At a seance, Donna (Donna Anders) wants to get in touch with her recently
deceased mother, but instead freaks out in shock & is only calmed down by a
visitor to the seance, Yorga (Robert Quarry) - which is bad news, because Count
Yorga is a vampire (hence the title).
Also Yorga proves to be a pretty bad guest to the party at which the seance
was held, as hje first leaves prematurely, then attacks Paul (Michael Murphy)
& Erica (Judith Lang) - the couple kind enough to drive him home -
violently beating him up & then sucking her blood.
When Erica the next day visits her doctor Hayes (Roger Perry) for dizziness
(caused of course by the bloodloss), he orders her to eat a steak ... when she
eats the cat instead, her boyfriend Paul realizes something is wrong - &
when he & his friend Michael (Michael Macready)- incidently Donna's
boyfriend - consult Doc Hayes about it, he suggests vampirism, wiping away
their reservations with a simple "it was never proven wrong". &
when it's found out that Yorga comes from Bulgaria, the culprit is found too.
However, that very same night, Erica disappears from her bedroom - abducted
by Yorga of course, who promptzly vampirizes her - & when Paul follows her
to Yorga's mansion he is simply killed by Yorga's spooky servant Brudah (Edward
Walsh).
For some reason doc Hayes, Michael & Donna now decide to pay Yorga a
social call, as they hope to keep the count awake with light conversation until
sunrise & then dispose of him - a stupid enough plan that deservedly does
not work.
So Michael & Hayes decide to sleep a few hours & then return to
Yorga's mansion to stake him - but they of course have not acconted for Donna
being under the Count's hypnotic spell & turning off Michael's alarm, so he
won't wake up on time to reach the mansion before sunset, & then she goes
off to Yorga herself, to have herself vampirized too.
However, our heroes are undaunted by the little misfortune of oversleeping a
few hours & decide to go vampire hunting in the middle of the night (which
puts them rather at disadvantage), bringing broomhandles & chairlegs as
stakes.
However, Yorga catches Hayes when he wants to enter & forces him the
conversation of last night before sending in his vampire women to kill him ...
but despite always boasting about his superior vampire mind he hasn't accounted
for Michael coming as well, & when he finally meets him, Yorga runs right
into Michael's stake, & he immediately dissolves to dust.
Plus Michael can free Donna as well ... all's well that ends well - or is
Donna already a vampire ... ?
For whatever reason Count Yorga has obtained almost cult status over the
years - but that can't hide the fact that it is rather amateurishly made &
at times an unintentional laugh-riot & ridiculously absurd: Most of the
exterior shots are set up as if from a hidden camera - meaning from improbable
(& uninteresting) angles with shaky movements & careless zooms - as if
the filmmakers wanted to save on filming permits, the interior shots are set up
just carelessly & even the horror scenes seem to have been shot
indifferently, most of the actors (safe from Robert Quarry, who gives a fine
performance) act indifferently, sometimes even slightly amused towards the
horrors they have to face and their dialogue is just lame, plus: this might be
the only movie that has the heroes trying to keep the vampire up long enough to
be destroyed by the first sunlight using smalltalk.
So yep, it's bad, really bad alright, but it has its weird & wonerful
merits !
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