This is a fun little set with a couple of real gems.
Atom Age Vampire: Euro-horror from 1960, this isn’t strictly about vampires.
It’s about a mad scientist who needs to kill women in order to keep his
disfigured girlfriend looking more like a model and less like a plate of pulled
pork. In the so-bad it’s-good category.
Bat, The : Agnes Moorehead,
Vincent Price and Darla from the Little Rascals take on a killer known as the
Bat in a creepy old haunted house. It’s a fun, overlooked gem.
Bat, the
(Silent) This movie parallels the Vincent Price version very closely in that a
masked criminal terrorizes the guests at an old house rented by a mystery
writer. In this one though the killer dresses like a giant bat.
Blood of
Dracula’s Castle: Dracula & Mrs. Dracula live in a castle in the Arizona
desert (???) and drink the blood of their victims from martini glasses. John
Carradine is their butler George and Ray Young is their brutal servant Mango. A
hip young couple buys the castle and attempts to move in while moving the
Draculas out. It’s funny and weird and worth a watch.
Bloody Vampire:
This one is a good, old-fashioned, crazy Mexican horror movie. If you like wild
B horror, you can’t go wrong here.
Count Dracula and His Vampire Bride:
aka The Satanic Rites of Dracula, this one is set in modern day (1970’s)
England. Drac is just sick and tired of being sick and tired and decides to
unleash a super-plague to wipe out humanity! It’s more like a James Bond movie
than your usual Gothic Hammer horror, but it’s still plenty of fun.
Crypt
of the Living Dead A 1973 Spanish production filmed in Turkey, this one concerns
itself with a young fella who accidently frees the Queen of the Vampires on an
archeological dig. It’s cheap and cheesy and mildly amusing.
Devil Bat,
The : Bela Lugosi stars as Dr. Carruthers, a seemingly benign scientist who has
come up with a unique way or murdering people using only cold cream and a
monstrous vampire bat. It features a pair of wise-cracking reporters and is a
bit creaky but still fun.
Horrible Sexy Vampire : This 70’s Euro-horror
is pretty bloodless. The vampire strangles people instead of biting them. It’s
about as tedious as they come.
Horror Express : Ah Horror Express, the
bane of my young existence. This movie scared the beejesus out of me in my
youth. It’s got Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee stuck on a train with a
prehistoric, telepathic homicidal skull! And if that’s not all, Telly Savalas
plays a gruff Cossack Officer.
Last Man on Earth, The : This classic
horror film is Vincent Price’s take on the also classic novel, “I am Legend” by
Richard Matheson. It’s well worth watching.
Nightmare Castle : Barbara
Steele cheats on her husband, a brutal Italian count, probably not a good kind
of count to cheat on. He tortures and kills her and her lover. They return years
later for a little taste of vengeance. Atmospheric and creepy, it features a
score by Ennio Morricone.
Nosferatu : This is indisputably a CLASSIC
vampire film. You’ve doubtless heard of it. This reproduction is far from the
best, but it’s not completely horrible either.
Prime Evil : A band of
devil worshipping monks sacrifice peeps in 1988 New York to remain young, fresh
and vibrant without resorting to Botox. This is cheap and dull, with the Devil
represented by a really craptacular puppet.
Terror Creatures from the
Grave :What ya got here is an Italian horror flick with Barbara Steele about a
haunted mansion built over the graves of some plague victims. The plague victims
had been intentionally inflicted with the plague, and they’re not happy about
it. Let it go plague victims, let it go.
Vampire Bat, the: In 1933 the
good folk of the village of Klineschloss are dropping dead from mysterious blood
loss. The town fathers are worried it might be vampires…again! This is a
decent old-timey horror movie worth watching. Oh, and guess what? It’s got Fay
Wray AND Dwight Frye!
Vampire Happening, the : Not to be confused with M.
Night Shyamalan’s “Not Much is Happening” this is a kooky West German
horror-comedy from 1971. It’s a poor man’s Fearless Vampire Hunters, at least in
tone. An American actress inherits a Transylvanian castle, not realizing that
one of her clingy Euro-mooch relatives still lives there…AS A VAMPIRE! It’s
fun.
Vampire’s Night Orgy : More good, ol’ 70’s Euro-horror, in this one
a busload of tourists is diverted into a small town populated by creatures who
are maybe more akin to ghouls than vampires, in that they enjoy a good
human-tartar meal. It’s not as generous with the humor as Vampire Happening, but
it’s still watchable. Unfortunately there is no orgy, unless maybe the orgy of
killing that takes place.
Werewolf vs. Vampire Women, The : A couple of
cute French babes go poking around rural France looking for an evil Countess.
They find Paul Naschy, who co-wrote the screenplay, and his crazy sister first,
but it’s not long before the evil countess, who is also a vampire, crashes the
party. If you like Naschy you’ll probably like this, if you’ve never heard of
him, this isn’t a bad introduction to his films.
Witches Mountain, The:
If it’s possible for a movie to be partly incomprehensible, then this one is.
After a baffling beginning a couple touring the Spanish Pyrenees Mountains
encounters a coven of witches in a creepy little mountain town. If you can
figure out what’s going on in this movie post your response in the comment
section. It looks good most of the time though, and if it had any sense about
it, it could have been a legitimately good film.
thevampiresshadow 