GL84 Arriving at a secluded orphanage, the bloodthirsty count appears to offer a form of assistance to those running it yet when they soon learn that both he and his assistants are actually vampires looking to use those around the area as parts of their family and must stop their deadly plans.This ended up being quite the enjoyable improvement over the original. One of the better elements featured here is the fact that there's quite a pronounced sense of action here through the inclusion of more vampire activity. As the beginning of the film features the resurrection of the female vampire horde from their graveyard in the woods which starts this off nicely with a stellar Gothic-influenced sequence, there are plenty of later scenes here having fun with the other vampire action involving the count or the brood under his control. With some more fine attacks in the later half here featuring the attack on the boat, the fine series of disorienting hallucinations she has while locked inside the castle as the vampires are shown to torment her mentally and finally the big finale where the swarms of vampires are involved in the action within the mansion tackling the swarming of the invading officers and the big final confrontation in the pit where the last battle occurs. Alongside this fine action, the film's Gothic semblances are still present here and become part of the film's charm. With the count still living in the large mansion that contains the usual stone artiface, rocky crypt and general feeling of opulence that had undertaken the previous effort in the series, this one still feels like a rather older film than it really is while providing some semblance of modern-day timeframe which gives this a fine connection to the previous film. The Count's old-school charm is quite fun to witness as well with the fine counterpoint to the last remaining remnants of the mod look featured in the first film as that works even more within the atmosphere of the film as it works nicely with the old-school tone and mythology setup to be employed here. Alongside the few fine gore pieces shown throughout here, these here hold it up over it's few minor issues. The biggest problem with this one is the fact that there's just not a whole lot of action overall in this one. The film starts off nicely with the Counts' appearance at the orphanage but then that completely disappears and settles into the series of debates and conversations from the group about the nature of the beast rather than anything else which just doesn't make this all that enjoyable. The slow, dull pacing is continued throughout here with this one keeping the motivations of just about everything in obscurity while not offering the kind of action required to really sell the threat of this one at all, giving a rather bland feel. A large part of this is due to the utterly forced need to sell the rest of the group on the existence of vampires in general which is a carryover from the original film and doesn't have any reason to be included once again since the resurrection has already occurred. That is the final issue with this one, as it makes no sense why they've both returned and not once is mention made of why, how or for what purpose. Despite being killed at the end of the first one, here they just show up and it's rather frustrating to have this plot point repeated yet again. Otherwise, this one is quite fun.Rated R: Violence and Language.

MartinHafer Following in the tradition of Hammer Films' Dracula series, this sequel resurrects the vampire AND his assistant even though they were clearly killed at the end of the first Yorga movie! Yes, inexplicably he's back and in a different locale--now terrorizing suburbia instead of Los Angeles.Soon after the film begins, a group of very poorly costumed vampire ladies attack a home--killing several family members. However, Yorga appears and is not pleased (why?!) and decides to somehow erase the memory of the attack from most of the surviving family members. Oddly, the mute woman (Jennifer) is immune to the hypnosis but no one believes her story that the family was attacked. However, some family members were killed but young Tommy came up with convenient excuses as to their whereabouts. Slowly, however, another family member (Cynthia) begins to recall bits and pieces of the attack--all this AFTER she's gone to stay with Yorga. Perhaps she'll remember the entire traumatic event in time. This all begs the question "why would Yorga go to all this trouble--and why wouldn't he just wipe out this family altogether???" Well, the answer it seems is that he's in love with Cynthia and wants to woo her! No, he doesn't want to bite her neck but have her voluntarily become his--a truly consensual vampire (how modern and non-chauvinistic).So is the film any good? Well, not especially. The biggest problem, other than the weird plot, is that the vampire makeup appears often to be some cheap plastic fangs and some white powder makeup and that's all!! This is especially true of the lady vampires and just looks crappy--and I am talking about WORSE than a typical Halloween costume! And, in most every other way the film just looks shabby. To make things worse, it's also not all that interesting...and Yorga comes off as a bit of a loser. Not very good and a pale shadow of the original Yorga film. Perhaps the $47.37 budget didn't help!

Woodyanders The ever-suave and charismatic Bulgarian vampire Count Yorga (the wonderful Robert Quarry in peak sardonic and sinister form) returns to continue his campaign of terror at a nearby orphanage. Ably directed by Robert Kelljan (who also co-wrote the clever script), with slick, vibrant cinematography by Bill Butler and an eerie, shivery score by Bill Marx, this sequel to the immensely enjoyable original is in some ways even better: the production values are more polished, the pace much snappier, there's a greater atmosphere of skin-crawling dread, an amusingly dry sense of spot-on sarcastic humor, several well-mounted shock set pieces (a sequence with a whole family getting slaughtered by a horde of vicious vampire women is positively harrowing), and a stirring conclusion complete with a jolting surprise bummer ending. Quarry truly excels in the lead role as Yorga; he receives fine support from the ravishing Mariette Hartley as sweet, sympathetic heroine Cynthia Nelson, Roger Perry as intrepid psychiatrist Dr. David Baldwin, Yvonne Wilder as fragile deaf mute Jennifer, Edward Walsh as Yorga's hulking, fearsome manservant Brudah, Tom Toner as hearty priest Reverand Thomas, Rudy De Luca as the skeptical Lieutenant Madden, Craig T. Nelson as the gallant Sergeant O'Connor, Philip Frame as bratty little boy Tommy, and a bearded Michael Pataki as hipster Joe. A solid and worthwhile horror bloodsucker romp.

Ron Mueller Even if this was a made-for-tv special it would be below network standards (what, you didn't know the networks had standards?). I would list all the goofs but there are too many to mention and the editing may have been done by a cat trying to sharpen it's claws on the film canister. If this movie was shown on MST3K then it should have been.