84) Mama Dracula (1980)

"I am lost without you. And you, professor, are lost without me."

Director

Boris Szulzinger

Cast

Louise Fletcher - Countess Erzbert Dracula

Marc Henri Wajnberg - Vladimir

Alexandre Wajnberg - Ladislas

Jimmy Shuman - Peter Van Bloed

Maria Schneider - Nancy

When a movie like Billy the Kid vs Dracula is more engaging and entertaining than whatever other movie you might be watching, you know what you have on is bad. 

I found the 1980 Belgian horror comedy Mama Dracula in a box set of 20 public domain vampire movies called Vampires &More!. I paid about $5 for the set.

The movie is a mix of Young Frankenstein with a touch of Rocky Horror Picture Show minus the singing transvestite. And it stars Nurse Ratched herself from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Louise Fletcher. 

This isn't the first terrible horror movie Fletcher starred in. In 1977 she played Dr. Gene Tuskin in the horror thriller everyone loves to hate - Exorcist II: The Heretic.

In Mama Dracula, a haematologist (someone who studies the physiology of blood) named Peter Van Bloed (Jimmy Shuman) receives a letter from Countess Erzbert Dracula (Fletcher) inviting him to Transylvania to work on creating a substitute for human blood. She offers him $1 million for the monumental task.

He accepts and takes a ship over to her castle to start right away.

The Countess lives with her twin sons, Vladimir (Marc-Henri Wajnberg) and Ladislas (Alexandre Wajnberg) who are quite the outlandish pair of blood sucking vampires. 

The Countess tells Van Bloed that thanks to her practice of bathing in the blood of virgins, she's able to maintain her long life.

Her sons run a high-end clothing store as a front for kidnapping virgins. They invite their victims to try on clothing, and when the unsuspecting girls go into the dressing room, one of the brothers sneaks in through a trap door and pulls them into a secret room. 

In order to supply the amount of blood the Countess is demanding, Van Bloed needs an extensive supply of virgins. So, Vladimir and Ladislas work doubly hard kidnapping as many virgins as they can. As the story takes place in modern times, some tongue-in-cheek humor arises as Countess notices the number of virgins has dwindled over the decades.

It doesn't take long before the police catch on to the sudden disappearance of all the young women. 

A policewoman named Nancy (Maria Schneider, Last Tango in Paris) investigates the surge of disappearances, only to be kidnapped herself by the Countess. 

She keeps Nancy imprisoned in her castle. But when Van Bloed meets her, he immediately falls in love with her.

Louise Fletcher as Countess Erzbert Dracula in Mama Dracula.

The story told in Mama Dracula pulls inspiration from the true story of Countess Elizabeth Bathory of Hungary, who died in 1614.

The Guinness Book of World Records lists Bathory as the most prolific female serial murderer with a victim count of approximately 650 people. However, the number of her victims isn't certain. 

Among the tales told of Bathory was her habit of bathing in the blood of virgins for the sake of retaining her youth. 

The true story is more captivating to me than this movie.

The Wajnbergs's performances are terrible and annoying. They're constantly making slapstick faces in awkwardly angled closeups - licking their fangs and tweaking their lips, hissing at random moments, and wanting to bite the neck of anything human. It's as though they think the audience randomly forgets they're vampires.

The humor is completely dry and inane. Jimmy Shuman, and the Wajnberg twins are basically the comic relief of the whole movie. 

Shuman's role is either flying off the handle in the best mad scientist impression he can conjure up, or he's an overly anxious, jittery blood expert.   

Fletcher as the Countess is as threatening as a hair on a shower wall. She uses her stereotypical Transylvania accent when she talks, has little emotion, and is on screen less than the Wajnbergs.  

She doesn't fit the role at all. Nor does Fletcher look like she's having much fun in the part. And the sex appeal is not even bothered with. Her lax performance is a stark contrast to that of the Wajnbergs.  They're flamboyantly all over the place, jumping around like elementary school kids dressed as vampires for Halloween, opening their capes like Batman, and occasionally throwing in a "blah" now and then.

Indecently, these vampires don't succumb to the conventional dangers vampires generally avoid - sunlight, garlic, crucifixes. Out of the goodness of my dumb ol' heart, I'll give the movie a point for at least trying to be its own thing in that regard. 

Though I criticize the humor, one scene managed to get a laugh out of me. 

During a montage where the Vampire brothers are kidnapping virgins out of the changing room, one of the potential victims is a young girl who acts like she's on to their scheme. 

They kidnap her and take her to the back of the store. 

She smirks, and lifts up her dress revealing a cross on the front of her underwear. The vampire smiles and shakes his head. Then she turns around, and lifts the back of her dress revealing a Star of David on the backside of her underwear. The vampire then recoils in horror.   

Despite that one gag, the movie is difficult to watch, boring to watch, irritating to watch, and confusing to watch. 

Marc-Henri and Alexandre Wajnberg, and Jimmy Shuman.

And on top of the terrible acting, strange imagery, ridiculous humor, and convoluted story, is the damn harpsichord music playing like it's on a perpetual loop. It's annoying and as cliché as can be. This music is what Mama Dracula falls back on to scare the audience. Needless to say, it doesn't work-not even accidentally. 

What was an accident was my sticking through it just to see how it would end. Thankfully, it does end. I could say that's the best part of the movie, but why kick a movie that much when it's already down. 

There is one point where, thanks to exposition, the story starts to come together. And then it just goes in random directions, all culminating to some weird fashion show that just threw me off completely. 

I don't regret watching Mama Dracula. But I do regret the 25 cents I spent on the movie.