Blood of the Vampire

Producers Baker and Berman seem to have taken a long, hard look at The Curse of Frankenstein … presumably in the attempt to find out what made it tick. Unfortunately, it was far too early to discern the underlying approach which had made Curse so revolutionary, and the best Blood of the Vampire can manage is a flavourless, though reasonably opulent, recreation of the Hammer ‘look’.

It’s a shade better than some of its class, but the lumpy direction, muddled plot and slow pace make it look much worse now than it did when it was new. … It’s a jumble of science fiction and horror themes … But none of these imbue the film with any interest; the story lurches from point to point, without the kind of intelligent enthusiasm that infused the best—and sometimes the worst—Hammer films. This is horror by the book, circa 1958, and it’s pretty drab.

This was the first concentrated effort by another company to imitate Hammer’s Gothic horror films. Blood of the Vampire has all of Hammer’s colorful trappings but lacks their pacing and style, despite an interesting screenplay by Jimmy Sangster.