Blood of the Vampire

What should make this film a classic is the opening vampire staking scene. The greatest staking scene in movie history, with Kiss Of the Vampire second. I have this film on a 1978 VHS release with excellent color, and I also saw it in the theatre at the time. It's strong effective stuff. As some say, it can also be draggy in the middle. The laboratory scenes of working on blood samples may be dreary. But it has vicious dogs released on escaping prisoners, sneaking and climbing up into the maiden's room, a deformed hunchback, a good climactic scene, and great colorful sets. Good Gothic. The same producers also made The Hellfire Club, Jack the Ripper, and The Flesh and the Fiends (about Burke and Hare). I'd like to know which video releases have faded color and which have good.

Here's a well-done Hammer-styled "cash-in" of Horror of Dracula, interestingly enough done by a US production company and released by Universal (Universal-International in those days), which of course was the company that did all those great classic horror films that Hammer eventually updated with great success.

It is too bad that this film has been so neglected that it cannot be seen except on worn-out and ridiculously expensive factory VHS tapes that are rare, or on DVD duplicates made off of faded 16mm film prints. I saw this 30 years ago on TV from a good 35mm print and remember that the colors were great, but the recent 16mm dupe I saw was really faded. Still, increase the TV color saturation, and it's way better than nothing at all. (UPDATE: I thought I'd better update this now that a factory DVD has been recently released. No longer do you have to pay way too much to see this.)

The few occasional lapses in logic notwithstanding, this is bound to please any fan of the early Hammer horror films, and Donald Wolfit does a great turn as the doctor who has become a sort of living vampire. Though there are no real supernatural elements, this film tops many others without having to rely upon the fantastic to carry it. A fabulous beginning title sequence is followed by a great scene where the vampire-doctor is revived, with his misshapen servant beside him, and then a large bat flies out from the ceiling rafters. You would swear it was an actual bat, and then wonder how did they get it to do it just right?

As an example of the attention to detail you'll see here: during a conversation between two prisoners, a rat scurries behind one unnoticed and for no other reason than to show that the place is a squalid jail cell. Nobody sees it, yells or stomps on it, or anything you'd expect to happen in another film. It's just there and passes by. Now that's real set design!

BLOOD OF THE VAMPIRE is a pseudo-Hammer film made to cash in on the huge success of Hammer's THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN. It's a bit of a mixed success, at least in terms of the production: the low budget is evident from the limited number of sets, but what sets! The whole film looks delicious and colourful with a real Gothic atmosphere that rivals Hammer at their best. The rival producers even hired Hammer man Jimmy Sangster to write the screenplay, which is all about early blood transfusions rather than any real vampirism – so if you go in looking for neck-biting antics you'll be sorely disappointed.

Much of the film is set in an asylum for the criminal insane, presided over by sinister doctor Callistratus (played by renowned theatre actor Donald Wolfit, who looks uncannily like a bigger version of Bela Lugosi here). Vincent Ball is the dashing hero thrown into the chaos, finding himself at the mercy of brutal guards, vicious Dobermans lurking outside the asylum, atrocious conditions, torture, and a creepy hunchback (the sympathetic Victor Maddern, hidden beneath some delightfully grotesque makeup that puts his eye halfway down his cheek). Before long, the utterly beautiful Barbara Shelley is also on the scene and at the mercy of the villains...

Sangster's script reads like a half-baked version of THE REVENGE OF FRANKENSTEIN, and indeed he took many of the themes in this movie and strengthened them for the Hammer sequel. Still, even if the script is slightly sub-par, the pacing is spot on and there's never a boring spot here. The Gothic feel is spot on, with plenty of spooky atmosphere punctuated by sudden moments of the grotesque – a heart beating on its on in a tank, a limbless body kept alive, a corpse in a block of ice. I didn't even mind the lack of undead, as I've always enjoyed the scientific paraphernalia in these movies. Other moments of interest include brief appearances from John Le Mesurier as a judge and Bernard Bresslaw as a thief. The sole aim of this film may have been to rip-off Hammer and director Henry Cass may be workmanlike at best, but still I enjoyed this fun and colourful little romp.

The one enduring image from this film that has haunted me across the years is the weird hunchback assistant to the villain. Its an image that was splashed across horror magazines of my childhood. There was something about the twisted fellow with an eye that drooped to his cheek that made you want to see the movie. I never saw the film as a kid and it wasn't until tonight, well into my adulthood, that I managed to see the film. I can't say I was disappointed.

The plot concerns Dr John Pierre who is wrongly thrown in jail. He is redirected to the asylum/prison run by Dr Callistratus so that John Pierre can help Callistratus with his experiments concerning blood. As those outside the prison attempt to free him through legal means Pierre is forced to deal with the strange goings on in the prison, including fending off the sadistic Carl, the hunchbacked assistant of Callistratus.

Gothic, and grandly over the top in the way that most of the Hammer films weren't this is a cheesy but fun attempt at copying the Hammer Studios formula. It looks and feels very much like Hammer in it styling and plotting (Then again Jimmy Sangster of Hammer wrote the script) .Shot in color, the print I saw was well worn and a bit faded. I wonder how this would have looked at the time of its original release. It must have looked great. I loved the sets which were done in such a way as to give the illusion of space, unfortunately it turned every location into spaces the size of football stadiums (though in several sequences things were much too cramped).

The whole thing reminded me of the sort of thing you used to run across at 2am on late night TV with too many commercials. Actually as much as I liked the film I do think it is a bit plodding and probably could have used either trimming or a commercial break or two.

Strangely this film is very difficult to see. I'm at a loss as to why this film has fallen through the cracks over the last 40 odd years. Its not a bad movie, though it is a tad creaky and of a style they haven't done since Hammer stopped making movies. Perhaps its simply a matter of falling between the cracks in finding a distributor (it was not done by a "major producer"), or more likely the fact that there is no vampire with wings and fangs as promised in the title. What ever the real reason its a shame because this film is worth a look.

If you like Hammer style horror or good but rarely seen films, search this one out and give it a try. Its certainly worth a bag of popcorn on a Saturday night watch movies.

I couldn't agree more with the positive comments on this much-overlooked Hammer-styled gem. The 2006 Dark Sky DVD double-feature (with "The Hellfire Club") is a *must-have* for any fan of the early Hammer films. A delightful drive-in double-feature program design, including concessions ads, trailers and even an intermission, really adds to the enjoyment of the these two classic films. The transfer on both is quite respectable, certainly much superior to anything previously available, and is in anamorphic widescreen. Kudos to Dark Sky for their outstanding work on this and many other rare genre classics!