A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

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!

Count Yorga (Robert Quarry) is living in a small town outside of San Francisco, where he becomes involved with an Orphanage, primarily as a source of victims. A tragic event leads persons from the orphanage to contact the local police, and together, they end up investigating Count Yorga.Ostensibly a sequel to Count Yorga, Vampire (1970), this film really plays more like a re-imagining, similar to the relationship between Evil Dead (1981) and Evil Dead II (1987). Because of this, it doesn't really matter which film you see first. This also explains why there is no explanation given of Count Yorga's sudden appearance in the San Francisco area. The first film didn't necessarily happen in this film's world. This is more another version of the same story, told in an "alternate universe".And at that, I liked it just as well. This film is also a 10 out of 10 for me. The extensive hand-held cinematography of the first film, which gave it a Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)-like feel, is gone for the most part, but cinematography that is just as interesting has taken its place. This time around, we get very strong contrasts, from near black night scenes--but wherein we can still see the action, to very bright, strong contrast shots of the orphanage during the day. Bright greens often show up in the night shots, as well. But the film wouldn't receive a 10 just for cinematography. The story works well, and although less dialogue-intensive than the first film, the dialogue is just as intriguing here. A lot of it, like the first film, is carried by Roger Perry, who is present in both films as a doctor, although a different character in each, lending further evidence to this being more of a re-imagining than a sequel. Whereas the vampires of the first film were more sensual, partially due to the fact that early conceptions of Count Yorga, Vampire had it as a sexploitation vampire film, the vampires here are more a combination of Night Of The Living Dead (1968)-like zombies and vampires. At that, they're still somewhat sensual, but a more literal idea of vampires as a kind of living dead is invoked beautifully here. It's too bad the idea has been so little used in later films.Also like the first film, The Return of Count Yorga knows that it is somewhat absurd, and although this one is more conspicuously humorous, that aspect is not dominant. Writer/director Bob Kelljan doesn't forget to focus on creepiness and the disturbing, which are liberally present. In fact, this film contains one of my favorite "massacre" scenes. It is the centerpiece of at least the first half of the film, and propels the plot.Quarry is one of my favorite "Draculas", and the creepiest "Renfield" makes a return here, too, in the guise of Brudah (Edward Walsh). The new home is as good if not better than the home in the first Count Yorga, Vampire, and the climax may be better here as well.Don't miss either Count Yorga film. They're both underrated.

It comes as no surprise that by the early 70's sequels were being made from movies in which the protagonist of the second film dies in the first. I do wonder, however, what sequel did this first - I'd hesitate to suggest the Dracula or Frankenstein series as those characters were more concepts than distinct personae. Yorga, however, was a clear case of capitalistic resurrection. Count Yorga, Vampire left him decidedly dead, yet he shows up here with little explanation. But, when push comes to shove, who really cares? I care more about the fact that despite the presence of many of the same names, including director Kelljan, from the first highly entertaining installment, Return fails on any number of accounts. Robert Quarry, back as Yorga, makes his reappearance at a masquerade at the local orphanage put together by kind-hearted if unimpressive Mariette Hartley. He likes what he sees, so he has his harem of decaying ladies abduct her and bite many members of her good-natured family. Mute coworker Yvonne Wilder finds the bodies; when the police arrive, however, they've mysteriously disappeared and frustrated Wilder can't locate a pen to inscribe what she witnessed. Roger Perry, back in his role as vampire investigator and apparently in the process of establishing himself as a modern Van Helsing, spearheads an investigation that apparently involves quite a bit of conversations shown in unexciting long shot. While Quarry's out on the town, Hartley has some pretty intense vampire hallucinations that provide some distraction from the mundane story. Three beers and two mojitos into the film, my notes and memory are illegible, but the conclusion involves a lot of vampire converts. Return is nowhere near as frightening as its predecessor, nor does it boast a clever story, suggestive acting and passable dialogue. With a story like this enacted by a cast like this, it's difficult to determine where the bad screenplay ends and where the bad acting begins. Regardless of where to place blame, Hartley has some horrible lines, many of which she lolls out like so much porridge. One of the only attributes similar to the first film is Kelljan's clever use of color. While Yorga featured a symphony of shades of brown contrasted with the occasional burst of red, Return's understated color scheme includes some extremely well placed shots, including a sequence with some striking purple. I found the video in the Horror Comedy section of the video store but did no laughing with, only at. The funniest part of the movie to me is that the co-writer Wilder didn't give herself any lines in the movie, preferring instead to hop around, point and gesture than to pronounce any of her clunky dialogue. Mel Brooks actor/writer Rudy De Luca has a role as a police investigator; Craig T. Nelson, the dad from Poltergeist, also plays a detective. George Macready returns from the previous film (which he narrated) for his last film role, as does ugly Edward Walsh in the same role as Quarry's gatekeeper.

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.