Plot
1880. After a futile last-ditch effort to save a patient’s life with an unprecedented blood transfusion (something that had yet to be successfully performed), Dr. John Pierre is found “guilty of malpractice leading to murder” and subsequently transferred to a horrific “Prison for the Criminal Insane”.
This prison is ruled with an iron fist by one Dr. Callistratus (“He’s in complete charge here, our absolute lord and master“), a suave but sinister man of science engaged in mysterious research ostensibly to identify and classify the various blood types. He offers the new prisoner the chance to work for him in exchange for ameliorating the conditions of his confinement. Dr. Pierre accepts the arrangement, although a series of disturbing circumstances gives rise to doubts about the eminent scientist’s true objectives.
The shocking denouement sheds light on events which transpired in Transylvania six years earlier: Callistratus was accused of vampirism due to his experiments with blood, and a stake was driven through his heart, but he managed to survive thanks to his remarkable scientific work (“I discovered and isolated a culture which allowed life to remain dormant in me, although my heart had been damaged“), not to mention a subsequent heart transplant (pretty amazing for the late 1800s!). But the very “culture” that saved his life also infected the mad scientist with a strange blood disease forcing him to undergo constant transfusions.
What better way to find a cure for this malady than becoming the head of a prison for the criminally insane and enlisting the assistance of an eminent hematologist with the research?
For six years I've been working on a cure for the evil degeneration of the blood cells.
Critique
5.5A B movie whose basically misleading title (it’s not a vampire film) promises supernatural subject matter with a metaphysical bent, but instead the film veers off on pseudoscientific tangents and winds up settling into the thriving fantasy-horror genre set in the late 1800s, populated by quaint mad doctors engaged in wild experiments on human guinea pigs.
The plot is the fruit of the fertile imagination of a man who symbolizes Hammer Films: Jimmy Sangster, who’s always been fascinated by the darkest and most aberrant corners of science (his screenplays include “The Man Who Could Cheat Death” and “The Curse of Frankenstein“). Even so, on a visual and stylistic level, “Blood of the Vampire” is anything but Hammerlike. The rough cuts employed by Henry Cass (a director unaccustomed to horror cinema) and the bare-bones sets are a notable departure from the refined elegance and sophistication that typically characterized Terence Fisher’s work for Hammer, and in some ways end up lending the story a novel sense of raw realism.
All things considered, its tight budget was well suited to an institutional setting such as the asylum for the criminally insane where the rough stone surfaces and a nip of frost in the air compound the prisoners’ misery as they otherwise suffer at cruel hands of Dr. Callistratus (a haunted Donald Wolfit whose performance is highly reminiscent of Bela Lugosi’s Dracula). On the makeup front, the deformed Carl, actor Victor Maddern with a hunchback and extruded eyeball, bears the seeds of future exploitation films. The amount of violence and mutilation exceeds the average for movies of its era.
Offbeat.
More Info
Quotes
- You were confined to prison for attempting to do something that no has ever done before: transfuse blood from one being to another.
- We're halfway to a permanent cure. [...] For six years I've been working on a cure for the evil degeneration of the blood cells.
- Once a man sets foot in this place, he never leaves.
Trivia
- First horror movie produced by Robert S. Baker and Monty Berman. Within a couple of years’ time, the two will contribute to the production of several memorable horror cult films (“The Crawling Eye”, 1958; “Jack the Ripper”, 1959; “The Flesh and the Fiends”, 1960).
- In many respects, Cass’s film anticipates Terence Fisher’s far more successful “Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell” (1974).
- Although the first documented blood transfusion – as we know them today – dates back to 1667, it won’t be be considered a full-fledged therapeutic procedure until the early 1900s (when Karl Landsteiner and his colleagues sort out the different blood groups). Among pioneers in the field of blood transfusion, another key figure is Alexander Bogdanov (1873-1928), who, in addition to being an important Russian doctor, politician, philosopher, and economist, was also a renowned pre-Soviet author of science fiction. His most well-known novels are “Red Star” (1908) and “Engineer Menni” (1912).
Products
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| Product name | Price | |
|---|---|---|
![Blood of the Vampire [Blu-ray]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/510NHSiAuAL._SL75_.jpg) | Blood of the Vampire [Blu-ray] |
| Nome del prodotto | Prezzo | |
|---|---|---|
 | Il Sangue Del Vampiro |
| Product name | Price | |
|---|---|---|
| Il Sangue Del Vampiro [DVD] [2013] | |
![Il sangue del vampiro [Import italien]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/61YxyPe-bnL._SL75_.jpg) | Il sangue del vampiro [Import italien] |
| Nombre del producto | Precio | |
|---|---|---|
![La sangre del vampiro [DVD]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51hlkaD2MDL._SL75_.jpg){kind=small} | La sangre del vampiro [DVD] |
| Produktname | Preis | |
|---|---|---|
![Der Dämon mit den blutigen Händen - PANTASTISCHE FILMKLASSIKER FOLGE NR. 18 [Blu-ray]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/61h+d-OtPLL._SL75_.jpg) | Der Dämon mit den blutigen Händen - PANTASTISCHE FILMKLASSIKER FOLGE NR. 18 [Blu-ray] | |
 | Phantastische Filmklassiker Nr. 18 - DER DÄMON MIT DEN BLUTIGEN HÄNDEN ( Blood of the Vampire / Le Sang du vampire ) Blu-Ray Limited Edition |
| Nom du produit | Prix | |
|---|---|---|
![Le Sang du Vampire [Blu-Ray + DVD + Livret]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51wddvusVAL._SL75_.jpg) | Le Sang du Vampire [Blu-Ray + DVD + Livret] |
| Product name | Price | |
|---|---|---|
| Blood of the Vampire [Region Free] [Blu-ray] | |
 | Blood Of The Vampire / The Hellfire Club (Drive-In Double Feature) |