Dracula [1994]

In a brief prologue, this Italian production gives two dates [1493, 1495] for the death of Vlad the Impaler, neither correct [it's 1496]. A cloaktail-rider intended to cash in on the 1992 Coppola film, Dracula opens as if it will have some ambition, with a dozen extras clashing swords in a medieval battle and quite elaborate costumes, then swiftly degenerates into a series of loosely-strung sex scenes. The noble Vlad Dracula [Enzo Montefusco] is killed in battle, and his castle falls into the hands of some degenerate crusaders who enjoy torturing the innocent [with a graphic heart-ripping H.G. Lewis effect] and, rather more conventionally, making a sex slave of Vlad's devoted widow, Elisabetta [Selen]. She poisons herself, and Dracula's catafalque begins to bleed. Then, in 'Bedford, London, 1887', Elisabetta turns up, passing herself off as 'Sandy' and invades a middle-class salon, converting a matron into a vampire who briefly does an Exorcist vomiting act. A group of Englishmen and women visit Transylvania, mostly for sex with the locals and each other, but Sandy sacrifices them all the resurrect her husband, which makes this perhaps a prequel to Stoker's story along the lines of Raymond Rudorff's novel The Dracula Archives. Much of the sex is handled by the plump and unappealing X-rated veteran Ron Jeremy, a lecherous and murderous coachman given to stabbing his forced conquests. He finally gets what he deserves, in a scene familiar from this sub-sub-genre, when his private parts are fatally chomped by a vampire fellatrice. Director Mario Salieri has pretensions to style - the lighting, sets and costumes are aptly gothic, and the script holds back on obvious spoofery - but is of the gynaecological close-up school of pornographer, rarely managing even diluted eroticism among the graphic sexual activity that litters this underplotted mini-epic. Also with: Deborah Wells, Joy Karins, Draghixa and Maeva Excel.
KIM NEWMAN

First Published In: Shivers

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