HalloWatch: The Vampire Happening (1971)

Watched:  10/16/2024

Format:  Prime

Viewing:  First

Director:  Freddie Francis

Imagine a movie written entirely with the same vibe as one panel comics from mid-Century Playboy.  That's the entire vibe of this "movie".  

During the darkest days of COVID lockdown, I would scroll Amazon Prime for movies to Watch Party, and at some point, The Vampire Happening (1971) came up, and I laughed at the title and checked it out, deemed it far too boob-tacular to make it into the queue, and moved on.  But Amazon Prime was not done with me.  And so - for whatever reason only the algorithm knows, this movie always found it's way into my line-up of offerings.

It's a goofy comedy that works by 1970's European erotic movie rules, so you kind of have to just roll with it.  But the basic story is that a Hollywood actress inherits a castle in Transylvania.  She looks just like an ancestor who was some sort of vampire.  Her arrival means her relative rises from the grave again, and while Betty romances a strapping young man, her double is out there making new vampires.

Eventually there's a vampire party, or, as us hep cats said in the late 1960's - a vampire happening - complete with the arrival of Dracula.  

Italian produced, written by Germans and shot in Germany by an English director, and starring a ragtag pile of Euro-talent and staying just on this side of softcore, it's truly an artifact of its time.

Basically, the movie was a weird excuse for the Italian producer to put his wife on film, and have a big party in a castle.  I can only imagine what was going on behind the scenes.  But in watching this movie, there's a distinct feeling you're watching the product of someone's scheme to have a very adult good time on someone else's dollar.  As such, it's not... good.  It's not funny or particularly sexy and feels interminable for the first 2/3rds.  It had one line I found laugh out loud funny right at the end of the movie, and I did like the winky end to the film.  And Dracula is kind of funny.

The star, Pia Dagermark - wife of the producer - had won awards at Cannes in 1967, and I think this movie was what more or less ended the movie business for her.  It happens.  

Just go watch a Hammer vampire movie instead.