Die Gruft des Grauens

I wish I could be ALL praising about this odd, unknown horror gem and, for a good 30 minutes, it did look like "Grave of the Vampire" would become a totally unexpected pleasant surprise. Although terribly cheap looking, the opening sequences are very atmospheric and frightening. The substance, too, seems to be original and a totally new take on the classic theme of vampirism. The films opens at a spooky and very ancient cemetery, where an undead dude crawls out of his tomb and assaults a young couple that are making out in their car. The girl is raped, but she survives, and nine months later she gives birth to a baby that drinks blood instead of breast milk (illustrated by one of the coolest horror-sequences in horror history!). The boy grows up an outcast and wreaks revenge on his vampire-father that still walks around in disguise. This downright sublime and eventful introduction blew me away and it really looked like I had come across a true hidden horror-gem of the 70's. The setting is scary, the idea innovating, murders are gruesome…I couldn't wait to see what happened next. Unfortunately however, this is where the ingeniousness stopped, and the remaining hour turned out another dull and ordinary vampire flick. The half-man / half-vampire being discovers that his "father" is now a history teacher (!) and plots to kill him for good. There are still a couple of bizarre plot twists, but they're overly stupid and far from believable. Also, because the originality has vanished, you begin to focus more on the dreadful aspects, like the lousy acting, the monotonous camera-work and the cheap set pieces. Near the end, it's hard to believe that this movie started out so promising and you regret not having pressed the stop-button while it was still good.

This film, which I believe was distributed as a double-bill with 'Garden of the Dead,' has several disturbing elements which shoved it over the line of a traditional vampire movie; vampire rape, for one. Vampire offspring for another. Take two parts "Count Yorga: Vampire" and one part "Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things" and you have this flick. But it is an excellent B-movie in the horror genre with a definite 70s flair.

I can't really claim that I was expecting much from the 1972 movie "Grave of the Vampire" when I sat down to watch it for the first time in 2020. Why? Well, it was a vampire movie that didn't have Bella Lugosi, Christopher Lee or Peter Cushing in it, so for an older vampire movie, it just lacked that selling ingredient. But still, I sat down to watch it, with it being a vampire movie and all.

And I will say that "Grave of the Vampire" wasn't a bad vampire movie, however nor was it an outstanding one either. Writers David Chase and John Hayes managed to come up with a storyline that was watchable, but you shouldn't expect it to be a vampiric masterpiece.

And the movie does show that it is from 1972, so this will of course not be a spectacle of grand special effects and such, yet "Grave of the Vampire" actually managed to do worse than the old Hammer Horror movies, oddly enough, in terms of special effects and the whole vampire atmosphere.

The acting in the movie was adequate, and that was most certainly something that helped to keep the movie as being watchable.

For a vampire movie "Grave of the Vampire" just didn't strike me as being all that and a batch of garlic - pardon the pun. However, there are far worse vampire movies out there.

My rating of director John Hayes's 1972 movie lands on a five out of ten stars. It was watchable, for sure, but this was not a memorable movie. Nor do I believe that I actually will ever sit down to watch it a second time.

A vampire called Caleb Croft rather inexplicably rises from his tomb several years after being presumed dead (perhaps they can lay dormant) and attacks a courting couple, raping the girl who then gets pregnant and gives birth to his son. Move on a couple of decades to the groovy early 1970's and the son, who feeds on blood from raw meat - he is some kind of "good" part-vampire - hunts down his father with the intention of driving a stake into his heart. This came out around the same time as the Count Yorga and Blacula movies, Croft is not as good as either of them in the vampire stakes (no pun intended!), but he is very callous and cruel none the less. There are are some decent, atmospheric scenes, such as the foggy cemetery at the start, plus a corpse in the shower with a slashed throat, later seen in any number of slasher movies. However the middle section of the film is pretty slow and dull, it sadly drags it down. The print used for the British DVD was quite appalling, so this did not help. Worth a watch but the name Caleb Croft won't remain in my movie memory for long.

A vamp by the name of Caleb Croft rises from his crypt in a cemetery and happens upon a couple making out in their car. After killing the man and having a few sips of his blood, Croft rapes the woman in an empty grave. Eventually, the woman gives birth to a half human, half vampire baby. In order to feed him, she uses a syringe to extract her own blood, eventually leading to her demise. Her now grown son seeks vengeance against his father and is determined to track him down. Did I mention that Croft is now teaching night classes on the occult?

This offbeat vampire film has many interesting twists in it's storyline. One of Croft's students longs to be a vampire, for instance. As the vile vamp himself, Michael Pataki comes across as cold-blooded and cruel. While the film isn't very bloody, the acts of violence he commits seem more vicious than the norm. William Smith plays the son, and he reminded me more of a bump on a log than anything. I suppose that's just the part, that of a secluded outsider with no world experience. There's a fight towards the end that is surprisingly well-done. The film isn't as good as director John Hayes earlier effort, "Dream No Evil", but it's a unique addition to the vampire sub-genre all the same.