For this year’s 31 Nights of Horror Challenge, the Night 27 prompt is Dracula/Vampires. We watched the movie El Conde (2023) on Netflix.
Storyline
After living 250 years in this world, Augusto Pinochet, who is not dead but an aged vampire, decides to die once and for all.
In the 18th century, Claude Pinoche, a royalist French soldier, is discovered to be a vampire and survives an attempt to kill him. Witnessing the French Revolution and the execution of Marie Antoinette, he fakes his death and flees abroad, participating in the suppression of revolutionary upheavals over the next centuries.
Eventually he ends up in Chile in 1935 and joins the Chilean Army under the name Augusto Pinochet. Rising to become a general, he overthrows the socialist government of Salvador Allende in 1973 and becomes the country’s dictator, while demanding that he be addressed as “The Count” by his family. When authorities begin investigating his ill-gotten wealth and human rights abuses after he leaves office, he fakes his death again and retires to a remote farm.
After 250 years of existence he gradually loses his will to live, worrying his wife Lucia, and his long-time butler, Fyodor, a white Russian whom Pinochet bit and turned into a vampire.
‘El Conde’ delivers a wildly original concept reimagining Pinochet as a vampire, supported by superb performances and Oscar-nominated black-and-white cinematography that creates a visual masterpiece.
However, the film struggles with glacially slow pacing that many found tedious, while the dark humor and political satire prove deeply divisive, some find it brilliantly entertaining, others consider it repetitive and lacking bite. The unconventional approach either captivates or completely alienates viewers.
Our thoughts on El Conde (2023)
Good idea, hot mess
The film falls short of its potential; the second act is completely stale, and not even the humorously absurd reveal in the third act can rescue it from its tediousness. Very bad as a vampire film, empty as a satire, unable to create any kind of connection with the audience.
Larraín has the American critics on his side, they always are when they find a new foreign director, staying with them and only those 2/3 foreign directors forever – but this is a hot mess.
3 out of 10 stars
Trivia
The title translates to The Count, itself an allusion to Dracula.
Several allusions are made to other vampire stories like Dracula, Blade and Interview with the Vampire.
The hearts were made out of jello and new ones were made each week to ensure their freshness. The blood was colored blue to look better in black and white.
Some of the lenses used by Edward Lachman during the shoot, were also used in Citizen Kane (1941)
So what do you think? How many of these scary movies have you seen? Do you have any others to add to the list? Let us know in the comments section and please consider joining our Facebook page, Scary Movies at the Fort. Each October we host the 31 Nights of Horror. Check us out.
Also, be sure to check out our Complete List of Dracula, Frankenstien, Wolfman, and The Mummy, and Universal Monster Movies.
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