Blood of the Vampire

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 ****

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.

Wrongly convicted of a murder, a Victorian-era doctor finds himself in a prison overrun by a fanatical tyrant conducting strange blood experiments and once he finds the true cause if his stay tries to stop it from happening. This was a heavily flawed and really damaging effort. The most detrimental and wholly useless factor to this one is the fact that we're barely exposed to anything that can be considered pertinent to a vampire story. Beyond a fine and atmospheric opening of a staking ceremony being carried out, this one has virtually nothing to do with a vampire as this is more of a mad doctor imprisoning rather than anything supernatural. There's no aversion to crosses, Holy Water or sunlight, sleeping in coffins or even bearing their fangs at all, as all the participants here are human which makes this one tough to get into. This makes the beginning, where we're introduced to the prison's inmates and the different experiments being conducted take on a different air of boredom and extreme dragging of the pacing without having a deadly threat emerge from the story. This is also brought along by the rather lacking amount of action where hardly anything happens here, and that's there's only two real action scenes with the opening staking and a rather enjoyable escape attempt thwarted by ravenous guard-dogs. With the period time- span is where a lot of what to like about it comes, as being placed during that part allows for the old-school Gothic atmosphere to come creeping into the film from the central asylum. It's an old-fashioned, imposing type, where the place airs a really great atmosphere and really makes it seem that it's a hopeless, dreary location. The place is dirty and disgusting in it's holding cells while it's at least cleaner in the medical research facilities. This is what is precisely needed of the place, since there's always a need for a place like that to be a fearful location. Still, it's quite a downfall since it's really boring, and coupled with the switch around doesn't leave itself too impressive overall. Today's Rating-PG-13: Violence.

There were two outstanding aspects to this formulaic film about a "mad scientist," No, there are no vampires in the film. It is about a doctor who performs experiments in a prison to cure his illness. The Nazis who experimented on prisoners in the camps would applaud his efforts. One thing that impressed me was the quality of the film. Monty Berman's cinematography was so outstanding that you were distracted from the story at times. The other outstanding feature was the characters and the actors who portrayed them. Donald Wolfit was perfect as Doctor Callistratus, the doctor performing the experiments. He was assisted by Carl (Victor Maddern), a deformed hunchback that has to be seen to be believed; and Andrew Faulds as the chief guard, who always had a sinister look on his face. Jimmy Sangster, who was a major force behind Hammer Films, wrote a script that managed to keep you interested. Minor improvements would have made this an outstanding film.

The title of "Booby Trap" director Herbert Cass' horror movie "Blood of the Vampire" is misleading. Actually, no traditional vampires with fangs appear in this atmospheric chiller about a mad 18th century Transylvanian scientist performing illegal medical procedures. A man who embarks on bizarre medical experiments, Doctor Callistratus (Donald Wolfit of "Becket") pays the ultimate price for his perfidy with death. Not only do righteous, good people put him to death, but they also have a powerfully built chap who sinks an iron stake into Callistratus' body and then hammer it through his corpse. Meanwhile, the mad scientist's loyal right-hand man, a crippled, deformed hunchback with one drooping eye hanging out of his face, Carl (Victor Maddern of "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang"), takes Callistratus' body to another unethical doctor who performs open heart surgery and brings Callistratus back to life. Mind you, Callistratus had been accused of being a vampire because he conducted experiments on his doomed patients to learn more about their blood and why some blood rejects other blood. British horror writer Jimmy Sangster has conjured up an interesting Gothic melodrama, but the absence of a vampire undercuts the narrative. You keep waiting for the notorious supernatural figure to show up but it never does. Doctor Callistratus manages to obtain a post as a prison warden so he can experiment with a variety of bodies. His downfall comes about when another doctor, Dr. John Pierre (Vincent Ball of "Where Eagles Dare") is put on trial for the unorthodox medical procedure of transfusing blood and sentenced to life in prison. It turns out that one of Pierre's witnesses, who sent him testimony by mail, didn't write the letter that would have cleared Pierre. Instead, another man, Monsieur Auron (Bryan Coleman) intercepted the letter and rewrote it. Rather than being confined on Campbell Island, our wrongly charged protagonist—Dr. Pierre—winds up in another prison; Callistratus runs the prison where Pierre is incarcerated and he uses Pierre to help him in his diabolical experiments. Callistratus is searching for a way to avoid constant blood transfusions because the cells in his blood are at war with each other. Eventually, Auron warns Callistratus that the alarming number of deaths occurring at his prison is bothering the authorities. Just when things for Callistratus couldn't get worse, he hires a new cleaning lady, Madeleine Duval (Barbara Shelley of "Dracula: Prince of Darkness"), to work for him. What Callistratus doesn't know is that Duval is Pierre's wife. She got Pierre defense witness who wrote the damaging letter to come forth and report that his testimony had been tamper with and the court had changed its ruling and cleared Pierre of all foul play. Callistratus responded by reporting that Pierre had died during a prison break and he is taken for his word. Duval shows up incognito to save her husband, but she runs into Auron who wants to rape her. Carl attacks Auron and Callistratus intervenes. He winds up killing Auron because the man tells him that he will turn him into the authorities. At the same time, the evil Callistratus decides to use Duval in one of his unearthly experiments. Pierre manages to escape and thwart Callistratus. No, the make-up for the murderous hunchback lacks verisimilitude, but it adds a grotesque sense of cheesiness to "Blood of the Vampire." Everything else looks good, especially the sets. "Blood of the Vampires" relies on a formulaic, melodramatic plot. The performances are good, especially Wolfit as the fiendish Callistratus, but the far-fetched action and the absence of a vampire undercut the action.

This film used to be on television fairly often, but has not been shown in years. It has made its way to home video ,and is not hard to find. One thing that really stands out is the screenplay by Jimmy Sangster. I don't know which movie he wrote first, but in 1958, the British film company Hammer released The Revenge of Frankenstein, and the Berman-Baker team this one. Both screenplays involve a large number of similar incidents and characters, so that one movie almost seems a mirror reflection of the other. BOTV is far nastier than the Hammer film, which is essentially a witty black comedy. Both films apparently caused some controversy in late Fifties England, owing to what a movie critic deemed a deliberate depiction of concentration camp imagery. It's entirely possible that to a filmgoing public only a dozen or so years removed from the end of World War Two, the scenes in both Sangster screenplays involving mad doctors experimenting on helpless prisoners for their own bizarre schemes, were a little too reminiscent of the Nazi medical experiments at various death camps. Whether Sangster intended to evoke this image is debatable, but it's true that the mad scientist played by Donald Wolfit in BOTV could certainly be seen as a Nineteenth century Mengele. The prison sets are believable and the story is fairly convincing, with good performances by the leads. Barbara Shelley plays another of her early damsels in distress. Vincent Ball as the hero and his cell mate William Devlin are both good, with some fine supporting performances from actors playing guards and prison officials. A first time viewer is likely to feel cheated, though. SPOILERS AHEAD: The revelation that there is no supernatural vampire in this movie is a letdown. The villain is an otherwise routine mad doctor, experimenting on prisoners to find a kind of synthetic blood that will keep him alive, after his resurrection through scientific means. In fact, this part of the story strongly resembles the Warner Brothers 1939 movie The Return of Doctor X, with Humphrey Bogart as a quasi-vampire. Wolfit is convincing as the evil surgeon, Dr. Callistratus ( surely, the resemblance of the name to 'castration' isn't coincidental). He brings a certain grim realism to the fantastic storyline, and the movie remains pretty strong stuff even today, though some of the nastier events are implied ,rather than shown. Not a bad movie, a bit of a curiosity worth seeing at least once.It definitely succeeds as a horror movie, in the gruesome storyline and the barbaric prison setting.

Decent Hammer imitation with a script by that studio's chief scribe, Jimmy Sangster. Producers Monty Berman and Robert S. Baker competed with Hammer in the horror stakes during the late 1950s/early 1960s (with Berman usually doubling also as cinematographer) via such efforts – besides the one under review which was actually their first – as THE TROLLENBERG TERROR aka THE CRAWLING EYE (1958), JACK THE RIPPER (1959), THE FLESH AND THE FIENDS (1960) and THE HELLFIRE CLUB (1961). Director Cass is best-known (if at all) for the Alec Guinness comedy LAST HOLIDAY (1950), itself recently retooled for the dubious talents of Queen Latifah! The film (which I had been looking forward to for ages after viewing stills from it in critiques of the genre penned by film historian Alan Frank) is a lurid melodrama in vivid color and with, pardon the pun, full-blooded performances – but the contrived end result somehow misses the mark. For starters, the script seems uncertain whether it wants to be a Dracula (given its title and 'bloodthirsty' villain) or a Frankenstein (in view of the villain's guinea-pig experimentations with moribund or dead subjects) clone; the fact that it is almost entirely set in a mental institution-*-prison (that includes future "Carry On" member Bernard Bresslaw as a rowdy jailbird) brings forth comparisons with the superior final Hammer Frankenstein entry FRANKENSTEIN AND THE MONSTER FROM HELL (1974)! Distinguished thespian Donald Wolfit is surprisingly but effectively cast in the lead, while Victor Maddern has a memorable look as his knife-wielding henchman (although, again, bearing hideous features that are never explained); future Hammer startlet Barbara Shelley and Vincent Ball (playing a character saddled with the amusing name of John Pierre!), then, are reasonably appealing as the romantic leads. The rousing score is equally notable – as is a nasty climax featuring a pack of wild dogs prefiguring the one in Georges Franju's EYES WITHOUT A FACE (1959)! Incidentally, there is a very noticeable jump-cut during one of the lab scenes (suggesting that the film had censorship issues back in the day); incidentally, the Dark Sky DVD – which cleverly pairs it with the aforementioned THE HELLFIRE CLUB – amusingly allowed one to watch the show just as if it were playing in an old-fashioned Drive-In (complete with a host of schlocky trailers, ads and announcements)

I see that all the key people here, Director, Writer and leads, all have plenty of credits to their name, so it is hard to see quite what went wrong. I know the film has it's fans but for all the efforts of all concerned, it really does stretch one's credulity and truly creaks along for most of it's modest length. Accepted, the vivid opening and credits are splendid. Nice vigorous bashing in of the stake and the power of it carries over when we again see the body but after the spirited opening this tends to disappoint. Only Donald Wolfit truly shines and he and Victor Maddern, playing a well OTT Igor character, are really relied upon to carry the whole film. Decent look and effective music but this really doesn't rise above the plot holes and the rather dreary storyline. Not to mention the lack of a vampire!

I'm not sure HOW this was accomplished, but Blood of the Vampire is both ghastly AND dull. I had taped this off AMC during the 2002 Halloween marathon and finally had a chance to watch it and while it had the look and feel of a Hammer movie it was amazingly, painfully dull. The fact that Dr Callistratus is resurrected from the dead is the only supernatural element in the movie and somehow it never becomes an issue or is talked about again. (SPOILER AHEAD) Although the visual elements of the Doctor's secret laboratory is stark, there is no attempt to generate any fear in this movie. Dull dull dull.

Despite the title, there really are no vampires in this film. However, despite this, it is still a scary film--sort of like a film in the same vein as THE TORTURE CHAMBER OF DR. SADISM. Here, the horrible monster is a very human one. When the film begins, a man (Dr. Callistratus) is being impaled in the grave. Apparently, he had done something rather nasty and was getting his just reward. However, as the body is about to be buried, a goofy-eyed hunchback attacks the grave digger and takes the body to a drunk doctor who performs a heart transplant--a pretty good feat for the 1800s! Later, you find that the dead man was indeed revived and changed his identity--making himself the warden of a prison for the criminally insane. Unfortunately, the most insane aspect of this "institution" are the staff who beat the prisoners and the doctor that performs vivisection on the prisoners. Soon, another doctor is wrongly convicted of killing one of his patients and the most damning evidence is a letter from the doctor's mentor saying that they should "throw the book at the doc". Oddly, instead of the usual penal colony, the guy is sent to the mental institution and becomes the unwilling assistant to Callistratus. Later, exactly why he was needed by Callistratus comes to light as well as the diabolical way that the madman is running the place. There's a lot more to the movie than this and there is a plot element involving blood--but remember, there are no vampires in this one. In many ways, the fact that a supposedly "normal" man would commit many acts of horror and torture is probably a lot scarier than if Callistrautus HAD been a true vampire. For lovers of the genre, this is good stuff. Others might wince at the blood and horror--this is NOT a film for the kiddies!