A few years before that unnamed porno movie was made (I don’t remember the title of any smut films I saw in those nasty whack houses, except Deep Throat and Devil in Miss Jones. I saw one where the 2nd and 3rd reels got mixed up and nobody cared.) Flesh for Frankenstein burst out of movie screens. The film was shown in 3D in its first runs and, while not hardcore, was rated X. It was touted as Andy Warhol’s Frankenstein, but it was really directed by Paul Morrissey and featured a number of his seedy crowd.

Flesh for Frankenstein belonged to a generation of exploitation movies that sadly don’t really exist any longer. Beginning in the late sixties and early seventies, the format of the midnight movie (which goes all the way back to the roadshow pictures of the 1930s) was overtaken by outrageously gory, smutty, gross films. Basically, people got loaded and went to see the sickest, most depraved movies and laughed their asses off. Flesh for Frankenstein was designed specifically for that market, just as it was spreading across the country and growing in popularity.

You really don’t need 3D to enjoy Flesh for Frankenstein. Dr. Von Frankenstein (the wonderful Udo Kier) is on a quest to build the perfect Serbian man, and begins assembling his master being one piece at a time. At one point, he obtains the perfect Serbian head with a giant pair of scissors that, of course, pop out of the screen right at the audience. He is so driven by his quest that at one point, he rips open incision of his female Serbian monstress and fucks the wound in a frenzy. This results in one of the greatest lines in movie history:

While Von Frankenstein obsesses over his work, his bored wife (and sister!) screws the handyman, Warhol veteran and Brooklyn mook Joe Dallesandro. Mrs. Von Frankenstein was played by former 1950s sexpot Monique van Vooren, who must have been dismayed to find herself reduced to performing fairly nasty softcore wrestling matches with Big Joe. Maybe not.

The whole thing degenerates into a welter of intestines, blood, and limbs being flung around after Mrs. Frankenstein makes the mistake of seducing the perfect Serbian monster, dying David Carradine style. Von Frankenstein goes to pieces, literally, along with his creations.

Flesh for Frankenstein features a lot of wonderful elements: Eurotrash and Brooklyn accents, terrible acting, sex, guts, and a savage tongue in cheek attitude. It was also filmed in conjunction with the esteemed Italian studio Cinecitta and features better than expected production values. Plus there’s the obvious 3D moments, usually involving body parts or pointy things.

Since Flesh for Frankenstein was completed ahead of schedule and under budget, Morrissey whipped up Blood for Dracula on the spot with some of the same cast members, including Kier as Dracula and Dallesandro as another improbable European peasant.

Blood for Dracula is my favorite vampire movie, bar none. Did you hate Twilight? Blood for Dracula is the anti-Twilight.

Udo Kier’s Dracula is a whiny, effete aristocrat who pukes up gallons of blood every time he drinks the blood of non virgins. Driven from Transylvania by the lack of local virgins, he selects Italy for his new feeding ground, based on the theory that the influence of the Catholic church will keep the Italian girls pure. Unfortunately, he settles in with a noble family whose daughters are being plowed regularly by Big Joe. It seems likely that the producers of the movie recruited the actresses playing the daughters from the nearest disco by promising them mountains of coke.

Blood for Dracula was not made in 3D, but it hardly matters. The last fifteen minutes is a crazed, blood spurting orgy of wonderful dementia, on top of a movie rich in laugh lines. Along the way, Morrissey manages to deconstruct the glamorous, sexy vampire into a wretched, pitiful creep reduced to licking hymenal blood off the floor.

Both movies were perfectly constructed for the midnight movie crowds of the 1970s and 1980s. You can’t really replicate the vibe of sitting in a theater with a couple hundred other stoners, watching over the top movies like this roll. 3D glasses were not required, so long as you brought your own weed goggles.