As this is a vampire Hammer horror picture, you mostly know what you're getting.
Blood. High gothic trappings. A terrified town. An innocent girl. And since this was an earlier one, it doesn't have the copious amounts of blood or boobs, so the tone here is a lot classier.
The film has an utterly corking opening.
As villagers gather around a grave, the village drunk - a Professor - comes to the side of it. Everyone disapproves of his presence. He picks up a shovel and plunges it through the lid of the coffin. A sudden scream. A welling up of blood. And the villagers flee in terror.
Sadly, we are then introduced to our two leads, who are two of the most boring people on planet earth. I honestly don't remember their names, so we have Blonde Pretty Girl and Man, whose car breaks down right outside a gothic mansion filled with vampires.
Things proceed mostly as you would expect from there, but unlike, say, Hammer's Dracula or Frankenstein, there's no real magnetic presence to take us through the film.
Blonde Girl and Man are so unbelievably dull, so devoid of character or personality, that they just suck all the fun out of what should be an enjoyable romp of a picture. Worse, the film seems to think we care about these two absolute idiots.
Honestly, they deserve to be turned into vampires, but I'd pity the poor sods who would have to spend eternity with these personality vacuums.
The film should have followed the Professor from the beginning, a man struggling to come to terms with the supernatural being real while doing his best to protect the town. His alcoholism makes sense, because he's had his beliefs shattered and no one else in the village helps him, because apparently being a drunk is a lot worse than being part of a cult of blood sucking vampires who worship Satan.
Honestly, I grew to hate the leads, as they did nothing endearing throughout. So, why we didn't follow the actually interesting character is beyond me. Probably cause management thought the audience would automatically care about a pretty blonde girl? No matter how stupid she is.
Everything else is top notch, from the direction to the absolutely stunning set design and costuming, giving us am atmosphere for the leads to utterly ruin every chance they get.
The plot is also ridiculous. After stealing the Blonde from Man, they just tell him he came to the party alone and they've never heard of his wife. Why?
I'm expected to believe these people could happily kill and convince all these women's husbands that they came to parties alone? Because they seem to have been doing it for a while.
Why didn't they just kill him? It's not like they'd be in danger if they did. Leaving him alive makes no sense.
Usually, I wouldn't harp on the nonsense of the plot in something like this, but trust me when I tell you that you'll have plenty of time to study it as you zone out watching the leads do nothing.
My advice? Unless you LOVE gothic horror, avoid this.
Blood. High gothic trappings. A terrified town. An innocent girl. And since this was an earlier one, it doesn't have the copious amounts of blood or boobs, so the tone here is a lot classier.
The film has an utterly corking opening.
As villagers gather around a grave, the village drunk - a Professor - comes to the side of it. Everyone disapproves of his presence. He picks up a shovel and plunges it through the lid of the coffin. A sudden scream. A welling up of blood. And the villagers flee in terror.
Sadly, we are then introduced to our two leads, who are two of the most boring people on planet earth. I honestly don't remember their names, so we have Blonde Pretty Girl and Man, whose car breaks down right outside a gothic mansion filled with vampires.
Things proceed mostly as you would expect from there, but unlike, say, Hammer's Dracula or Frankenstein, there's no real magnetic presence to take us through the film.
Blonde Girl and Man are so unbelievably dull, so devoid of character or personality, that they just suck all the fun out of what should be an enjoyable romp of a picture. Worse, the film seems to think we care about these two absolute idiots.
Honestly, they deserve to be turned into vampires, but I'd pity the poor sods who would have to spend eternity with these personality vacuums.
The film should have followed the Professor from the beginning, a man struggling to come to terms with the supernatural being real while doing his best to protect the town. His alcoholism makes sense, because he's had his beliefs shattered and no one else in the village helps him, because apparently being a drunk is a lot worse than being part of a cult of blood sucking vampires who worship Satan.
Honestly, I grew to hate the leads, as they did nothing endearing throughout. So, why we didn't follow the actually interesting character is beyond me. Probably cause management thought the audience would automatically care about a pretty blonde girl? No matter how stupid she is.
Everything else is top notch, from the direction to the absolutely stunning set design and costuming, giving us am atmosphere for the leads to utterly ruin every chance they get.
The plot is also ridiculous. After stealing the Blonde from Man, they just tell him he came to the party alone and they've never heard of his wife. Why?
I'm expected to believe these people could happily kill and convince all these women's husbands that they came to parties alone? Because they seem to have been doing it for a while.
Why didn't they just kill him? It's not like they'd be in danger if they did. Leaving him alive makes no sense.
Usually, I wouldn't harp on the nonsense of the plot in something like this, but trust me when I tell you that you'll have plenty of time to study it as you zone out watching the leads do nothing.
My advice? Unless you LOVE gothic horror, avoid this.