Paul Morris, director of cult films “Meat for Frankenstein” and “Blood of Dracula”, has died at the age of 86.

The avant-garde director best known for two acclaimed films with Andy Warhol, Blood for Dracula and Flesh for Frankenstein, Paul Morris died of pneumonia this Monday at the age of 86.

Underground and pop art

A literature student at Fordham University, Paul Morrissey began directing his first independent short films in the early 1960s. Radically non-conformist, the future filmmaker had a decisive meeting in 1965 with the artist Andy Warhol, with whom he shared the same artistic aspirations in the field of underground and pop art. Their first work together, Chelsea Girls, emphasized the musical qualities of the glamor rock group The Velvet Underground, although Morris later denied Warhol’s involvement in the project.

In 1968, Paul Morrissey directed Flesh (produced by Warhol) and featured a then-unknown young actor, Joe Dallesandro, as a prostitute in New York. The numerous raunchy sex scenes caused immediate controversy, but the film has been elevated as a cult work by all yuppies of the Woodstock generation. Later, Paul Morrissey found Joe Dallessandro in Garbage (1970) and The Heat (1972), where he played alternately a heroin addict and a star ready to do anything to succeed: thus Morrissey made the most famous in the world with these three films. History of cinema.

Two genres of gems

Morrissey made two horror films in the 1970s, Meat for Frankenstein and Blood for DraculaHis last two collaborations with Andy Warhol. He then made his debut with Kevin Bacon on 42nd Street in New York in 1981 as a young gigolo. However, he stopped filming in the late 1980s, disillusioned with the artistic trends and developments offered by modern cinema.