Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

Transylvania 1874: A doctor (Donald Wolfit) is pilloried for his research into rare blood conditions leading the authorities to regard him as a vampire and he is executed as such by having a stake driven through his heart. But, his mute and horribly deformed dwarf assistant Karl (Victor Maddern) murders the gravedigger and takes his corpse back to an abandoned windmill where a drunken doctor resurrects him with a heart transplant. Six years later, the doctor has assumed the name Callistratus and is the governor of an asylum for the criminally insane where he survives off the blood of his inmates. A young doctor called John Pierre (Vincent Ball) arrives at the asylum sentenced to life for "malpractice leading to murder" in which he performed a blood transfusion, which has never been done successfully resulting in the death of a patient. Callistratus puts him to work on research into blood transfusions. But, it isn't long before Pierre discovers his secret and that he really wants him to find a cure for a rare blood condition he suffers from. Meanwhile, Pierre's young wife-to-be, Madeleine (Barbara Shelley) is not satisfied when the court tells her that her lover was killed when attempting to escape captivity and secures a job at the asylum as Callistratus' housekeeper. She finds Pierre alive, but both are taken prisoner by the mad doctor who intends to make them the latest victims of his experiments.An interesting, sometimes fun if not entirely successful low budget imitation Hammer horror from producers Monty Berman and Robert S Baker. The former, doubling as cinematographer, and art director John Elphick succeed in recreating the visual look of the Hammer gothics; although, it has to be said, it looks very tacky by comparison. The sets are cardboard and wobbly and Berman, while a competent DP, is no Jack Asher. Director Henry Cass gives the film a power that lifts what is essentially a cheap and cheerful affair by placing emphasis on the brutality of the Victorian society and the corruption of the establishment that is featured in Jimmy Sangster's story. The Governor of Prisons, Auron, played by Brian Coleman who accepts money from Callistratus to arrange for "special prisoners" to be sent to the asylum and Pierre falls into this category since he is a medical man. Auron intercepted a letter from a key witness whose evidence would have acquitted Pierre and sent one he himself had written in which he claimed that the witness had never heard of Pierre and forged his signature. Later, Auron tips off Callistratus that Pierre's case has been reviewed and that a release order is imminent so the mad doctor cruelly informs Pierre that the review decided that his sentence must be served as it stands before informing the authorities that he was killed whilst trying to escape from the asylum.Donald Wolfit dominates the film as Callistratus and is delightfully over the top delivering wonderful lines with gusto in the Bela Lugosi mould: "The practical side of my work distresses you? Come let me explain" he says as he drags Madeleine off to his secret laboratory taunting her with gruesome sights such as a corpse being kept in deep freeze, a man being kept alive with an artificial heart and, finally, "Here's someone you knew, someone you knew very well" as he pulls back the curtain to reveal the grotesquely strung up body of Auron. Victor Maddern offers an effective portrayal as the dwarf, Karl, who provides the story with an emotional element in that he falls in love with Madeleine. However, he is largely defeated by an appalling make up job. Vincent Ball makes a rather dreary hero as the young doctor while, Barbara Shelley, who was to become a regular leading lady at Hammer gets very little to do and it is hard to imagine her character falling in love with Vincent Ball's.Overall, Blood Of The Vampire emerges as an interesting, sometimes fun if not an entirely successful attempt to imitate the Hammer house of horror.

BLOOD OF THE VAMPIRE is a pseudo-Hammer film made to cash in on the huge success of Hammer's THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN. It's a bit of a mixed success, at least in terms of the production: the low budget is evident from the limited number of sets, but what sets! The whole film looks delicious and colourful with a real Gothic atmosphere that rivals Hammer at their best. The rival producers even hired Hammer man Jimmy Sangster to write the screenplay, which is all about early blood transfusions rather than any real vampirism – so if you go in looking for neck-biting antics you'll be sorely disappointed.Much of the film is set in an asylum for the criminal insane, presided over by sinister doctor Callistratus (played by renowned theatre actor Donald Wolfit, who looks uncannily like a bigger version of Bela Lugosi here). Vincent Ball is the dashing hero thrown into the chaos, finding himself at the mercy of brutal guards, vicious Dobermans lurking outside the asylum, atrocious conditions, torture, and a creepy hunchback (the sympathetic Victor Maddern, hidden beneath some delightfully grotesque makeup that puts his eye halfway down his cheek). Before long, the utterly beautiful Barbara Shelley is also on the scene and at the mercy of the villains...Sangster's script reads like a half-baked version of THE REVENGE OF FRANKENSTEIN, and indeed he took many of the themes in this movie and strengthened them for the Hammer sequel. Still, even if the script is slightly sub-par, the pacing is spot on and there's never a boring spot here. The Gothic feel is spot on, with plenty of spooky atmosphere punctuated by sudden moments of the grotesque – a heart beating on its on in a tank, a limbless body kept alive, a corpse in a block of ice. I didn't even mind the lack of undead, as I've always enjoyed the scientific paraphernalia in these movies. Other moments of interest include brief appearances from John Le Mesurier as a judge and Bernard Bresslaw as a thief. The sole aim of this film may have been to rip-off Hammer and director Henry Cass may be workmanlike at best, but still I enjoyed this fun and colourful little romp.

I see that all the key people here, Director, Writer and leads, all have plenty of credits to their name, so it is hard to see quite what went wrong. I know the film has it's fans but for all the efforts of all concerned, it really does stretch one's credulity and truly creaks along for most of it's modest length. Accepted, the vivid opening and credits are splendid. Nice vigorous bashing in of the stake and the power of it carries over when we again see the body but after the spirited opening this tends to disappoint. Only Donald Wolfit truly shines and he and Victor Maddern, playing a well OTT Igor character, are really relied upon to carry the whole film. Decent look and effective music but this really doesn't rise above the plot holes and the rather dreary storyline. Not to mention the lack of a vampire!

Despite the title, there really are no vampires in this film. However, despite this, it is still a scary film--sort of like a film in the same vein as THE TORTURE CHAMBER OF DR. SADISM. Here, the horrible monster is a very human one.When the film begins, a man (Dr. Callistratus) is being impaled in the grave. Apparently, he had done something rather nasty and was getting his just reward. However, as the body is about to be buried, a goofy-eyed hunchback attacks the grave digger and takes the body to a drunk doctor who performs a heart transplant--a pretty good feat for the 1800s! Later, you find that the dead man was indeed revived and changed his identity--making himself the warden of a prison for the criminally insane. Unfortunately, the most insane aspect of this "institution" are the staff who beat the prisoners and the doctor that performs vivisection on the prisoners.Soon, another doctor is wrongly convicted of killing one of his patients and the most damning evidence is a letter from the doctor's mentor saying that they should "throw the book at the doc". Oddly, instead of the usual penal colony, the guy is sent to the mental institution and becomes the unwilling assistant to Callistratus. Later, exactly why he was needed by Callistratus comes to light as well as the diabolical way that the madman is running the place.There's a lot more to the movie than this and there is a plot element involving blood--but remember, there are no vampires in this one. In many ways, the fact that a supposedly "normal" man would commit many acts of horror and torture is probably a lot scarier than if Callistrautus HAD been a true vampire. For lovers of the genre, this is good stuff. Others might wince at the blood and horror--this is NOT a film for the kiddies!