Stometer
Save your money for something good and enjoyable
Glimmerubro
It is not deep, but it is fun to watch. It does have a bit more of an edge to it than other similar films.
BelSports
This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.
GL84
Wrongly convicted of a murder, a Victorian-era doctor finds himself in a prison overrun by a fanatical tyrant conducting strange blood experiments and once he finds the true cause if his stay tries to stop it from happening.This was a heavily flawed and really damaging effort. The most detrimental and wholly useless factor to this one is the fact that we're barely exposed to anything that can be considered pertinent to a vampire story. Beyond a fine and atmospheric opening of a staking ceremony being carried out, this one has virtually nothing to do with a vampire as this is more of a mad doctor imprisoning rather than anything supernatural. There's no aversion to crosses, Holy Water or sunlight, sleeping in coffins or even bearing their fangs at all, as all the participants here are human which makes this one tough to get into. This makes the beginning, where we're introduced to the prison's inmates and the different experiments being conducted take on a different air of boredom and extreme dragging of the pacing without having a deadly threat emerge from the story. This is also brought along by the rather lacking amount of action where hardly anything happens here, and that's there's only two real action scenes with the opening staking and a rather enjoyable escape attempt thwarted by ravenous guard-dogs. With the period time- span is where a lot of what to like about it comes, as being placed during that part allows for the old-school Gothic atmosphere to come creeping into the film from the central asylum. It's an old-fashioned, imposing type, where the place airs a really great atmosphere and really makes it seem that it's a hopeless, dreary location. The place is dirty and disgusting in it's holding cells while it's at least cleaner in the medical research facilities. This is what is precisely needed of the place, since there's always a need for a place like that to be a fearful location. Still, it's quite a downfall since it's really boring, and coupled with the switch around doesn't leave itself too impressive overall.Today's Rating-PG-13: Violence.
Vampus Moon
Well, fans of Gothic style 50s horror will love this classic movie. For me, I was expecting a little more 'vampire' in the story, like a gorgeous vampiress dressed in a gown with fangs galore to bite the neck of those she seduces - but sadly no.The movie starts with the Count being staked through the heart and buried, before his servant 'Karl' (who plays a good Igor like character) takes his masters body to a mental asylum to revive him.After a Doctor is wrongly accused in court of killing a patient through blood transfusing, he is sent to the asylum for his life-long punishment, only to become a servant to the Count, who wants to use his expertise in surgical practise on other inmates, mainly their blood.This movie has the imagery of Hammer Horror, given by it's writer Jimmy Sangster, but sadly lacks the punch of a good dramatic Vampire story.As classic Gothic horrors go, it's worth a look.
mlraymond
This film used to be on television fairly often, but has not been shown in years. It has made its way to home video ,and is not hard to find. One thing that really stands out is the screenplay by Jimmy Sangster. I don't know which movie he wrote first, but in 1958, the British film company Hammer released The Revenge of Frankenstein, and the Berman-Baker team this one. Both screenplays involve a large number of similar incidents and characters, so that one movie almost seems a mirror reflection of the other. BOTV is far nastier than the Hammer film, which is essentially a witty black comedy. Both films apparently caused some controversy in late Fifties England, owing to what a movie critic deemed a deliberate depiction of concentration camp imagery. It's entirely possible that to a filmgoing public only a dozen or so years removed from the end of World War Two, the scenes in both Sangster screenplays involving mad doctors experimenting on helpless prisoners for their own bizarre schemes, were a little too reminiscent of the Nazi medical experiments at various death camps. Whether Sangster intended to evoke this image is debatable, but it's true that the mad scientist played by Donald Wolfit in BOTV could certainly be seen as a Nineteenth century Mengele. The prison sets are believable and the story is fairly convincing, with good performances by the leads. Barbara Shelley plays another of her early damsels in distress. Vincent Ball as the hero and his cell mate William Devlin are both good, with some fine supporting performances from actors playing guards and prison officials. A first time viewer is likely to feel cheated, though. SPOILERS AHEAD: The revelation that there is no supernatural vampire in this movie is a letdown. The villain is an otherwise routine mad doctor, experimenting on prisoners to find a kind of synthetic blood that will keep him alive, after his resurrection through scientific means. In fact, this part of the story strongly resembles the Warner Brothers 1939 movie The Return of Doctor X, with Humphrey Bogart as a quasi-vampire. Wolfit is convincing as the evil surgeon, Dr. Callistratus ( surely, the resemblance of the name to 'castration' isn't coincidental). He brings a certain grim realism to the fantastic storyline, and the movie remains pretty strong stuff even today, though some of the nastier events are implied ,rather than shown. Not a bad movie, a bit of a curiosity worth seeing at least once.It definitely succeeds as a horror movie, in the gruesome storyline and the barbaric prison setting.
preppy-3
Silly horror movie. POSSIBLE SPOILERS!!!! A mad doctor runs an insane asylum (how original--heavy sarcasm). For reasons not worth mentioning he needs the blood of inmates to stay alive. That's it. No vampires at all, but the film does open with a pretty bloody (and totally unnecessary) staking. The film looks great--beautiful sets, nice color and some fairly strong violence (for 1958). But that's about it. The plot is stupid, the pace is slow and it gets pretty dull.Donald Wolfit, as the doctor, really tries to give a good performance but he's stuck in some lousy makeup that makes him look like Bela Lugosi (WHY?)! Also check out the even worse makeup on his deformed assistant Carl (Victor Maddern). Vincent Ball (horrible actor but handsome) and Barbara Sheeley (beautiful as always but given nothing to do) are the obligatory nice, innocent couple.Not unwatchable but of very little interest either.
