Flesh for Frankenstein (1973) & Blood for Dracula (1974)

          Although these two horror flicks are often marketed as Andy Warhol’s Frankenstein and Andy Warhol’s Dracula, the Pop Art icon was only nominally involved in the production of the features. The actual writer-director behind these lurid riffs on the work of Mary Shelley and Bram Stoker was Paul Morrissey, who previously made features including Flesh (1968), Trash (1970), and Heat (1972) for Warhol. Flesh for Frankenstein is more noteworthy than Blood for Dracula, because it’s hard to think of another X-rated ’70s horror movie that gleefully presents incest, mutilation, and necrophilia in 3D. And if Flesh for Frankenstein is ultimately dull and silly, adventurous viewers should not deny themselves the “pleasure” of watching campy German actor Udo Kier, who plays Baron von Frankenstein, repeatedly molesting the gall bladder of the “female zombie” he’s building from the body parts of various women. This mad scientist gets off on his work, big time.
          Unsurprisingly, the plot takes considerable liberties with Shelley’s original narrative. The Baron is preoccupied with creating a master Serbian race defined by superhuman sex drive, so he kills people whom he perceives as having desirable organs, then repurposes their innards. Meanwhile, the Baron endures a twisted marriage to his sister, Katrin (Monique van Vooren), with whom he has fathered two children. Alas, she’s hot for everyone except the Baron. Eventually, the Baron kills a local man, Sacha (Srdjan Zelenovic), using his head to complete an in-progress “zombie.” Sacha’s pal, Nicholas (Joe Dallesandro), investigates his friend’s disappearance and learns of the Baron’s weird scheme. The movie climaxes with the unveiling of a male and female monster, which results in widespread bloodshed and sex (sometimes at the same time).
          Made somewhat in the style of Hammer Films’ horror movies, with elaborate sets and lush Old World locations, Flesh for Frankenstein has a glossy widescreen look but feels amateurish on every other level. The acting is terrible and the script is inane. Moreover, the gonzo quality of the gore—organs dripping with viscera are pushed toward the camera for full 3D impact—is beyond ridiculous. Combined with the over-the-top sex scenes and the goofy nature of Kier’s performance, Flesh for Frankenstein is perhaps best described as a cartoon for sickos. Which, come to think of it, seems pretty much on-brand for Warhol.
          While still campy in some ways—notably the ridiculous performances and stilted dialogue—Blood for Dracula is much more of a “real” movie than its predecessor. The narrative merely uses Stoker’s enduring character as a jumping-off point, because Blood for Dracula concerns the titular fiend (Kier) scouring Italy for virgins. (Or, because Kier plays the role with his thick German accent intact, “weer-juns.”) The opening of the picture is interesting, portraying Dracula as pathetic figure dying of malnutrition; he slathers himself in hair dye and makeup to give the impression of health, and he whines endlessly to his manservant Anton (Arno Jeruging) about how he’d rather die than face the struggle of hunting for victims.
          Most of the movie takes place in an Italian estate, where Dracula works his way through four eligible daughters of a once-respectable household; now financially destitute, the family’s patriarch happily offers up his daughters as potential brides to the visitor who is presented as a “Middle European aristocrat.” Complicating Dracula’s quest is the presence in the household of a communistic handyman (Dallesandro), who also happens to be sexually involved with two of the daughters. (Hilarity ensues whenever Dallesandro speaks in his Brooklyn accent; for instance, upon learning that Dracula digs virgins, he asks his lovers, “So what’s he doin’ wit’ you two whoo-ers,” stretching the last word into two syllables.)
          Periodically throughout Blood for Dracula, it seems Morrissey believes he’s making a proper drama, so he lingers on dialogue scenes and artful shots, creating tedium because the acting is so awful. Even the sex scenes are dull, despite abundant nudity. Still, the movie looks fantastic, and some flourishes linger, such as the nasty scenes of Dracula vomiting when he unknowingly drinks the blood of fallen women. Blood for Dracula eventually echoes Flesh for Frankenstein with an outrageous finale filled with comically staged dismemberments. Nonetheless, Blood for Dracula is never as outright bizarre as Flesh for Frankenstein, which is both a good and a bad thing—in (mostly) steering clear of self-parody, Blood for Dracula falls squarely in the realm of mediocrity.

Flesh for Frankenstein: FREAKY

Blood for Dracula: FUNKY

Suspiria (1977)

          Arguably the most beloved of Italian shock-cinema maestro Dario Argento’s various bloody cinematic freakouts—beloved by a certain stripe of masochistic viewer, that is—Suspiria is like a tone poem written in the form of a fan letter to Fangoria. Taking place in some bizarro alternate universe comprised entirely of horror-movie clichés, Suspiria is a nasty piece of work that takes perverse pleasure in getting a rise out of viewers, yet what separates it from standard slasher fare is the surrealistic artistry of Argento’s filmmaking. From the disturbing music (more on that in a minute) to the crazy lighting, which casts blazingly hot beams of bright colors across almost every scene, Suspiria is cranked up to overdrive from start to finish.

          The story, which couldn’t possibly matter less, concerns wide-eyed American dancer Suzy Banion (Jessica Harper), who is invited to enroll in a European dance academy. The night she arrives, one of the students is stalked and murdered by a psycho, and as various creepy things happen around Suzy, our intrepid heroine slowly, dimly, excruciatingly figures out All Is Not Right.™ Yes, even the hoary cliché of the Unbelievably Stupid Young Woman™ is represented in Suspiria, although with a trippy twist: The nutjobs running the dance academy start drugging Suzy soon after her enrollment, so for all intents and purposes, she’s high throughout most of the movie.

          It seems reasonable to assume that some of the folks behind the camera were toking as well, since Suspiria feels like a funhouse-mirror version of reality. Walls are alive with shadows and mysterious movements; maggots infest an attic; the exterior and interior spaces of the school look like backdrops from some experimental theater piece; and everyone talks in stilted phrases with no discernible relation to actual human speech. (Strange-cinema mainstay Udo Keir’s performance is particularly absurd, since dubbing magically erases his thick German accent.) More importantly, for shock value anyway, all of the characters are so weird that any rational person would run for the hills upon encountering these ghouls. Yet Suzy just hangs out, even as innumerable clues and otherworldly goings-on suggest her teachers are witches, because that’s what people do in over-the-top horror pictures: They linger because They Don’t Trust Their Own Senses.™

          As straight narrative, Suspiria is a disaster—when it’s not tediously repetitive, it’s insultingly obvious—but as an exercise in sicko style, it’s impressive. The picture’s crucial element, without question, is that aforementioned music, by a rock group called Goblin (with help from Argento). Played at punishingly loud volumes, Goblin’s music features surreal, jangling death rattles mixed with a vocal motif that sounds like a distant echo of a child’s lullaby. When those sounds are juxtaposed with Argento’s Day-Glo montages of women getting mutilated, it’s impossible not to react, because the audience is getting bludgeoned as mercilessly as the characters.

          If there’s any point to this exercise in excess other than trying to make viewers ill, however, it isn’t immediately apparent. So, if you go for this sort of thing, Suspiria is some kind of milestone achievement. If you don’t, it’s merely an unpleasant audiovisual assault created by One Really Sick Dude,™ a sobriquet one suspects Argento would consider a compliment.

Suspiria: FREAKY

The Story of O (1975)

          The 1954 French novel Histoire d’O, written by Anne Desclos under the pen name Pauline Réage, is notorious because some admirers regard it as an erotic exploration of what later came to be known as BDSM (bondage, domination, sadism, masochism), while others disdain it as a vile exercise in sexual objectification. It’s unsurprising that a movie version emerged in the ’70s, when changing social mores allowed for mainstream distribution of films with previously taboo content, and it’s unsurprising that the movie version prioritizes sex over psychology. Corinne Cléry stars as “O,” a Parisian photographer who proves her love for René (Udo Kier) by agreeing to become a sex slave for a group of men living at a country estate; the story then explores how the couple’s relationship changes when René “gives” O to another man, Sir Stephen (Anthony Steel). The film’s director, Frenchman Just Jaekin, previously scored at the box office with another libidinous literary adaptation, Emmanuelle (1974), and he takes a similar approach to The Story of O, combining acres of female nudity with evocative locations, glamorous photography, and insinuating washes of Vangelis-lite synthesizer music.

          The film’s fetishism of the female form and the cast of emotionally blank actors belie the posh presentation, however, revealing that Jaekin’s movie is nothing but soft-core porn with artistic pretentions. The film’s third-person voiceover does most of the heavy lifting in terms of explaining the plot, while also providing lurid commentary like “O wondered why she found her terror so delicious.” In addition to lacking substance, The Story of O flops as erotica, because the innumerable vignettes of men and women fondling, groping, mounting, and whipping Cléry quickly become tiresome. The abuse scenes are unpleasant (especially the branding bit—ouch!), and the movie is so cold that it’s impossible to get caught up in O’s journey. It doesn’t help that most of the dialogue sounds like it was either dubbed or looped. Cléry, who later appeared as a Bond girl in Moonraker (1979), is very beautiful, very naked, and very patient with the people who paw at her privates throughout the film, but even her charms fail to sustain interest once the movie devolves into tedium.

The Story of O: LAME