Shout Factory has released the 1958 British horror film BLOOD OF THE VAMPIRE on Region A Blu-ray. (This disc is an exclusive limited product which can only be ordered direct from Shout Factory.)
Whenever anyone has written anything about BLOOD OF THE VAMPIRE, they discuss how it was influenced by the Hammer Gothic chillers. The thing is, according to Jonathan Rigby's essential book ENGLISH GOTHIC, this movie began production in October 1957--only a few months after the very first Hammer color Gothic, THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN, had been released. That film's screenwriter, Jimmy Sangster, also did the script for BLOOD OF THE VAMPIRE, and many of the elements he put into this film would crop up in various ways throughout English Gothic cinema in the next decade and a half.
In 1874 Transylvania, a corpse is staked through the heart--but a hideous hunchback (Victor Maddern) and a drunken doctor bring the body back to life. Six years later, in Carlstadt, the revived fellow, now calling himself Dr. Callistratus (Donald Wolfit), is head of a an asylum for criminals. The mad doctor uses the inmates for his deadly experiments, and he forces a Dr. Pierre who was unjustly sent to the facility (Vincent Ball) to help him. Pierre and his fiancee (Barbara Shelley) work to stop the nefarious Callistratus.
Producers Robert Baker and Monty Berman (who would go on to make better black & white English Gothics such as THE FLESH AND THE FIENDS and JACK THE RIPPER) tried hard to copy the Eastmancolor saturated look of THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN. The movie is colorful enough, with the typical English Gothic blood that looks more like red paint....but the story is made up of a bunch of horror story cliches that feel randomly thrown together. Here's one example: we are shown four busty women chained up in Callistratus' secret laboratory, and the hunchback ogles them for a bit--and we never hear about or see these women again. Along with a mad scientist and a hunchback, there's a staking, an unearthed coffin, vicious guard dogs, a body encased in ice, and a beautiful woman strapped to an operating table--but all of these things never coalesce into a strong narrative. (By the way, Callistratus may take blood from unwitting victims through transfusions, and he may have gotten staked through the heart in the past, but he is decidedly not a vampire.)
BLOOD OF THE VAMPIRE also is weak in the acting department. Vincent Ball isn't all that interesting as the hero, but it has to be said that Sangster's script doesn't help him any. Donald Wolfit has been accused of being hammy here, but I personally felt he could have done more to make Callistratus stranger and more diabolical. Barbara Shelley looks magnificent in period costume (ironically her first appearance in a color English Gothic film was not for Hammer), but this truly is a damsel in distress part, and it doesn't allow her to give a strong characterization. Victor Maddern's hunchback is showcased plenty, but the increased visual detail of this Blu-ray happens to show the weakness of the makeup applied to him. BLOOD OF THE VAMPIRE doesn't have the effective supporting cast of the Hammer Gothics, although two men associated with that genre, Bernard Bresslaw and Milton Reid, have small roles. (Reid is the one doing the staking at the beginning of the film, and he's wielding a ridiculously large mallet that is much more suited for a Bugs Bunny cartoon.)
The film's director, Henry Cass, was no Terence Fisher. As the story moves to its climax, the pace slows down considerably, when it should have been the other way around. BLOOD OF THE VAMPIRE has plenty of things in it to attract fans of classic horror movies, but it isn't as memorable as it should be.
BLOOD OF THE VAMPIRE had been released on a DVD with another Baker & Berman film, THE HELLFIRE CLUB. This Shout Factory Blu-ray is much better visually, although the look is inconsistent at times throughout the film. For the most part, the colors are quite vivid, and the image is very sharp, but there are a few scenes where things look pale and fuzzy. The film is presented in a 1.66:1 ratio, and it appears to be uncut.
There are no extras whatsoever on this disc. The earlier DVD had an audio commentary with Jimmy Sangster, and that would have been welcome here, or at least a new commentary with an English Gothic expert.
BLOOD OF THE VAMPIRE needed a more dynamic cast and a tighter script. One thought struck me while watching this again--what if it had been made by Hammer? How much better could it have been?
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