Year: 1983
Duration: 1:23:23
Directed by: Nikos Zervos
Actors: Konstantinos Tzoumas, Tzimis Panousis, Vangelis Kotronis
Language: Greek (Eng/Soft Sub)
Country: Greece
Also known as: O Drakoulas ton Exarheion , Ο δράκουλας των Εξαρχείων
Description: Victor Papadopoulos is a mad scientist who came in Greece from the Carpathians…He lives with his daughter in Exarheia, the center of Athens, and with the help of his assistants he is up to a paranoid plan: the creation of a music supergroup from bodyparts of dead musicians!!
Filmed in 1983, this is the first movie of the Greek director Nikos Zervos, known for his political-social satyrical movies. The film gentre is very difficult to deine, ’cause it has elements of zombie horror films, musical and satyrical movies. But lets start from the beginning:
The story: This is the tale of the famous Dracula, the vampire-doctor who moves away from Karpathia to the Athenian suburb, Exarchia, in order to continue his malevolent experiments. There he digs bodies from the cemetary and steals parts from their bodies, in order to create the perfect musical band. But when he achives it, the band leader runs away with his beatuful daughter. Meanwhile, the dead rising from their graves in order to protest against the thieft of their body members!
The movie Dracula of Exarcheia itself: Its hard to describe, this film ’cause it doesn’t remind me any other movie, i’ve ever seen. Its a strange combination of surrealistic comedy, with horror and musical. Most of the film is placed in the centre of Athens, and especially in Exarchia, a place where all anarcists, artists, politicians and studends gather (this is also the place where the December 2008 riots started!). The films features, scenes of amateurish acting and filming, weird dialogs, political and social parodys and a all star cast, with singers and actors, of the Greek political-satyrical artistic scene.
The protagonist is the greek rock-satyrical singer Jimmis Panousis and his group “Mousikes Taxiarchies” (musical garrisons), how is great in the role of Dracula’s creation, while the actor/dancer Konstandinos Joumas plays a Dracula, who reminded me of a lesser violent Dracula from the movie “Van Helsing”. Other people who participate are the actors Dimitris Kafetzopoylos who plays the leader of the zombies, the lost sublieutenant of Albania (referance in a poem by Odysseas Elytis), and many more.
A mad orthopedist scientist, who looks (and sleeps) like Dracula, is living in Exarheia, Athens and collects body members of dead musicians so as to create a laboratory-made music band for multinational record companies. The living dead of Athenian cemeteries form a revolutionary group and decide to organize a concert to make their protest known to the world.
A Molotov cocktail of sci-fi, zombie movie and musical this is Greek camp at its best, combining Waters with Romero and Bunuel with Monty Pythons, mercilessly satirizing Theo Angelopoulos and the Socialist party (PASOK) in power -as well as the Greek Communist party, in impotence- and making a few strong comments on bourgeois culture, anarchy, the “political correctness” of the 80’s, the aesthetics of the Greek Underground scene and the “Sun” that was supposedly coming over the country, as the anthems of PASOK seemed to guarantee.
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