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.

Well, fans of Gothic style 50s horror will love this classic movie. For me, I was expecting a little more 'vampire' in the story, like a gorgeous vampiress dressed in a gown with fangs galore to bite the neck of those she seduces - but sadly no.

The movie starts with the Count being staked through the heart and buried, before his servant 'Karl' (who plays a good Igor like character) takes his masters body to a mental asylum to revive him.

After a Doctor is wrongly accused in court of killing a patient through blood transfusing, he is sent to the asylum for his life-long punishment, only to become a servant to the Count, who wants to use his expertise in surgical practise on other inmates, mainly their blood.

This movie has the imagery of Hammer Horror, given by it's writer Jimmy Sangster, but sadly lacks the punch of a good dramatic Vampire story.

As classic Gothic horrors go, it's worth a look.

Blood of the Vampire is one of those films that suggests it is more than it is. There is no vampire in the film, and there were only two references to vampires at all in the entire film. The film is a story of a doctor who tries revolutionary surgery on a dying patient only to end up as a visitor(prisoner) at a remote castle-prison run by a wicked scientist-warden and some of the most depraved prison guards around. The warden is played by none other than heavy Sir Donald Wolfit in full regalia as a thick slice of ham. Wolfit is a pleasure to watch as he barks out orders and sadistic lines to his lazy-eyed hunchback assistant and other minions about the prison. It seems he needs a scientist to help him with a blood disease he has. Victor Ball does a credible job as the good-natured prisoner. Lovely Barbara Shelley plays his love-interest. Miss Shelley looks simply wonderful. I was fortunate to meet Miss Shelley recently, and she told me that the film The Dresser was based on the life of Sir Donald Wolfit. It isn't hard to believe after watching this film. The man has an enormous presence about him. He really blows into existence what little life this film has. The film has a Hammer look to it, although not nearly as well-made. The budget for this film was apparently limited. The gothic look is, however, pretty genuine. I particularly liked the castle used. The pace of the film would be viewed by many as plodding. I rather enjoyed it...campness and all. A good old-fashioned horror tale!

We each have the experiences that brought us to the way we dream, and the forms we use in wrangling the world. My cinematic maturity is pretty traceable because the films and the watching were so self-ware.

Going back before well-formed notions of self, this was one film experience that changed me. Or rather I should say that the first two minutes changed me. It was my first movie alone, and my first non-cartoon movie. Sent on a mission to get bread, this ten year old sneaked into a matinée with the 15 cents left over. Sitting virtually alone I knew that what I was doing would be costly, and that I would be crossing a boundary with my life never fully retrieved.

This movie starts with some text that tells us about the curse of the vampire being the greatest evil ever visited on the earth and that we are entering Transylvania during what I assumed was its riskiest, spookiest time. The only way to kill a vampire, we are told, is by a stake through the heart. We are in an unkempt graveyard, Leni Riefenstahl's mountains in the background. If a church bell tolls it doesn't matter because I heard it. Tones are muted, the distance is far. We know it is the deepest part of night.

Townsfolk carry a wrapped corpse on a stretcher, careful about their delicate business in managing the evil undead. They tip the corpse into the shallow grave, the only real space, and the covering comes off the body's face. We see not the artificial snarling teeth that we expect, but a regular bank president sort of guy.

The camera now looks up from the grave at two hired executioners. One has a stake five feet long, the other a wooden mallet with a head as big as his, something I suppose actually existed. But it is huge and the wide lens makes it very much larger as we hear the crunch of the stake through flesh and see and hear the pounding just as if it were our heart. The camera then shows the stake, the palette effectively shifting from black and white to color.

A quick title and then we see a hunchback skulking behind a rock. His right eye (the wrong color) drooping two inches too low. Even a ten year old cinematic virgin could see at once that the action we have witnessed we have seen through his eye and that of the corpse. I was out of that air conditioned theater like my life depended on it. The bread did not survive.

Now, after more than 50 years I can sit through the entire film. The first sequence is still masterful I think. But the rest of the thing must have been created by another team. Boring. It has dogs, which together with the opening must have been all Sangster had in mind when he started.

Funny how you build a life.

Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.

A lunatic doctor in 1874 Transylvania, thought to be a vampire and killed with a wooden stake through his heart, is given a new ticker and resurrected from the dead; after changing his identity, he is put in charge of a remote prison for the criminally insane, but finds he needs medical help after his antagonistic blood cells are at odds with each other. Enter Vincent Ball (who amusingly resembles Edward Norton!) as a young doctor railroaded into prison via tampered evidence, and Barbara Shelley as Ball's sweetheart who believes her fiancé is innocent. Amazing, unusual screenplay from the talented Jimmy Sangster and solid performances bolster this horror-movie-which-really-isn't. A prologue complete with vampire-hunters and bright red blood prepares us for the standard bloodsucker set-up, yet Sangster is more interested in the wronged victim than the so-called vampire, and the action inside the heavily-guarded jail is surprisingly suspenseful. Some of the violence is a bit timid or rushed through, such as when a sadistic guard lands on his own bayonet blade (either director Henry Cass or his editor skitter passed the gruesome incidents), and there are a few plot-holes which the writer leaves gaping. Otherwise, an efficient and enjoyable British-made thriller filmed in muted, gloomy Eastmancolor; not the 'shocker' advertised, but actually so much more. *** from ****