Blood of Dracula (1957)

I do love me some old school schlock horror films that if for sure.  But I was pleasantly surprised by how utterly decent, not good, but decent this movie is.  The film starts off with a young woman named Nancy is dropped off at a boarding school by her father and his new wife.  Nancy takes issue with this dismissal and is very angry, snapping at her fellow students frequently.  Her science teacher, Miss Branding, takes advantage of her anger and rage by harnessing it thru the use of hypnotism.  See Miss Branding thinks that the pure power behind anger is far more destructive than the Atom bomb and hopes to show the scientific world this.  The downside to the experiment is that Nancy occasionally turns into a full on vampire and kills anyone in her way!  Can the police catch up to Nancy before her conscious does?  Will Nancy figure out what Miss Branding has done to her?  Watch this old school gem to find out. 

Right from the start I will acknowledge that this is yet another cheesy 50s sci-fi/horror movie filled with clichés and bad acting.  The story is goofy fun with an interesting all female twist on the mad scientist/monster subgenre.  Sprinkle in a super hot 50s knee to ankle nightgown pillow fight, and some “killer” rock-n-roll music and you have an entertaining little way to spend 68 minutes.  A couple of more positive observations about the story.  First of all the movie takes it’s time revealing the creature.  I sort of liked the fact that they kept it a mystery for a while before showing their hand.  Secondly this movie combines the delinquent (Reform School Girl comes to mind) girl themes that they had been making in some of the non-genre films with a creature feature.  I found this to be pretty nifty and creative.  The performances are good enough to not be distracting, but nothing to get excited about.  But then again this is a teenage vampire movie so was anyone really expecting that much?

There isn’t anything too special about the technical side of the movie.  This film was made by American International Pictures, the company responsible for so many of the cheaply and quickly made genre pictures of the 50s and 60s.  With that in mind the film looks and sounds decent, has the requisite musical number, and boasts some decent creature effects.  Now the “monster” probably looks silly to a modern audience, but in fact is pretty sweet looking.  Other than that there isn’t much to talk about on the technical side. 

I highly recommend that anyone who digs monster movies from the 50s check this one out.  I was really surprised how much I liked it.  It isn’t a great movie but is never boring and delivers the cheesy goodness.

3 out of 4

reviewed by John Shatzer

© Copyright 2008 John Shatzer