Film Chat With Erin presents Dracula’s Last Rites, the 1980 vampire movie “recommended” by listener Big D in New Orleans. This episode also features the return of regular correspondent Mr. Fogg and our sponsor, Wanda Worthington in Walla Walla. Listen on YouTube or scroll down to read the transcript.

Good evening and thanks for joining me on Film Chat Radio with Erin on WFCE in Moxey Bluff, where we always catch the late show. As you recall, in my last episode I had a strange email from a listener calling himself Big D in New Orleans who seemed to have inside knowledge about my videotape collection. Thanks to that veiled threat, I’ve attempted to watch the 1980 regional horror film Dracula’s Last Rites twice, but I keep falling asleep right before the end. On the bright side, at least this episode will be free from ending spoilers! And I’ll still tell you what I think of the film, but first another email from my high school English teacher, Mr. Fogg.

Dear Erin,

Have you abandoned the pursuit of explication in favor of compare and contrast essays? I was very disappointed in your essay on The Beyond. You completely ignored Emily’s place in the Greek literary tradition of blind seers that goes back to TIresias. And to suggest that the maestro Fulci would borrow even a cup of corn syrup from that hack Argento…I give that essay a B minus and that’s being generous. You’re going to have to get your grades up if you want to get into Emory University. Oh that’s right, you got a scholarship to a state school. Best of luck.

Mr. Fogg

Mr. Fogg, I am not your student anymore. I’m 50 years old, which must make you, what? 150?  Are YOU a vampire?

Dracula’s Last Rites is as I said a regional horror film. Director Domonic Paris made it on location in Vineland New Jersey with local actors and the participation of the town and the local businesses. Ironic because he ventilates local businessmen with the plot. It’s all about a doctor, an undertaker, a cop, and their lackeys, all of whom are in a coven of vampires. They find people who are nearly dead, or they sedate them to make them look dead, and then they drink their blood and immediately stake them to keep the vampire population down. That’s necessary I assume because there’s only so many people they can kill without being suspected, and I’m not kidding when I say the guys in the coven fight over whose turn it is to drink. Now, I think this movie is less of a horror movie and more of a satire about greedy local bigwigs figuratively bleeding people dry…corrupt cops, expensive funerals, outrageous medical bills. A lot of people could relate if they watch the movie but nobody would ever watch this movie unless it was at the point of a fang. But there’s one element I found particularly interesting even though the movie is quite literally unwatchable, since it kept knocking me out. And I’ll get into that after we hear from our sponsor, Wanda Worthington from Walla Walla Washington, with a shockingly relevant product this time.

Dear Erin,

Are you tired of those prescription sleeping pills that make you sleepwalk to the kitchen to eat cookies? Then you need Last Rites “homepathic” Drowsy Drops from Domonic of Paris. We’ve distilled the essence of the 1980 film Dracula’s Last Rites into the pure waters of the Maurice River in Vineland NJ. Just put one drop of Last Rites Drowsy Drops into your bedtime glass of water and you’ll be sleeping like the undead. Last Rites Drowsy Drops from Domonic of Paris: ask for them by name!

Wanda, are you sure about that name? Last Rites is a questionable name for a sleep aid. But this is a questionable movie. I did however like one aspect, and I guess this goes back to the comedic or satirical element. The main story is about a couple, the Fondas. Mrs. Fonda’s mother is the victim of the doctor and when the undertaker, whose name is Lucard or Dracul spelled backwards by the way, Lucard shows up to take the secretly not quite dead woman away, he makes the daughter sign a bunch of paperwork saying he has the right to handle the body. Now when Mr. Fonda takes the body back home for a wake, Lucard just keeps clinging to the fact that they can’t do that because they signed papers. He’s not threatening them with violence, even though he’s a vampire, he’s threatening them with a lawsuit! Fear of litigation, that’s what this movie is about. Have petty lawsuits gone too far in this country, that kind of thing. Either that or it’s what if organized crime, what if the Mafia were all vampires. 

That would have made for some really good episodes of The Sopranos, if Tony had been a vampire. The dialogue would have been so much better than in Dracula’s Last Rites. I swear this movie was improvised When you listen to the Fondas talk to each other, and they’re like mom really liked sitting in this room where she died, oh yes I never saw her outside this room, boy she didn’t trust me when you first brought me home, she would want us to steal her body and bring it back here to her favorite room for the wake. 

I shouldn’t be so hard on this, seeing as it is a regional film, and probably never meant for wide distribution if not for the video store boom that caused crap like this to make it to every shelf in America. But Jesus, if Andy Milligan had filmed paint drying for 75 minutes it would have been more entertaining than Dracula’s Last Rites. Vampires are scary because they’ll accuse you of breach of contract? Get the hell out of here Big D, and take this tape with you. I’m not scared of you or of vampires. What are they gonna do, bore me to death? I will say that I thought the cinematography was adequate, what I could see of it from the bad lighting, and all the actors really seemed to be giving it all to their parts, bad dialogue and all. I bet the community theater productions in Vineland didn’t suck. 

So you’ve been listening to Film Chat Radio with Erin on WFCE, where we always fall asleep to vampire movies we’ve been threatened into watching by strange listeners. Goodnight!