Count Yorga is Dead

When I was a kid, I went to see a double feature--back in the day when the still had such things--The Return of Count Yorga, and Frogs. The first was the first 'modern' vampire movie I'd ever seen and truly scared the crap out of me. I mean, until the Scream channel, I had no idea how the movie went because I spent most to the time with my hands over my face, cowering beneath the chair and bawling. Thank God, for Frogs, which was a joke compared to the nightmare I'd just gone through.

For years I remembered old Count Yorga, and vowed to watch that movie again, but I couldn't find it anywhere. Finally, Scream (Canada's horror movie channel) showed it and I finally watched it. Well, I'm a bit jaded now, so it was little wonder I thought it not the greatest movie in the world, or even scary, really, except for when Yorga does that vampire charge of his. Kind of disturbing.

Anyway, Robert Quarry, who portrayed Count Yorga in two movies has died. My story, "Second Banana," in the latest issue of Necrotic Tissue, is an homage to The Return of Count Yorga, not as it is, but a childhood remembrance of what it had been.

Mike