With his piercing blue eyes and his jet black hair, German actor Udo Kier was poised to be a movie actor who played eccentric or deviant characters.
According to imdb.com, he had over 280 credits as an actor of film and TV. However, he would remain mostly unknown to American actors until the 1990s after two decades of working in Europe. He became most famous early on for his role in the Andy Warhol-produced low-budget movies.
Then, Madonna cast him in her “Deeper and Deeper” music video while Gus Van Sant cast him in a scene with River Phoenix and Keanu Reeves in My Own Private Idaho. And more Amrican audiences would discover him. Kier, born Udo Kierspe, passed away on Nov. 23. His roles in Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, Armageddon and Blade brought him a wider audience.
However, his earlier work with the Warhol movies directed by Paul Morrissey, an avant-garde filmmaker of underground work, brought him the attention during the 1970s. Many filmmakers were pushing the envelope doing whatever they could get away with.
And the 1973 Flesh for Frankenstein and the 1974 Blood for Dracula really test what audiences could anticipate. However, I must admit if you take away the shock element, both movies are rather drab mainly because nothing much happens.
As Baron von Frankenstein, he is wanting to create the perfect Serbian person. However, a misunderstanding has him and his assistant, Otto (Arno Juerging ) killing the celibate seminary student Sacha (Srdjan Zelenovic) thus making their experiment a failure as the creation doesn’t want to have sex.
But there’s a lot of sex elsewhere as Frankenstein’s wife, Katrin (Monique van Vooren), gets frisky with a new stableboy, Nicholas (Joe Dallesandro). Nicholas is also Sacha’s friend. And Katrin is actually the Baron’s sister.
Well, Mary Shelley’s novel had incestuous behavior . But I’m sure she wouldn’t want to see Frankenstein getting sexually aroused by internal organs. There’s not much material in the hour and a half of the movie. Morrissey was able to convince Italian producer Carlo Ponti to make this movie and Dracula.
Of course, he ups the sexual content as well as the gruesome content. Dracula (also Kier) travels from Romania to Italy to find virgins to feast on. Set in the 1920s, he has been unable to procure the right virgins needed.
Juerging returns as Anton, Dracula’s manservant, and Dallesandro is Mario Balato, a worker for a wealthy Italian family. So, it’s pretty almost the same movie except for the violent is more increased.
There’s scenes of Dracula throwing up blood for very long moments when he feasts on young women who aren’t virgins. But of course, the women portraying the daughters of the Italian patriarch are in their 20s pretending to be younger. Silvio Dionsio was 23 at the time of filming but meant to be 14.
The movie’s aren’t exactly the best and you might find yourself searching your phone for random tidbits or playing Candy Crush. I’m sure over 50 years ago, the idea of having lesbian slaves of a vampire get freaky shocked audiences. Then there is the scene where Dracula licks the vaginal blood of Perla (Dionsio) from the floor after Mario rapes her to protect her.
I’m almost sure that when Marvel began production on the 1998 movie Blade it wasn’t just happenstance that Kier was cast as the elder vampire Gitano Dragonetti.
Rest in power, Mr. Kier. You may be gone but your huge list of movies and roles will be immortal.
What do you think? Please comment.
Zane Says 