Grave of the Vampire (1974)

User Rating:

4.6/10   

Director:

John Hayes

Writers:

David Chase (novel)
David Chase (screenplay)

Release Date:

January 1974 (USA)

Genre:

Horror

Tagline:

Father and son--related by BLOOD! ANYONE'S BLOOD!

Plot:

Kroft, a legendary vampire, returns from sleep. Kroft attacks a couple in a graveyard, raping the woman. The child born feeds only on blood from his mother's breast. |

Plot Keywords:

Vampire | Blood | Baby Bottle | Decapitation | Rape

Cast

William Smith	...	James Eastman
Michael Pataki	...	Caleb Croft
Lyn Peters	...	Anne Arthur
Diane Holden	...	Anita Jacoby
Kitty Vallacher	...	Leslie Hollander
Eric Mason	...	Lieutenant Panzer
Lieux Dressler	...	Olga
Jay Scott	...	Paul
William Guhl	...	Sergeant Duffy
Jay Adler	...	Old Zack
Abbi Henderson	...	Carol Moskowitz
Carmen Argenziano	...	Sam
Margaret Fairchild	...	Miss Fenwick
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Lindus Guinness
Inga Neilsen
Frank Whiteman

Also Known As:

Seed of Terror (USA) (reissue title)

Runtime:

95 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

France:-12 | USA:PG | Germany:BPjM Restricted

Trivia:

This film was filmed in 11 days with a budget of $50,000.

Quotes:

James Eastman: [voiceover] My mother found it difficult to tell me that I wasn't like other children; I could never share a life with whole human beings. I slowly learned that the thing that raped my mother and fathered me was no living feeling man, but a malignant force of cancer that refused to be destroyed. It wasn't only her blood my mother gave to keep me alive, her youth and her own life was sucked up into the syringe that fed me.

Somber and dead serious--but good

A couple are making out in a graveyard. For some reason a vampire awakens. He kills the man and rapes the woman (in an open grave no less). She gets pregnant, has the baby--but the baby will only drink blood! She provides her own and eventually dies. The boy grows up and vows to find his father and kill him for what he did to his mother. They do meet and things go out of control.

OK--you have to ignore logic with this one. At one point a policeman knows it's a vampire who raped the woman and who he is--but how? And a vampire is teaching night school (!!!). And WHY would a vampire rape a woman to begin with? Technically--he's already dead! Push those aside and you can actually enjoy this.

The film has a very downbeat, somber tone--as it should. No jokes or winking at the camera. Michael Pataki is very good (and scary) as the vampire father. William Smith has a few good moments as his son. The rest of the acting is just terrible. Still this movie works. It's well-directed, has an eerie music score by Jaime Mendoza-Nava and some really creepy sequences (the one near the beginning where a woman discovers a vampire in her basement made me jump). A pretty unknown little horror film that's worth seeking out. I give it a 7.