The Return of Count Yorga

1971 "The DEATHMASTER is Back from the Grave!"
5.6| 1h37m| R| en| More Info
Released: 18 August 1971 Released
Producted By: American International Pictures
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Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
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Count Yorga continues to prey on the local community while living by a nearby orphanage. He also intends to take a new wife, while feeding his bevy of female vampires.

Genre

Horror

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Director

Bob Kelljan

Production Companies

American International Pictures

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The Return of Count Yorga Audience Reviews

CrawlerChunky In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.
Jonah Abbott There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.
Mathilde the Guild Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.
Scarlet The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.
Scott LeBrun Robert Quarry is once again in fine form as Count Yorga, sophisticated Bulgarian vampire. Although dispatched at the end of the first film, he is somehow revived by the mysterious Santa Ana winds, and has soon moved into a castle located near an orphanage. This time, he's motivated not just by hunger but by something resembling love, as he is taken with local beauty Cynthia Nelson (Mariette Hartley). He works his spell on some of the area residents, and is naturally opposed by people like psychiatrist David Baldwin (Roger Perry, another returnee from the first "Count Yorga").This sequel shows its audience a pretty good time, being more of a flat-out horror show, with not as much accent on humor. (Which isn't to say, of course, that there are no laughs at all.) Bob Kelljan does a fine job directing the action, and creates quite a bit of enjoyable suspense, atmosphere, and creepiness. Those vampire babes in Yorgas' castle are sexy as hell, but also quite chilling in their low key way. The body count is respectable, with a fair bit of blood spilling, and Yorga (and others) claiming their share of victims. When Kelljan opts to go for shocks, and show the crazed Yorga pursuing people, unfortunately, it's more amusing than scary.Also among those returning from the original "Count Yorga": producer Michael Macready, whose actor father George has a comedy relief cameo as a doddering vampire expert, actor Edward Walsh as hulking manservant Brudda, and composer Bill Marx, whose music is just right throughout. Kelljan also wrote the script with co-star Yvonne Wilder, who plays the vulnerable deaf-mute Jennifer.The acting is fine from everybody concerned. Perry is more or less reprising his role in the first film, no matter if he's sporting a beard and has a different character name. He still has to convince others that they could possibly be dealing with a bloodsucker. Hartley is wonderfully appealing. Philip Frame, Ms. Wilder, Tom Toner, and Rudy De Luca are all good in support. Michael Pataki has a small role as one of the victims, Walter Brooke also does the cameo thing as Hartley's father, and none other than Craig T. Nelson makes his film debut as one of the cops.All in all, this is a worthy sequel.At one point, Yorga watches the Hammer / A.I.P. co-production "The Vampire Lovers" on TV, where it's redubbed with a Spanish soundtrack.Seven out of 10.
MartinHafer 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!
Woodyanders The ever-suave and charismatic Bulgarian vampire Count Yorga (the wonderful Robert Quarry in peak sardonic and sinister form) returns to continue his campaign of terror at a nearby orphanage. Ably directed by Robert Kelljan (who also co-wrote the clever script), with slick, vibrant cinematography by Bill Butler and an eerie, shivery score by Bill Marx, this sequel to the immensely enjoyable original is in some ways even better: the production values are more polished, the pace much snappier, there's a greater atmosphere of skin-crawling dread, an amusingly dry sense of spot-on sarcastic humor, several well-mounted shock set pieces (a sequence with a whole family getting slaughtered by a horde of vicious vampire women is positively harrowing), and a stirring conclusion complete with a jolting surprise bummer ending. Quarry truly excels in the lead role as Yorga; he receives fine support from the ravishing Mariette Hartley as sweet, sympathetic heroine Cynthia Nelson, Roger Perry as intrepid psychiatrist Dr. David Baldwin, Yvonne Wilder as fragile deaf mute Jennifer, Edward Walsh as Yorga's hulking, fearsome manservant Brudah, Tom Toner as hearty priest Reverand Thomas, Rudy De Luca as the skeptical Lieutenant Madden, Craig T. Nelson as the gallant Sergeant O'Connor, Philip Frame as bratty little boy Tommy, and a bearded Michael Pataki as hipster Joe. A solid and worthwhile horror bloodsucker romp.
Matt Moses It comes as no surprise that by the early 70's sequels were being made from movies in which the protagonist of the second film dies in the first. I do wonder, however, what sequel did this first - I'd hesitate to suggest the Dracula or Frankenstein series as those characters were more concepts than distinct personae. Yorga, however, was a clear case of capitalistic resurrection. Count Yorga, Vampire left him decidedly dead, yet he shows up here with little explanation. But, when push comes to shove, who really cares? I care more about the fact that despite the presence of many of the same names, including director Kelljan, from the first highly entertaining installment, Return fails on any number of accounts. Robert Quarry, back as Yorga, makes his reappearance at a masquerade at the local orphanage put together by kind-hearted if unimpressive Mariette Hartley. He likes what he sees, so he has his harem of decaying ladies abduct her and bite many members of her good-natured family. Mute coworker Yvonne Wilder finds the bodies; when the police arrive, however, they've mysteriously disappeared and frustrated Wilder can't locate a pen to inscribe what she witnessed. Roger Perry, back in his role as vampire investigator and apparently in the process of establishing himself as a modern Van Helsing, spearheads an investigation that apparently involves quite a bit of conversations shown in unexciting long shot. While Quarry's out on the town, Hartley has some pretty intense vampire hallucinations that provide some distraction from the mundane story. Three beers and two mojitos into the film, my notes and memory are illegible, but the conclusion involves a lot of vampire converts. Return is nowhere near as frightening as its predecessor, nor does it boast a clever story, suggestive acting and passable dialogue. With a story like this enacted by a cast like this, it's difficult to determine where the bad screenplay ends and where the bad acting begins. Regardless of where to place blame, Hartley has some horrible lines, many of which she lolls out like so much porridge. One of the only attributes similar to the first film is Kelljan's clever use of color. While Yorga featured a symphony of shades of brown contrasted with the occasional burst of red, Return's understated color scheme includes some extremely well placed shots, including a sequence with some striking purple. I found the video in the Horror Comedy section of the video store but did no laughing with, only at. The funniest part of the movie to me is that the co-writer Wilder didn't give herself any lines in the movie, preferring instead to hop around, point and gesture than to pronounce any of her clunky dialogue. Mel Brooks actor/writer Rudy De Luca has a role as a police investigator; Craig T. Nelson, the dad from Poltergeist, also plays a detective. George Macready returns from the previous film (which he narrated) for his last film role, as does ugly Edward Walsh in the same role as Quarry's gatekeeper.