Studio:     
Starring: John Beal. Kenneth Tobey, Coleen Gray
Directed by: Paul Landres
Rated: PG
Running Time: 76 mins.

Synopsis: In this Atom Age tale of the classic mythology a small town doctor becomes a horribly scarred vampire after accidently taking experimental pills. His friend the local detective and his nurse try to figure out the indentity of the killer unbeknownst to them that it is the doctor himself.

Terence Nuzum

REVIEW I like to think of director Paul Landres not as a director of his era but ahead of his time. The Vampire is the best evidence I have. While it is set in the 1950's suburbia it has the dark undercurrent and gritty macabre atmosphere of a late 60's/early 70's film. For instance the nice quaint suburbia is filled with neurotic housewives and old ladies verging on dementia. No crime yet, when they do have one, oh boy (the mortician mentions an axe murder that rarely happens in big cities), sex-hungry detectives, and of course, a mad scientist who performs unknown bizarre experiments in an abandoned house and yet to the characters, it is all so normal. Its almost as if people from the 1950's were transported into today's violence-ridden society and yet couldn't help but act so gosh jollyabout it all. Of course, even that is on the surface. The local detective (played by Kenneth Tobey of The Thing From Another World fame) is obviously in a love triangle between himself and his friend Doctor Paul and the doctor's nurse (played by another Thing alumni Coleen Gray). The Doctor has other problems though ever since he showed up at the death bed of the local mad scientist, swiped some experimental pills which are accidentally given to him when he has a headache by his 9-year-old daughter thinking they were aspirin. What happens? Well, it seems the old mad scientist was experimenting with reversing the something or other in animals' evolutionary patterns. So for some reason this turns the dear ol' doc into a crusty-faced vampire at nighttime when he takes his pills (which he has become addicted to, by the way). His addiction ends up further estranging his daughter who he screams at like an alcoholic and sends packing to his sister's. He then murders a poor little old lady, two colleagues of the mad scientist( that are so bizarre by themselves that they need their own movie), and nearly himself before he is shot dead into a puddle of mud by his own friend, the detective. In the end, he leaves a 3-person body count, his nurse and potential girlfriend in tears, his buddy guilt-stricken, and his daughter parentless. There is no happy ending with the college professors running in at the last minute with an antidote, no girlfriend to talk him out of it, just the disease and addiction which overtakes his life, mind, and happiness. Whew! Pretty heavy stuff for 1957! This film actually tackles the subject of drug addiction better than most films which approach it head on. Don't miss this one.