I mentioned in my post about Pinocchio’s Revenge that Rosalind Allen may have done at least one more nude scene. I based this on a truly awful collage that was in my back issues from 20 years ago.
Yes, that turned out to be legit. Rosalind is topless in To Die For II. The scene is dark, poorly staged, clumsy and poorly photographed, but an occasional tell-tale frame reveals that she really was topless.
As for the movie itself, it’s not awful, but is basically just another ho-hum vampire flick, a sequel to To Die For, as you can guess from the title. No, that particular To Die For is not the semi-famous film with Nicole Kidman and Joaquin Phoenix, but a 1988 film with the same title.
This time, despite having been disintegrated in the first film, Vlad Tepes Dracula has been reincarnated, and is living in a small town, posing as a resident in the local hospital, using the name Dr. Max Schreck.
The locals apparently aren’t up on their horror films, since Max Schreck was the actor who played Nosferatu in the eponymous 1922 vampire classic.
Why, you may fairly ask, does the immortal bloodsucker want to hang around in a boring midwestern town instead of some mysterious, fog-shrouded European locale where a self-respecting vampire can wear a cape and a decent tuxedo? He’s there because he fathered a baby with a human woman, and he is now cozying up to the woman who adopted that baby. He even seems to be ready to have a semi-normal relationship with the woman and his son, but three things stand in his way:
- (1) The town is filled with other vampires, lowlifes who draw too much attention from the local police;
- (2) Vlad has a brother (Scottie Dracula?) who is a jealous ass and is constantly foiling Vlad’s plans, probably because mom always like Vlad best;
- (3) Vlad is being pursued by a professional vampire hunter, in a story line apparently continued from the first film.
Anyway, Vlad battles Scottie, then the vampire hunter exposes Vlad to daylight. The daylight disintegrates the vampire, but doesn’t disintegrate the baby, so the little nipper’s human side has apparently prevailed.
You may feel for Rosalind Allen for having hit a career nadir this low, but she was never a household name, and at least she was the star of this B-film, so it wasn’t really a major embarrassment for her. The movie represents an even lower point for somebody else who once was a household name, but could get nothing more than a walk-on in this film. He played the genre-obligatory role as the hard-nosed local cop who doesn’t buy into any of this vampire nonsense. Check it out:
Did you recognize Vince Edwards, ol’ Dr. Ben Casey himself, a man who used to be a big star and a TV Guide cover boy? He still looked about the same, 25 years after Ben Casey last aired, but his career was obviously in need of some of that surgery he used to perform. As a 63-year-old man who looked younger, Dr. Casey seemed to be healthy and robust in this role, but he would be dead of pancreatic cancer within five years.
Well done and thank you
I’m told Vince ran into Richard Chamberlain (Dr. Kildare , of course) in Central Park, and nearly attacked him. I was in that park a lot back then. I wish I could have seen that.
Vince was known to be a real hothead, so I can believe that story. He supposedly threw an ice cream cone onto Chamberlain’s suit. It’s a good thing it never came to fisticuffs, because Chamberlain might not have lived through that.
I was curious about whether To Die For (1988) and Son of Darkness To Die For II were available to stream. According to JustWatch, the original is not available to stream. The sequel is available, but only on a streaming service, Eros Now, which I had never heard of. It is apparently an Indian streaming service. Neither film appears to be available on DVD from Amazon. However, there is one place hard to find movies and TV shows can often be found. Both movies can be watched in their entirety on YouTube. I am realizing that I put far too much effort into tracking down a way to watch two movies I will probably never watch.
Eros Now is available through Amazon with a 7-Day free trial.