Vampire Circus (1971). ***
Directed by Robert Young, this film is one of Hammer's plethora of films during the 1970-71 period which have any merit at all and is well worth seeing.
The Return of Count Yorga (1971). ****
With the aid of Yvonne Wilder on the script, who also plays a featured role in the film as a Cassandra-like mute, Bob Kelljan was able to surpass his mediocre Count Yorga, Vampire and create something close to a classic of the genre — albeit, for the most part, forgotten. With the aid of cinematographer Bill Butler (Jaws, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest), Kelljan was able to create a film with an overpowering sense of menace and pervasive horror. The presence of the vampire is similar to Stoker's — an indication of growing social disruption. Count Yorga and followers completely disrupt an orphanage and pervert all relationships. The ending of the film is one of the best of the vampire cinema. Butler unleashed his visual pyrotechnics; it was filmed in slow motion freeze frame for optimum effect.
Blacula (1973). ***
Shakespearian actor William Marshall played the role of the vampire in this picture, which is neither one of the great vampire films nor a "blackploitation" film. The film has a spirit of fun which wasn't present in any vampire films of the previous decade.
Scream, Blacula, Scream (1973). **
Director Bob Kelljan was not able to achieve the merits of the original Blacula (directed by William Cram), much less approach the artistry of his best film, The Return of Count Yorga, with this picture.
Andy Warhol's Dracula (1975). ****
Released a few months after Andy Warhol's Frankenstein (May, 1974), this film, like its predecessor, evaluates its particular genre, in this case the vampire cinema, and it views it as one which exploits the subliminal psycho-sexual fears of its audience. Of course, the assumption of the film-makers is that these audiences are awaiting some kind of ludicrous confirmation of those subliminal fears through ritual enactment and formulaic plot. Thus, the proceedings of Andy Warhol's Dracula are predictably ludicrous and necessarily silly. They are also, paradoxically, quite disturbing.
