COUNT YORGA, VAMPIRE (1970) (BLU-RAY REVIEW)

COUNT YORGA, VAMPIRE (1970) 

Label: Twilight Time DVD 

Region Code: Region Free (A/B/C)

Duration: 93 Minutes

Rating: PG-13

Video: 1080p High Definition / 1.85:1 / Color

Audio: English 1.0 DTS-HD MA with Optional English Subtitles 

Director: Bob Kelljan

Cast: Robert Quarry, Roger Perry, Michael Murphy, Michael Macready, Donna Anders

Centuries old vampire Count Yorga (Robert Quarry) has set-up himself in sun-drenched Southern California, where he has established himself as something Bulgarian mystic, who performs séances. We find him at the home of Donna (Donna Anders), whom has brought in Yorga in hopes of contacting her deceased mother from beyond the grave, it's a fun set-up and quickly establishes Yorga's place in contemporary California society.

At the party a young woman named Erica (Judy Lang) catches the eye of Count Yorga, a familiar vampire trope with a young woman who reminds the centuries old blood-sucker of a past love. After the seance Yorga catches a ride home with Erica and her wise-cracking boyfriend  Paul (Michael Murphy), a sort of hippie-type couple who drive a VW Bus. The image of a vampire in the backseat of a VW Bus is one you might want to ponder for a while, too funny. 

After they drop the Count off at his home the young couple become stranded on a remote stretch of road when their van becomes stuck in the mud, they choose to spend the night in the van, in the dark night they hear wolves howl, Yorga appears as his animalistic blood-sucking self and knocks Paul out, tasting the blood of Erica, infecting her with vampire-virus. 

The next day Erica visits Dr. Hayes (Roger Perry) about the strange puncture wounds on her neck, he notices she has lost a lot of blood and is fatigued but he doc cannot diagnose what the cause of her injury or illness might be. The next day Paul comes home to discover Erica with a bloody dead cat in her hands, drinking blood from the dead feline, animal overs might want to avoid this scene, it's a shocker! 

Meanwhile Donna's boyfriend, Paul and Dr. Hayes begin to discuss what could be the cause of Erica's worsening state of being, joking about vampirysm but not truly believing that something supernatural is afoot. Eventually the crazy notion becomes the most plausible explanation, when Erica goes missing the friends launch an assault on the Yorga mansion on a mission to stake the undead blood-sucker through the heart. 

I love '70s horror movies, there's always a certain amount of kitsch for me with them, the vintage clothing, tacky wallpaper, I just love to watch and enjoy them, they're slower movies usually that can take awhile to build up a head of steam, but Yorga is not too slow, it has a great pace and some good atmosphere, sure it's a drive-in cheapie but there's some good craftsmanship up on the screen, they do a lot with very little, and it shows. 

Add to that a wonderfully suave and dapper portrayal by veteran actor Robert Quarry who exudes a centuries old world charm, a very smooth vampire, one who can talk a woman right off her feet, even without having to hypnotize them, but he does that, too. The actor has mesmerizing eyes, light colored, and they set him apart from other vampires in cinema, plus he can turn from elegant to animalistic blood-thirsty vampire on a dime, when he bares his fangs he is straight-up threatening, it really is Quarry that makes the Yorga movies a success. 

Audio/Video: Count Yorga, Vampire (1971) arrives on Blu-ray from Twilight Time in a limited edition run of 3000 copies, the new 1080p upgrade tightens up the visuals quite a bit. The movie was an AIP cheapie and didn't have the best lighting which does negatively affect many of the darker scenes, but this far advances over the previous standard-def version I have on the shelf. The DTS-HD MA Mono audio track reproduces the audio faithfully, balancing the dialogue, audio effects and Bill Marx score very nicely. 

Onto the extras Twilight Time have packed quite a few noteworthy extras for the release, many of which seem to have found there way here thank in part to filmmaker Tim Sullivan, who is a super fan of the movie and of actor Robert Quarry. The 'My Dinner with Yorga: The Robert Quarry Rue Morgue Interview', is a recreation of an interview that Sullivan recorded with Quarry in 2003, the audio tapes were lost for the interview but the interview is recreated here through a reading by David Del Valle and Tim Sullivan, with Del Valle doing a great job channeling his inner Yorga. It's fun stuff and you can almost imagine Quarry sitting there for the interview, a fun and animated audio extra. Sullivan again appears on another audio-only extra as a guest on the Fangirl Radio Tribute to Robert Quarry, which runs 46-minutes. 

There's also an audio commentary with Film Historians David Del Valle and guess who ... Tim Sullivan. A lively and informed discussion from both men who not only love horror, and love the Yorga movies but speak as men who were friends with Robery Quarry.

The disc is finished-up with two galleries, one from the MGM archives featuring various posters and behind-the-scene hots and promotional pics, then we have the Tim Sullivan archives featuring images from the 2003 Rue Morgue interview session, from screenings of the Yorga films and various pics of Sullivan and Quarry hanging out together, a few with Quarry flipping the bird. We finish up the disc extras with a trailer for the movie. 

Onto the packaging we have a clear Elite case with the very familiar artwork that was also used for the MGM Midnight Movies release of the movie, while it's not a reversible sleeve there is artwork on the reverse side of the sleeve, an illustration of Yorga baring his fangs, very cool. There's an 8 pg. collector's booklet with new writing on the movie from TT staff writer Julie Kirgo, which as per the usual is a treat to read. TT always creates new artwork fr the covers of the booklets and I loved his one, it should have been a reversible artwork option, a fantastic illustration of Yorga with a blood-red image of L.A. appearing amidst his flowing cape. 

Special Features: 

- Isolated Score Track 

- Audio Commentary with Film Historians David Del Valle and Tim Sullivan 

- My Dinner with Yorga: The Robert Quarry Rue Morgue Interview, a Reading by David Del Valle and Tim Sullivan (13 Mins) HD 

- Fangirl Radio Tribute to Robert Quarry with Tim Sullivan (46 Mins) HD 

- Still Gallery: The MGM Archives 

- Still Gallery: The Tim Sullivan Archives 

- Original Theatrical Trailer (1 Mins) 

Count Yorga, Vampire holds up forty-five years later, and not on a kitscy level either, you might read some campy humor into it but it's not onscreen, it's just in your mind, because it's a relic of the seventies and you expect it, but Quarry raises the material quite, this is just a great vampire entry. Fans of Quarry's Yorga will be thrilled to know that The Return of Count Yorga (1971) is also available on Blu-ray from Scream Factory, though with slightly fewer extras than this TT disc. If you're a fan of blood-sucking cinema you need this one, you need it now, you need it bad. 3.5/5

Blu-ray Review: DEAD KIDS (1981)

DEAD KIDS (1981) 

Label: Severin Films

Region Code: Region-FREE

Duration: 101 Minutes

Rating: R

Audio: English DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Mono 

Video: 1080p Widescreen (2.35:1) 

DIrector: Michael Laughlin

Cast: Michael Murphy, Dan Shor, Fiona Lewis, Dey Young, Louise Fletcher, Mark McClure, Scott Brady

When an eerie series of murders occur in a small Midwest town Sheriff Brady (Michael Murphy) suspects that the strange behavior modification experiments going on at Galesburg College might have something to do with it. In fact the sheriff's long suspected that a certain Professor Le Sange (Arthur Dignam) had something to do with his wife's death years earlier. What he doesn't know is that his son Peter (Dan Shor) is earning pocket money volunteering for these very same experiments under the watchful eye of Professor Parkinson (Fiona Lewis, Innerspace), an icy vixen who continues the bizarre teachings of the late Professor Le Sange. La Sange teaches from beyond the grave via archival film as he directs a chicken with an antennae surgically attached to it's head to obey his every command, very weird stuff. 

Before you can say "chicken, raise your right leg"  teens are inexplicably killing each other in a series of grisly murders, sort of grisly anyway. I thought the set-up for each killing was pretty damn decent with some nice atmosphere but the kills are mostly anti-climatic. The worst offender a throat slash minus any actual gore, in its place we get the classic blood on the edge of a knife prop, but I give it props for some nice set-ups.

There's an abundance of great small town folk who populate the film and give it a true sense of a community including Peter's best friend Oliver (Marc McClure) who looks quite a bit like tennis great John McEnroe, a gossipy house maid and a love interest for the sheriff in the form of a waitress played by the gum-snapping Louise Fletcher (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest).

Ozploitation stuff no matter how absurd usually have a great visual style and Dead Kids does not disappoint, we have some skewed angles and interesting camera movement plus some great use of the New Zealand  scenery which quite perfectly emulate the Midwest setting. As stated before this is stuffed with great atmosphere which is enhanced by the droning Tangerine Dream (Legend) synth score.

Early on the teens attend an awesome costume party with everyone is dressed-up in costumes and pogoing to Lou Christie's "Lightnin' Strikes". The whole scene has Animal House feel to it and ends with a tubby bully named Waldo trying to molest his 13 year-old  date in his car until they're interrupted by a killer wearing a very creepy Tor Johnson Plan 9 from Outer Space mask who stabs Waldo to death and pursues his date through the woods and into a swimming pool before the murder in progress is interrupted by party-goers. This is great stuff and the whole scene is probably the highlight of the film for me. 

I love this one quite a bit, it has so many creepy and what-the-fuck moments that you cannot not at least be partially entertained or horrified. A shot of nude Peter in bathroom carrying on a conversation with his father is a bit strange, that's just not normal. While the films is steeped with atmosphere the pieces of the story don't always fit together neatly and at points it does start to get a bit dull. On top of that many of the kills are sub par despite some nice set-ups. Most of the gore is a let down though we do get a creepy scarecrow cadaver with hollowed-out eyes and a young kid dismembered in the shower, both of these are great The scene that freaked me out as a kid (and still does) is Peter pissing a dark red stream of blood which gave me nightmares as a kid watching this on cable, that's just icky. 

I love the off-kilter exploitation cinema that came out of Australia in  the 70's and 80's and I enjoy Dead Kids (1981) quite a bit even if it doesn't measure up to the classic slashers coming out of America and Canada around the same time but as a psychologically-infused thriller it's a nice slice of entertainment.  

Blu-ray: Severin Films went  straight to the original negative and created a brand new HD transfer of the film framed in it's original widescreen (2.35:1) aspect ratio and it's a nice upgrade over the 2002 Elite Entertainment DVD. The image is more crisp with finer detail and more saturated colors. The 1080p upgrade is nice but don't expect perfection, sort of an uneven presentation but quite an improvement from the DVD. The English language DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Mono comes through clean and free of distortion. There's not a lot of depth but it's a decent track and the Tangerine Dream score sounds great, fans of the synth score will enjoy the bonus of an isolated music track. 

Carried over from the previous DVD editions are a fun audio commentary with Co-Writer/Associate Producer Bill Condon and Actors Dan Shor and Dey Young which is never dull and loaded with some great info and anecdotes about the making of the pictures.  There's also a new commentary from Director/Co-Writer Michael Laughlin recorded via Skype which is moderated. It starts off a bit slow but does eventually get rolling along as he speaks about coming into the project, working with Condon and some neat casting anecdotes. 

There's a 20-minute interview with Makeup Effects Artist Craig Reardon who speaks humorously about coming onto the project last minute and the stresses of creating low-budget effects on the set and what worked and what didn't. Finishing up the extras we have the US and international trailer for the film. Missing from this edition are 2 deleted scenes with optional commentary from the previous DVD but it's worth noting that both scenes have been stitched back into the feature for this BD/DVD Combo edition. 

Special Features:
- Audio Commentary With Director/Co-Writer Michael Laughlin
- Audio Commentary With Co-Writer/Associate Producer Bill Condon and Actors Dan Shor and Dey Young
- Featurette: The Effects Of Strange Behavior – An Interview With Makeup Effects Artist Craig Reardon (20:32)
- US Trailer (1:45)
- International Trailer (3:19) 

Verdict: Better known here in the US as Strange Behavior the under seen Dead Kids (1981) is bit of an odd psychological horror film with some great atmosphere and fun slasher elements that while not perfect is a nifty little creeper. Severin have spruced this one up with a brand new hi-def transfer and new value-added extras. Not a flawless watch by any means but a perfectly entertaining slice of Ozploitation horror. 2.5 outta 5