Son of Dracula

Well, as promised here I am to tell you a little bit about the movie from which the poster I posted (a little aliteration never hurt anybody) down below comes from.

As you can easily tell, it's called Son of Dracula and reputedly, it's one of the worst movies ever made (which instantly makes it a "must see" in my book), having only played for a week in Atlanta in 1974, the year of its release (and my birth year, coincidently). It was directed by none other than Freddie Francis, cinematographer extraordinaire and the man behind the visuals of such great masterpieces such as The Innocents and The Elephant Man, just to name a couple of movies he was behind the camera.

Anyway, feeling a little bit lazy here so I'll just quote a small synopsis from Wikipedia:

Son of Dracula is a musical comedy film released in 1974 by Apple Films, starring Harry Nilsson and Ringo Starr. It is also the title of a Harry Nilsson album released in conjunction with the film. It includes Nilsson songs that were showcased in the film as well as portions of dialogue, used as bridging sequences. All song tracks with the exception of "Daybreak" are from Nilsson Schmilsson (1971) and Son of Schmilsson (1972), albums previously released.

Ringo Starr appears as Merlin the Magician, who follows the birth and rise of young Count Downe, played by Harry Nilsson. Starr and Nilsson were longtime friends, and Starr had played drums on Son of Schmilsson, which had spoofed horror movie motifs. A year or so later, Starr decided to make a rock and roll Dracula movie, and invited Nilsson to come on board. Nilsson thought at first the whole idea came from his recent album; as it turned out, Starr hadn't followed its release, and until then-wife Maureen brought him a copy, he didn't even know Nilsson had already used a similar theme.

Intrigued? So am I. Want to watch it? So would I. But sadly there's never been any release of Son of Dracula on any home video format. Over at YouTube land, there used to be a way to watch it in its entirety but that option is now no longer available (I guess it must have been pulled down due to rights issues). The only way out is to find a decent bootleg DVD and buy it. Not that I'm endorsing bootlegging or anything like that but in extreme cases like these anything goes, me guesses.

One last thing: notice the similarity between the cover artwork for Harry Nilsson's The Son of Schmilsson and the soundtrack for Son of Dracula -