company Sinister Cinema and, after sticking that hefty bootleg beast into my top-loading player, my jaw hit the floor and my eyes popped out of their sockets. Because that TV print I had used to didn’t prep me for the carnal knowledge on display: vampires biting boobs, girl vamp on girl vamp action, nude swimming, Naschy and Politoff lovemaking, see through vampire negligees… the list goes on. And it’s a good list.
The movie has been released a few times on DVD through the years, most notably via Shout! Factory as part of their Elvira’s Movie Macabre line and that version was struck from the very same splicey but saucy, pan/scan Sinister Cinema version.
And then there’s this Vinegar Syndrome release. Praise Pablo. It’s a stunner. Presented in its proper 1:85:1 aspect ratio, scanned from a 35mm internegative, with popping colors and Spanish and English audio tracks (though because the film was shot without sound, both versions are dubbed), watching the film again here literally brought tears to my eyes. I have had it in my possession for four days and I have watched it every day. It’s my favorite Spanish horror movie, full stop, and I want to eat this Blu-ray. I may sound irrational but hey, the movie itself is irrational, so life is clearly imitating art.
Also on the disc is a sweet commentary with Naschy and Aguirre, recorded a few years ago before the former’s passing (obviously) as well as a video interview with the still-lovely actress Mirta Miller. The cover is reversible, with the more recognized poster on the front and a weird one on the back. The Vin Syn folks tell me its struck from an Italian poster. Interesting because the chief image is cribbed from the VHS release of Jess Franco’s Female Vampire, a Wizard Video painting under the title Erotikill (incidentally, that film’s star, Eurohorror legend Jack Taylor dubbed Naschy for this and several other English versions of his work). Since Wizard honcho Charles Band commissioned Italian artists to make many of those paintings, it’s possible he simply cut and pasted the image (which looks a lot like Ingrid Pitt from Hammer’s The Vampire Lovers, in fact) for his release. Either way, I have never seen any Count Dracula’s Great Love poster that looks like this until now.
Liner notes by Latarnia Forums moderator and Eurohorror know-it-all Mirek Lipinski are well-researched (aided by horror mainstay Domenick Fraumeni), if a bit dry and academic. This is a film that oozes fluids and madness and when discussing it, a dose or three of mirth would be preferred. Either way, the booklet is a solid addition to this, the most alarmingly awesome thing I’ve picked up in eons. A MUST PURCHASE!
