The film contains two references to the most famous vampire novel, Bram Stoker's "Dracula". First, Dr Chagas lives in lodgings at 4 Renfield Place, Whitechapel. In the novel, Renfield is the insect-eating inmate of Dr Seward's lunatic asylum. Second, Brother Marstoke tells Holmes that Brother John was murdered in an alley opposite 128 Demeter Street. The Demeter is the name of the ship in which Dracula sails from Transylvania to England.
The film was produced in 2002 for The Hallmark Channel as the last installment in a four-part series of Hallmark Sherlock Holmes films. They were all directed by Rodney Gibbons, and he was involved in writing final drafts for the first three and wrote the screenplay for the final film. They all starred Matt Frewer as Sherlock and Kenneth Welsh as Dr. Watson. The films were Le chien des Baskerville (2000), Le signe des 4 (2001), Sherlock Holmes: Crime en bohême (2001) and The Case of the Whitechapel Vampire (2002).
The Case of the Whitechapel Vampire (2002) is a non-canonical Sherlock Holmes film. The film was directed and written by Rodney Gibbons based on Arthur Conan Doyle's characters. It starred Matt Frewer as Holmes, Kenneth Welsh as Dr. Watson and Shawn Lawrence as Brother Marstoke.
Though Holmes was dismissive of the supernatural--"This agency stands flat-footed upon the ground, and there it must remain...No ghosts need apply." (The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire)--he nevertheless does not seem to be an atheist. In the Adventure of the Naval Treaty, he says, "There is nothing in which deduction is so necessary as in religion...It can be built up as an exact science by the reasoner. Our highest assurance of the goodness of Providence seems to me to rest in the flowers..." He deduces this from the fact that their color and smell are not necessary but are extras. "It is only goodness which gives extras..." He also thought there must be a purpose to existence. "It must tend to some end, or else our universe is ruled by chance, which is unthinkable." (The Adventure of the Cardboard Box)