Guess What Happened to Count Dracula? (1971)

Apparently this atrocious horror comedy was first released in 1969 as a gay porno titled Does Dracula Really Suck? (later: Dracula and the Boys). Then, in one of cinema history’s most whiplash-inducing transformations, the picture was recast as a PG-rated monster comedy for the drive-in circuit. Some traces of the original incarnation remain visible, because while the PG-rated version of Guess What Happened to Count Dracula? lacks guy-on-guy action, it has a camp sensibility. The acting is deliberately overwrought, the photography is colorful (as in scenes are lit with randomly tinted gels), and the storyline is a (dim-witted) genre spoof. For those who crave sexed-up bloodsucker comedies, even garbage flicks along the lines of Old Dracula (1974) and Nocturna (1979) are preferable to this eyesore, and it’s insulting to mention Love at First Bite (1979) in this context. Anyway, Count Adrian (Dee Roberts) runs a nightclub/restaurant called “Dracula’s Dungeon,” occasionally preying on customers even though he has a stable of concubines. Other elements of the idiotic narrative include a caged gorilla, exotic dancers, and voodoo rituals. Thanks to heinously bad performances and tacky production values, the movie gets boring fast, so it’s immaterial whether the plot is incomprehensible or just uninteresting. Watching eight minutes of this shapeless sludge is painful, much less all 80.

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