Monday, September 3, 2012

Son Of Dracula

There is a genre of movie that seemed to exist more in the late '60s and early '70s than any other time period: famous-people-just-kind-of-goofing-around. A little self-indulgent, usually a bit crap, can be fun to watch but usually not.
Magical Mystery Tour felt a lot like one of these movies, as did The Bed-Sitting Room and, if you want a modern example, The Impostors. (I love The Impostors.)
Son Of Dracula is definitely one of them.
Harry Nilsson is Count Downe, son of Dracula, heir to the throne of the King Of The Netherworld. His coronation is tomorrow but he's not really into it. All he wants to do is play music and feel human love.
Baron Frankenstein wants to be King Of The Netherworld and knows how to perform a vampire-to-human procedure, and boy is he untrustworthy. Merlin knows it, too, and wants his friend Van Helsing to do the operation instead.
Van Helsing's assistant is a chick named Amber who has a weird face, but I guess she counts as attractive in the '70s. Anyway, she's the main catalyst for Count Downe deciding whether to go through with the humanization operation, which is weird because if he already feels enough for her to become human, isn't he already feeling human love?
Whatever.
I guess I can see why Son Of Dracula was not well received upon its release and why the copy I have felt the need to point out that Harry Nilsson and Ringo Starr could tell during production that the movie probably wasn't going to be very good.
What I don't understand is why it's never gotten an official video release of any kind. It's sure to appeal to the sort of people who watch movies like Skidoo or The Bed-Sitting Room or other such odd cult films, not to mention Nilsson fans.
Son Of Dracula was marketed upon its release as "The First Rock 'N Roll Dracula Movie" but there's no Dracula in it and the plot only stops dead for musical numbers, like, three times so it barely counts as a rock 'n roll movie.
Except it stars rock stars. So I guess that counts.

End of line.
-Sally

No comments: