Count Dracula (Udo Kier) is sick and dying. He must have the blood of virgins in order to survive. His servant Anton (Arno Jurging) has a plan. Since The Count has exhausted the supply of virgins in his homeland of Romania, Anton convinces The Count that he must leave his homeland and travel to another country where virgins are more available. Anton believes that in Italy they will find a bumper crop of virgins since it is a religious country and Catholic girls are suppose to be virgins until they marry.
When they arrive in Italy Anton begins to make subtle inquires about good families in the area with available unmarried daughters. Anton learns that the Marchese di Fiore (Vittorio De Sica) and his wife the Marchesa Di Fiore (Maxime McKendry) have four daughters. The Marchese is land rich and money poor. He is impressed with Count Dracula’s name and pedigree and is most interested in marrying off one of his daughters to The Count.
The Marchese’s daughters are Saphiria (Dominique Darel) Rubinia (Stefania Casini), Esmeralda (Milena Vuktic) and Perla (Silvia Dionisio). Of the four daughters Saphiria and Rubinia have regular sex with the hired hand Mario Balata (Joe Dallesandro). The other two daughters, Esmeralda the oldest and Perla the youngest are still virgins.
Since Esmeralda is believed to be past the marriageable age and Perla is too young at only 14, Dracula concentrates on the two girls in the middle and drinks their blood. Unfortunately for The Count, since they are not the virgins he seeks his body rejects their tainted blood and he throws up what he drank. This makes The Count weaker. He still manages to control Saphiria and Rubinia tuning them into slaves. With their help he sets his sights for the young Perla.
“Andy Warhol’s Dracula” AKA “Blood For Dracula” was released in 1974 and was directed by Paul Morrissey. The movie was begun shortly after the completion of “Andy Warhol’s Frankenstein”. The film is more of a black comedy than a horror film. For me the movie started a little slow and plodded along too much. It wasn’t until the last fifteen minutes or so when things picked up. Then all hell breaks loose.
This is the most morose and depressed Dracula I’ve ever seen. You’re a vampire, stop whining. I did feel a little sorry for the The Count at times. Here he is in Italy and his servant manages to pick the family where half the daughters are not virgins. He spends half his time up-chucking blood into either the tub or the toilet.
I expected the sex and the lesbianism with the two middle daughters and I was not surprised when Mario raped the youngest daughter in order to “save her” from the vampire. The part that actually grossed me out was when Dracula found the blood from Perla on the floor after she was raped and he got down on hands and knees and licked it up. Even with the weird parts “Dracula” was not as bloody or as kinky as “Frankenstein” was.
Roman Polanski has a cameo in the film as the man at the inn who cons Anton. Reportedly Antonio Margheriti is credited in Italian prints of the film despite not directing it to gain benefits Italian films garner under law for Italian done films. Supposedly both producer Carlo Ponti and Margheriti were tried for fraud.
The film’s title was changed from “Blood for Dracula” to “Andy Warhol’s Dracula” for the West German and American release. When asked what his contribution was to the film Warhol responded "I go to the parties," and followed up with "All of us at The Factory contribute ideas."