Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.0
Audio		3.5
Extras		2.0
Overall		3.5

Cuadecuc Vampir Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman February 4, 2024

Note: This version of this film is available on Blu-ray as part of Severin's Cuadecuc Vampir / Umbracle double feature release.

Severin offered fans a 1080 release of Jess Franco's Count Dracula way back in 2015, a release that had some perhaps less than spectacular technical merits, but which had, in typical Severin fashion, some really appealing supplements, including the so-called "expressionist" behind the scenes film Cuadecuc Vampir, which is probably really not a behind the scenes film in a traditional sense. More recently, Severin brought out Count Dracula 4K, which upped the technical merits game significantly, while also offering a glut of bonus material, including quite a bit ported over from that first 1080 release, though noticeably not inclusive of Cuadecuc Vampir. That may be because Severin deemed the weird feature suitable for its own release, paired now with another odd outing from Pere Portabella, Umbracle. Without punning too horribly on his surname, some may feel that Mr. Portabella may have been indulging in fungi of a more "magical" type when making these unabashedly hallucinogenic presentations.

While there are some fleeting glimpses of things like cameras and crews in Cuadecuc Vampir, and occasional flashes of what is typically called "candid footage", in a perhaps more meaningful way this bizarrely entrancing film is, as a reprint of Jonathan Rosenbaum's review from the Village Voice in the insert booklet mentions, Portabella's homage to legendary films like Nosferatu and/or Vampyr. And in fact with its largely asynchronous soundtrack offering a grab bag of effects, tones, noises and other sonic accoutrements serving as what might be jokingly referred to as as the psychedelic equivalent to old organ or piano accompaniments, Cuadecuc Vampir is arguably a "silent" film on an elemental level. The nicely appointed insert booklet Severin has included with this release offers the above mentioned Jonathan Rosenbaum, but also has the following perhaps salient quote from Portabella himself about the film:

Vampir is an attempt at a reflection on cinematic language. Perhaps, since it was maded during the shooting of Jesus Franco's production Count Dracula, it is also an attempt to analyze that genre of fantasy denigrated by most horror films, an exploration and rethinking of the problem of the "vampire film". But funcamentally - and I want to point this out - Vampir is one of the first independent films in my country. And I must alert you to the fact that working outside the establishment is not a voluntary decision but rather something we are forced into by our political, social and cultural situation.

That fascinating quote (and there's even more in the booklet) alludes to the sociopolitical climate in Spain courtesy of another guy named Franco, who, as I joked in my review of Count Dracula 4K, wasn't "quite dead yet" as the dictator would later become in a running gag on Saturday Night Live. That said, I frankly wouldn't argue that Cuadecuc Vampir is as overt in its "deconstruction" of Spanish iconography and political climate as Umbracle or even Viridiana, the legendary Luis Buñuel film (still weirdly missing on Blu-ray as of the writing of this review) that Portabella produced.

Cuadecuc Vampir Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Cuadecuc Vampir is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Severin Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.39:1. Severin doesn't offer a ton of technical information, other than a back cover mention that this is "scanned in HD from Portabella's own vault elements for the first time ever in America", which kind of begs the question of what Severin's earlier release of the film as a supplement on Count Dracula was sourced from. That quandary aside, as can be rather easily seen in the screenshots accompanying this review, Portabella has intentionally tweaked the imagery so aggressively, both in terms of various stocks but also hugely variant contrast levels, that I'd argue this version may not be markedly different from Severin's earlier version one way or the other. That's not a bad thing, though, as this presentation, while kind of subverting the things we typically cover in our reviews like detail levels, consistent contrast and organic grain resolution, is a really striking one, though the very stylistic flourishes on hand kind of need to be surrendered to. That means that "detail" in the traditional sense is probably more easily discernable in relatively normal 16mm footage, where contrast is at least relatively balanced. Those sequences also offer the most visible, and at times rather gritty looking, grain field. Some of the other moments where contrast has been pushed to whatever the contrast breaking point is, are almost surreal with blooming white blobs and looming black shadows offering approximations of objects in the frame, but without any really discernable fine detail on a meaningful level.

Cuadecuc Vampir Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Cuadecuc Vampir features a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Mono track that is quite (intentionally) cacophonous at times, with a cascading series of weird, otherworldly, sound effects, along with what will be for a certain demographic (ahem) hilarious uses of source cues like Frank Chacksfield's cover version of "Here I Am" from Burt Bacharach's score for What's New Pussycat?. There is a rather brief moment very late in the film with Christopher Lee reciting a passage from Bram Stoker's source novel, which is kind of appealing because Lee also breaks into seamless French to address the filmmaker at one point. The entire track has a bit of brightness and there's noticeable hiss in the moments where little if anything is actually ostensibly being offered. Optional English subtitles are available.

Cuadecuc Vampir Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Severin has packaged Cuadecuc Vampir and Umbracle together on one disc, with the following supplements available once Cuadecuc Vampir has been selected:

• A Cinema of Vampires: Pere Portabella, Jess Franco and the School of Barcelona (HD; 35:40) is a fascinating interview with Spanish film scholar Dr. Alex Mendibil, who contextualizes the films in this set as well as the kind of, um, widely divergent reputations of Portabella and Franco. Subtitled in English. This makes for a really thought provoking companion piece to Dracula Barcelona, included on Severin's 4K release of Count Dracula.


• Trailer (HD; 1:50)

Additionally, Severin offers a very nicely appointed insert booklet, with writing from Pere Portabella, Jonathan Rosenbaum and Federico Karstulovich.

Cuadecuc Vampir Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Cuadecuc Vampir is absolutely audacious and probably unclassifiable as either a narrative film or a documentary. The imagery and sound design are both hallucinogenic and probably intentionally subversive. Technical merits are generally solid, and the main supplement is hugely appealing. Recommended.