Stellead Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful

ThedevilChoose When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

Bluebell Alcock Ok... Let's be honest. It cannot be the best movie but is quite enjoyable. The movie has the potential to develop a great plot for future movies

Scarlet The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

soulexpress A vampire, Caleb Croft (Michael Pataki), rises from the grave, only to find a young couple making out in the graveyard. He kills the boyfriend and rapes the girlfriend, who becomes pregnant. When the baby is born, it eschews milk for blood. (Like father, like son.) The boy, James, grows up into William Smith, who hates what he is and blames it on his father. James is determined to find Croft and kill him.The first 35 of the film's 90 minutes are prologue. First, the murder and rape are investigated by an oddly credulous police detective. Since the boyfriend's body was drained of blood, he reasons, the killer must be a vampire. Well, sure! What other possible explanation could there be? After Croft murders the detective, the focus switches to Leslie, the rape victim—first her pregnancy, then the raising of her vampire child. Suddenly, it's 30 years later, Leslie has died of old age, and we finally to get to the real story.Despite the large number of vampires murders, there's very little by way of violence. Instead, the film opts for slow-moving scenes of contrived dialogue delivered by a cast so bad, they must have paid to be in the film. The sole exception is Michael Pataki, who makes a fairly imposing vampire. The opening scene, in which Croft opens his coffin and leaves the grave, is genuinely creepy. If only the remaining 85 minutes were even half as watchable.But no. What we have here is typical grindhouse fare: a lame script, horrendous acting, cut-rate sets, ludicrous props, humdrum camera work, a grating (though occasionally effective) score, machete- styled editing, riotously bad sound effects, and one of the most predictable "surprise" endings I've ever seen.Item: At a library, Croft tells a woman she has lovely hair. She replies that she was once a photographer's model. Neither character moves their lips during this exchange.Item: During his showdown with Croft, James is pushed into a fireplace and his back set ablaze. He puts the flames out with a classic stop-drop-and-roll move, then continues to fight as if he's not now covered with third-degree burns. Also, his shirt sustains no fire damage.Item: James defeats Croft in the regular way—by jamming a wooden stake into the vampire's, uh, stomach. It's damned sure not his heart, unless Croft is a Vulcan.Item: At the film's end, James morphs into a vampire. To call William Smith's acting in this scene "histrionic" is a gross understatement. And going by their size, his fangs must have been stolen from a dinosaur museum.I give it three stars out of 10 for Michael Pataki. The film has nothing else going for it.

lemon_magic David Sindelar (who has watched and reviewed something like 3900 fantasy, science fiction and horror films) included "Grave of the Vampire" in his "essential 300" selection out of his survey, and it's easy to see why. The movie has a point of view and an atmosphere that stays with you long after more gruesome and better financed horror movies have faded from your memory.This movie vampire is a predator, pure and simple - none of the sexiness of a Frank Langella, none of the aristocratic bearing of a Bela Lugosi, none of the polish and charisma of a Christopher Lee - this vampire is a sociopathic killer, and the movie (although not explicit) pulls no punches in the way it portrays his assaults on his victims. There are several interesting twists in the screenplay: 1) a police detective starts to track down the vampire on a hunch in the first 15 minutes or so, and the viewer is tricked into thinking this will be a heroic police procedural - but then the vampire dispatches the detective in a way that leaves no room for doubt that the detective isn't going to solve this case. 2) The vampire's also a rapist (from his previous life?) and his female victim becomes pregnant. So we get some scenes very reminiscent of movies like "Rosemary's Baby" and "It's Alive"...but the movie burns through this in about 10 minutes and we realize, no, this isn't going to be the main thrust of the movie either. 3) Finally the movie settles on the son's crusade to avenge his mother and punish his father. Now here's what's weird: even as the movie sheds its baggage and gains its focus, it then bogs down in a bunch of badly acted and staged 70's style partying and permissive sex and just kind of fiddles around until...suddenly...4) the last 10 minutes of the movie erupt into a viscerally intense knock down drag out, no holds barred slug fest the likes of which you will rarely see in cinema. The vampire doesn't understand how strong his son really is until it's too late, and the son manages to drive a stake through his heart...only to fall victim to the same curse now that he's become a killer. And the movie comes to a disturbing, creepy end.Whatever the director had in mind here, aping the Universal and Hammer classics wasn't it! (And that's a good thing). Pataki (as the vampire) and Stone (as the son) are reasonably good, especially for such a cheaply made movie like this. The acting everywhere else ranges from satisfactory to appalling. The lighting and sets and music are amazingly well done for such an obviously small budget movie.Some of the dialog suffers from the "No human being ever talked like this" effect, but there's not enough of it to sink the film completely. So...not really a "good" movie, in the sense that a Hammer film from the era would be a "good" movie, but a great example of the kind of overlooked and underrated obscurity that rewards the person who digs into the archives.

lastliberal Now, when a body is found and a police lieutenant (Eric Mason) asks if the sun was completely up, you know there are going to be problems. The police do not automatically assume vampires. But, this one did.Leslie (Kitty Vallacher) was doing the nasty with her boyfriend (Jay Scott) in a cemetery when Caleb Croft (Michael Pataki) rises from the grave. The boyfriend is killed, and she is raped. An interesting twist on the vampire theme.30 years later the child (William Smith) is tracking down his father who has lost the ugliness of the grave and is busy raping and sucking the blood from young women.The movie is slow and there is no blood or nudity. I would have never watched had I noticed the PG rating. PG for a vampire movie. Lame!

Cujo108 A vamp by the name of Caleb Croft rises from his crypt in a cemetery and happens upon a couple making out in their car. After killing the man and having a few sips of his blood, Croft rapes the woman in an empty grave. Eventually, the woman gives birth to a half human, half vampire baby. In order to feed him, she uses a syringe to extract her own blood, eventually leading to her demise. Her now grown son seeks vengeance against his father and is determined to track him down. Did I mention that Croft is now teaching night classes on the occult?This offbeat vampire film has many interesting twists in it's storyline. One of Croft's students longs to be a vampire, for instance. As the vile vamp himself, Michael Pataki comes across as cold-blooded and cruel. While the film isn't very bloody, the acts of violence he commits seem more vicious than the norm. William Smith plays the son, and he reminded me more of a bump on a log than anything. I suppose that's just the part, that of a secluded outsider with no world experience. There's a fight towards the end that is surprisingly well-done. The film isn't as good as director John Hayes earlier effort, "Dream No Evil", but it's a unique addition to the vampire sub-genre all the same.