Bats Versus Bolts: Movies that had virtually nothing to do with Andy Warhol
These movies are terrible. I’m so glad I watched them.
Flesh for Frankenstein and Blood for Dracula are in many ways the best candidate for a Bats versus Bolts that I’ve done yet. Not only are they by the same director and share many of the same cast, but they were made practically concurrently by the same crew.
Also, when I lie to myself and pretend that there’s some kind of high-minded artistic goal behind this series beyond me getting to talk about vampires and monsters, I like to think that each BvB pair says something about the time they were created in. That is absolutely the case with these two films which are not only seventies movies, but some of the most seventies movies I have ever seen.
These films were directed and written by Paul Morrissey, one of the more fascinating film-makers I’ve come across doing this blog. A member of Andy Warhol’s inner circle (we’ll get to that) he had a front row seat to the drug-soaked bacchanal that was the sixties New York arts scene. Morrissey is fascinating to try to pin down in terms of his politics. A self described right-wing conservative and staunch Catholic…who was also something of a trailblazer in terms of trans representation in film and a body of work that lends itself quite easily to Marxist readings with a consistent portrayal of the aristocracy as a shower of evil degenerate parasites. Like I say: interesting guy.
Note, I did not say maker of good films.
Anyway, Morrissey claims that the whole idea to make monster movies came about, appropriately enough, from meeting Roman Polanski. Polanski apparently suggested that Morrissey would be the perfect person to make a 3D Frankenstein movie, which honestly I would take as an insult. Morrissey didn’t, however, and arranged a shoot in Italy, filming both Flesh for Frankenstein and Blood for Dracula back to back. Or, as they were known in the U.S.; Andy Warhol’s Dracula and Andy Warhol’s Frankenstein. Why were they called that? Oh, that’s very simple.
Lies.
It was just a marketing tactic. Warhol let his friend put his name of the movies to boost the alogorithim. They actually used the same trick for the Italian releases, putting a famous Italian director’s name on them to claim Italian residency which actually got the production in serious legal trouble in Italy.
The resulting movies are Morrissey’s critique of the sticky, shame-filled, bitter and angry come down from the Free Love era that was the early seventies.
That makes them sound a lot more classy and high brow than they actually are.
The Adaptations
Are these movies accurate to their source material? Let me put it this way. In the nineteen twenties, Florence Stoker sued FW Murnau for plagiarism of her husband’s novel despite the fact that Murnau had changed all the names in Nosferatu. If Morrissey had tried the same trick with Blood for Dracula, I think he would have gotten away with it. Both these movies veer hard, not only from their source material but from virtually every screen version before or since.
To begin;
In Serbia (?) sometime in the 19th century, the Baron Frankenstein (Udo Kier) lives in a rambling castle with his wife/sister (it’s that kind of movie) Katrin and their two children/niece and nephew. Herr Baron is obsessed with restoring the racial purity of the Serbian race. He works day and night with his assistant Otto (Arno Juerging) robbing graves and assembling a male and female body for his new master race. And the music the director chooses to score these scenes to wouldn’t be out of place in a montage of two men slowly realising their feelings for each other while restoring an orchard together. The Baroness, for her part, spends the day wandering the Frankenstein estate, presumably looking for her eyebrows.
Instead, she finds filthy, filthy peasants, fucking in the bushes. This happens constantly. Finally realising that, if everyone you meet is a fornicating peasant, you might be a fornicating peasant, she takes one of these peasants as a lover, a man named Nicholas played by seventies model/gay icon Joe Dallesandro. The interests of the two Frankensteins collide when the Baron and Otto go looking for a head for their male monster. Frankenstein wants the head of a horny sex maniac (don’t we all?) with a perfect Serbian nose. Now, Nicholas’ friend Sacha wants to joint a monastery, so Nicholas takes him to a brothel for softcore seventies shenanigans despite the fact that Sacha is clearly joining a monastery for a very good reason. A lizard gets loose in the brothel which causes some of the girls to run outside naked and screaming which leads Frankenstein and Otto (who have been skulking outside) to believe that Sacha must be some kind of sexual god. I mean, if that was the case then surely they would have been running towards him and not away from him but whatever. Frankenstein decapitates Sacha and attaches the head to the male monster and has both monsters join him and his family for dinner, where Sacha is seen by Nicholas who has been hired by the Baroness as her servant.
After some extremely unpleasant business that got this movie banned in the UK and which I shall not discuss here, Frankenstein tries to get the monsters to breed but, like a pair of depressed pandas, it just ain’t happening. Nicholas breaks into the lab to try and rescue Sascha but is betrayed by Katrin, who Frankenstein her with the use of Sascha as her own personal sex toy.
“Sweet mystery of life, at last I found youuuu!”
Instead, the monster snaps her like a Kit Kat. Otto tries to rape the female monster and ends up killing her and the male monster returns, and kills Frankenstein. Nicholas, who’s been trussed up like a chicken in the middle of the lab, begs the monster to free him. The monster instead just pulls out his own guts and dies (it’s that kind of movie), leaving Nicholas at the mercy of the Frankenstein children who, it is strongly implied, will dissect him for their own enjoyment.
Meanwhile, in Italy.
The mysterious, sickly Count Dracula (Udo Kier), escorted by his servant Anton (Arno Juerging) has arrived looking for a bride. He inveigles an invitation into the home of Il Marchese di Fiore on the pretext of wooing one of his four daughters for marriage. The four daughters, in order of age, are Esmerelda, Saphiria, Rubinia and Pearla. Esmerelda was once engaged but it didn’t work out and now, although still a virgin, she’s considered too old and plain to marry. Saphiria and Rubinia are both beautiful but are, in the words of one character “filthy, filthy hoors”, fucking everything that moves (including each other because it is, again, that kind of movie) which means that every time Dracula tries to feed on them, because he needs the blood of virgins, he reacts like a vegan who’s just realised that burger isn’t actually beetroot. There’s a lot of puking up blood. Is it a fun time for you, the viewer? It is not. Oh, and lastly there’s Perla, who is only 14 which really should put her off limits for everyone, shouldn’t it? Sigh.
Complicating matters further for Dracula is Mario (played, again, by Joe Dallesandro), the socialist farmhand who is doing his bit for the revolution by fucking the aristocracy. And I mean that literally. Realising that Dracula is a vampire and is on the hunt for virgins, he rapes Perla to protect her from him (what. a. champ.) and then proceeds to have the MOST ONE SIDED BATTLE AGAINST DRACULA IN THE HISTORY OF FILM by chopping off Dracula’s limbs one by one with an axe.
Pretty much.
WINNER: BOLTS
The Monsters
I never thought I would see a performance that would make me appreciate the range, depth and comedic timing of Tommy Wiseau, but Srdjan Zelenovic as Sacha/The Monster made me realise that there is always further to fall.
I’ve been able to find next to nothing on this actor. I don’t even know his country of origin. Other than this movie, IMDB only credits him with a single other short so I’m guessing he didn’t continue on in acting and…yeah, that’s probably for the best.
I do want to give a shout out to Dalila Di Lazarro who plays the bride, the only time in a film I’m aware of where the bride is created before the monster. She does fantastic work with a wordless part and is absolutely mesmerising.
Udo Kier as Dracula is…you know what, I would love to have seen him play a more traditional take on the character because he has so much going for him. Those pale arresting eyes and an undeniable presence. But he’s playing this Dracula, and this Dracula is absolutely pathetic. I have to admit, the central joke does get a chuckle out of me; that in these liberated times any vampire who can only feed on virgins is fucked. But it does mean we get possibly the least threatening Dracula in all of film outside of the Hotel Transylvania series (and shit, at least that Dracula has actual powers). By the end, when he’s running around screaming and getting trimmed like a privet hedge you just feel sorry for the guy.
WINNER: BATS
The Scientists
So Morrissey initially wanted all the dialogue in Flesh for Frankenstein to be improvised. Bold move. But, given that almost his entire cast did not speak English as a first language, you can see why he quickly dropped that idea. Udo Kier is a fantastic actor. He’s had a long and storied career in film and if you watch this film you will instantly see why. He is a physically beautiful, elegant and captivating performer. Unfortunately, at this stage of his career, his fluency in English is roughly on par with a 90’s SNES cutscene and he’s clearly learned his lines phonetically.
“Chentlemen I must een-seest you giff me excess to ze lavatory. I must chreeate my Zerbian master race off zombees…”
“You…mean the “laboratory” right? RIGHT?!”
“Good Lord! Someone left a dilly of a mess in the ol’ como-diddly-ode!”
“WHY DO THEY KEEP GETTING WORSE!?”
This section is usually where I discuss Van Helsing or his equivalent but Blood for Dracula doesn’t really have one except for Mario who does fulfil the traditional Van Helsing role by actually figuring out the Dracula is a vampire. But, he’s really more of a Dashing Young Man so we’ll cover him in the next section.
Unfortunately.
WINNER: BOLTS
The Dashing Young Men
It’s been a while since we’ve had an actor going up against himself in Bats versus Bolts and I hope all you Joe Dallesandro fans won’t take it personally if I say he’s no Peter Cushing or Christopher Lee. It’s honestly a little embarrassing how many other actors in these movies out-act him despite the fact that he’s the only native English speaker in either main cast. And what English! The accent is pure Grade A Noo Yawk and he isn’t even trying to hide it. Anyway, Dallesandro plays two very similar characters in both movies, the slab of peasant beefsteak who all the creepy aristocrat women want to bone.
In both movies Dallesandro’s an almost impressively limited performer but I actually think Morrissey finds a better use for him in Blood for Dracula.
Nicholas is a big old void, but Mario is actually an interesting, if aggressively repellant character, someone who espouses revolutionary ideals of equality while exhibiting deep, ocean-like reserves of misogyny to every woman unfortunate enough to cross his path. And if, as I believe is the case, this was Morrissey’s intentional critique of the free love movement I think it lands a palpable hit.
I also have to mention Arno Juerging who plays both Frankenstein’s assistant Otto and Dracula’s valet Anton and manages to be the best thing in both movies. Like Kier, he’s clearly struggling with the English dialogue but he makes up with it with some phenomenal comic facial acting.
He’s like a German Jim Carrey.
There’s a scene where Frankenstein and Otto are trying to get the monsters to mate and Frankenstein keeps yelling “Kiss him!” to the bride and Otto keeps looking down at the monster’s crotch to see if there’s any action and it is honestly hilarious.
WINNER: BATS
The Perpetually Imperilled Ladies
Look, points for novelty alone.
Having the Baroness Frankenstein be a scheming, incestuous viper is so out of left field I’m tempted to award this to Bats on that alone. It also doesn’t hurt that Belgian actress Monique Von Vooren is making up what she lacks in English fluency with enthusiasm.
By contrast, the actresses playing the daughters of di Fiore are pretty terrible across the board, with the exception of Milena Vukotic who plays the eldest daughter and actually has a very nice scene with Dracula where they discuss the paths their lives have taken. The other sisters somehow manage to make being in an incestuous lesbian vampire coven seem dull.
WINNER: BOLTS
Are either of these movies actually, y’know, scary?
Gross and uncomfortable, certainly. But, not scary. Flesh for Frankenstein does have that cool moment at the end with the Frankenstein children about to play doctor with Nicholas so I guess that gives it the edge. Oh, because there isn’t really anywhere else to put it in, both the child actors who play the kids are genuinely, unironically fantastic.
WINNER: BOLTS.
Best Dialogue:
Flesh for Frankenstein has:
“To know death, Otto, you have to fuck life… in the gall bladder!”
I don’t feel comfortable giving you the context.
But there can be no rivalling poor poisoned Dracula weeping:
“Ze blahd of zese hoors is killink me!
WINNER: BATS.
FINAL SCORE: Bats 3, Bolts 4
NEXT UPDATE: November 16th 2023
NEXT TIME: Yes. This is on brand for me.
