Saturday, October 22, 2011

BLOOD OF THE VAMPIRE - Stanley Black - "He Begins Where Dracula Left Off" (1958)

"Blood Of The Vampire" is a weird movie!! It's just not right on a number of levels, but it's not a bad movie! It's just that it's different! Very Creepy!! Creepy and Different, Different and Creepy!

Aw Hell, who cares about all of that, let's get "Big Mama" in here to spin a few platters and get this party rolling; One thousand nine zero zero, Party over, Oops, Out of time, Now we're going to party like it's 1899!

Oops! What a party pooper!!!

Hard to imagine; you're some old bald guy doing pretty good coming on to some young buxom blonde, and out of nowhere old droopy eye shows up and needs you do some job for The Boss!

And then it starts getting strange! The music that complements all the weirdness was composed by the brilliant Stanley Black of "Crawling Eye" and "Flesh And The Fiends" fame, and everything about this film screams Hammer, but it's not a Hammer film, even though it was written by Jimmy Sangster!

Vincent Ball is Dr. John Pierre, some poor bastard who was in the wrong place at the right time and ended up in prison with a new set of friends!

Dr. Pierre was lucky he had some envious credentials, otherwise he would have spent the rest of his pathetic life in that two star dungeon! We pride the fact that for 113 years straight the Dwrayger Dungeon has been given a thirteen star rating by the highly respected hearse and buggie club!

Next stop, "Prison For The Criminal Insane!" Hey, welcome to the amusement park known as Doctor Callistratus's Funny Farm! Wow! Would you look at the size of this place! It's cavernous! I guess they were just planning for the future, with room for expansion when all the newest and latest torture devices come out!

Donald Wolfit is a freakin' weirdo of the highest regard! As a performer he was known for being stubborn and cantankerous, and it comes across very effectively in a character such as the evil Doctor Callistratus! He should have changed his name though, because Wolfit was just too easy to cap on as a kid! We called him Woof It! Woof, Woof!!

Doctor Callistratus's henchman Carl does all the detail work! Check out all those jars of body parts etc, especially the one that has a half a skull with an eye in it! Victor "Square Peg" Maddern is the iconic Carl!

Great Halloween Countdown wallpaper!!!

Here's the deal! Doctor Callistratus is no where near being your run of the mill vampire! He's a bit more sophisticated, and not into all that touchy-feelie stuff, he takes blood from his victims via transfusion!!!

A backward twist on the old 'a vampire has no reflection' routine, Dr. Pierre tries to hide from Carl, but his reflection gives away his position!

Victor Maddern manages to channel Curly and Moe all at the same time!!

One of the undisputed queens of horror, Barbara Shelley has the role as the love interest of Dr. Pierre, Madeleine Duval! I have only one other thing to say about Barbara Shelley, she is also known as The First Leading Lady Of British Horror for her roles in films like "The Camp On Blood Island," "Village Of The Damned," and "Quatermass And The Pit!"

Not only does Doctor Callistratus have some weird makeup, he also has some very strange bodily experiments going on with a whole crew of disenchanted guys who keep claiming that this isn't what they signed up for, or they would, if they could!

If you haven't seen it, you need to, if you have seen it, you need to see it again!

I love the shadows in this shot!! Shout out to cinematographer Monty Berman!!!

I'm a firm believer in karma, and I hope Doctor Callistratus is too, because he's got a whole Helluva lot of it coming, and ain't none of it worth a shit!!!

"Father, I want to kill you, Mother, I want to.......AAaaaaHhhhh!!!! - The Doors of Perception

This poster has been hanging on one of The Dungeon walls for a number of years now! It's always been one of my favourites!!

3 comments:

TABONGA! said...

Carl would look a lot better if he'd just trim that eyebrow and shave - love that poster!

Prof. Grewbeard said...

i thought the hunchback was the whole show, little did i know!

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