The Seventies Begin: Count Yorga, Vampire
The 1970s have been called “The Vampire Decade” (cf. Stacy Abbott (2007) Celluloid Vampires: Life After Death in the Modern World ) and you can easily see why. In 1970 alone, Christopher Lee appeared in three films playing his signature role of Count Dracula. Two of these films were for Hammer Films , the other for Jesús Franco, of whom the Guardian said was a “creator of erotic horror” and a “dedicated exponent of weird sex” and a “vast and complex body of work”. That same year, the first of the decade still, saw Ingrid Pitt kick-off Hammer’s ‘Lesbian Vampire’ trilogy in The Vampire Lovers – a subgenre to which Franco was almost destined to contribute (1971’s Vampyros Lesbos ) – and Dan Curtis’ final killing off of Barnabas Collins in “House of Dark Shadows”. And, of course, 1970 gave us probably one of the best vampires ever committed to celluloid immortality in Robert Quarry’s portrayal of Count Yorga, Vampire . Bob Kelljan’s film is to be noted for several reasons. If th...