The Return of Count Yorga (1971)

This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.

This film, while solid for the most part, reminds me of a scene from "Columbo", where one character says to the detective "an exciting meal has been ruined!". That's the way I felt about this film, and they say a poor ending can hurt a film, and I must agree here. While this may seem like a negative review, there's things that I did like, such as Robert Quarry's performance, and the creepy mansion in which he resides, with a bunch of slick dark rooms, and skinny stairs. Look for some familiar faces in a very young Craig T. Nelson, Mariette Hartley, Michael Pataki, and Rudy De Luca. On the other hand, there's Philip Frame, who plays Tommy, and he may be the worst actor I've ever seen, and I'm not surprised that he only has 1 more acting credit after this film. That kid also deserved that good smack, the little jerk. One of the most disappointing aspects for me is that Tommy doesn't get his just desserts he richly deserved, but that's all I'll spoil for you. There's more good scenes than bad scenes, but the bad ones almost defy vampire logic, and really hurt the film for me.

Following in the tradition of Hammer Films' Dracula series, this sequel resurrects the vampire AND his assistant even though they were clearly killed at the end of the first Yorga movie! Yes, inexplicably he's back and in a different locale--now terrorizing suburbia instead of Los Angeles.Soon after the film begins, a group of very poorly costumed vampire ladies attack a home--killing several family members. However, Yorga appears and is not pleased (why?!) and decides to somehow erase the memory of the attack from most of the surviving family members. Oddly, the mute woman (Jennifer) is immune to the hypnosis but no one believes her story that the family was attacked. However, some family members were killed but young Tommy came up with convenient excuses as to their whereabouts. Slowly, however, another family member (Cynthia) begins to recall bits and pieces of the attack--all this AFTER she's gone to stay with Yorga. Perhaps she'll remember the entire traumatic event in time. This all begs the question "why would Yorga go to all this trouble--and why wouldn't he just wipe out this family altogether???" Well, the answer it seems is that he's in love with Cynthia and wants to woo her! No, he doesn't want to bite her neck but have her voluntarily become his--a truly consensual vampire (how modern and non-chauvinistic).So is the film any good? Well, not especially. The biggest problem, other than the weird plot, is that the vampire makeup appears often to be some cheap plastic fangs and some white powder makeup and that's all!! This is especially true of the lady vampires and just looks crappy--and I am talking about WORSE than a typical Halloween costume! And, in most every other way the film just looks shabby. To make things worse, it's also not all that interesting...and Yorga comes off as a bit of a loser. Not very good and a pale shadow of the original Yorga film. Perhaps the $47.37 budget didn't help!

Despite being slain at the end of the first film, Count Yorga is back for more bloodthirsty mayhem! This is a sequel to the first film, but it's effectively the same story, only a little bit different. It isn't really any better or worse than it's predecessor, but the fact that it doesn't do anything new either prompts me to give it a lower rating. The film seems suspiciously like another excuse to launch the dapper vampire on the box office again. Anyway, Robert Quarry returns in the role that made him, and once again has fun and does well with it. This time, the count has relocated to a place near to an orphanage. The vampire continues to prey on the local population, while also looking for a new bride whom he can spend eternity with. Despite a very silly vampire conversation at the start, this may even be a slightly better film than the first; but the fact that no effort has been made to make it a real sequel, it becomes boring rather quickly and it's really hard to rate it much above average. The lack of invention is shown best by the way that a bumbling police force has been thrown in. Bumbling police forces are often funny, but the one here is making too much of a big deal out of trying to be funny; and it never really works. The plot is also quite slow, thus making the film overlong – which is very annoying. Really, there isn't much to recommend this film on; but if you really liked the original, I suppose it's worth a look.

Count Yorga, "alive" and well (quite a feat considering he was killed off at the end of the first film), inexplicably falls in love with Mariette Hartley, a worker at an isolated orphanage. After his coven attacks and destroys her family (a very scary, brutal sequence) he locks her in his nearby estate and tries to make her love him. Meanwhile, some policeman figure out what's going on and go to save her. But are they any match for Yorga and his female vampires? The vampire makeup here is lousy (like the first film), the FANGS are done wrong, the dialogue is pathetic and there is LOTS of padding--there are endless sequences of people running or walking through Yorga's estate. However, the film isn't a total washout--director Robert Kelljan adds some nice directorial touches, there are a few creepy scenes and it's fun to see Hartley so young and beautiful (her acting is bad but that's more because of the dialogue). Also Craig T. Nelson is on hand as a cop. Robert Quarry as Yorga tries, but (while he was good in the first film), he looks tired and more than a little silly with the fangs. Basically, a sequel that was rushed into production...and it shows. Unless you're a vampire completist, there's really no reason to see this film.