Absolutely Fantastic

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

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

I have decided to work on the giant pile of movies and TV shows I never want to watch and this is the lucky winner that gets to be seen first.I would have to assume it's the first time it has ever won anything.Even though the movie is very slow moving with lots of time where nothing is happening, they still don't show a lot of stuff.They make you guess at what has happened for a few minutes, then they almost explain.It's annoying but it's also the best thing about this movie.So they spend a half hour on a crazy woman who got raped by a vampire and is having it's baby.The vampire just took her into his coffin and then it just cuts to her being pregnant.I really don't see how a normal person could have thought anything sexual had happened.She acts like it's her dead boyfriends baby and says it will be normal, even though the doctor tells her it is dead.It's all so confusing and senseless and then it just cuts to the future and he's grown up and looking to kill his father.That's right, halfway through the movie they just start a different movie.Did I mention it also has horrible acting? This should never be seen by anyone.

If you're trying to figure out my summary line, it's a reference to Michael Pataki's character in "Happy Days", which many may remember him by, as I do. Look for veteran character actor William Smith, who's always solid, although he probably needed slightly better material to work with in this film. I'm a fan of most 70's vampires, and while this won't be tops on my list, I still enjoyed this slightly different "bite" than what I'm used to. Pataki was solid as the main vampire, although he lacked the charm that many have playing the lead dude, but he was still convincing, and sometimes creepy, save for the silly fangs. Something that stood out to me was the mother feeding her "baby vampire" blood, although it was an odd scene to watch, but I never saw anything like it before, and I've seen tons of vampire films. The atmosphere, especially the college campus at night, worked for me; there was also a slick fog throughout the cemetery too. A few things made me scratch my head, such as the rushed love scene between James(Smith)and Anne(Lyn Peters), who just met minutes before. There was an interesting police angle early on, but after one detective gets killed, that's the end of the police hunt. Overall, this was a different type of vampire film than you may be used to, but it's worth a try.

A powerful, savage vampire, Caleb Croft(Pataki) rises from his tomb who destroys a man and rapes his woman(in turn, impregnating this poor girl who had just accepted her now dead boyfriend's wedding proposal). This vampire isn't through. In life, Croft was a serial rapist, and his sadism towards women will continue in vampiric form, the thirst of blood another motivating factor behind attacks on humans. After being chased into a Boston subway by police, Croft was electrocuted when he fell on the rails. Leslie attempts, with help from drugs, will attempt to pick up the pieces and move on with her life. Believing her unborn child is Paul's, Leslie will not accept the advice from her doctor that she should abort it(the child is considered a parasite, only nourishing itself through her provided blood, half-human/half-vampire). Along with a patient she befriends while recovering in the hospital, Olga, Leslie has the child. She extracts blood through a hypodermic and feeds her child with it in a bottle, substituting milk. Caleb Croft, an assumed name replacing his infamous true identity of Charles Croyden(a 17th Century nobleman), has metamorphosed from a wrinkled, shriveled corpse into a young, handsome professor thanks to the fresh blood of college students he drinks from as a professor. Lots of students pack his classroom, Professor Lockwood's course at night(as expected since he's a bloodsucker), regarding folklore and history(but mostly philosophy).William Smith stars as Croft's haunted hellspawn, James Easman, hungry for revenge for his mother's suffering and early demise(the blood she provided him shortened her own life)and a student in Lockwood's night class. Ann is a teacher of English literature who reminds Croft of his former bride, Sarah. Anita is a fellow student interested in James, finding out that Lockwood is Croyden, yearning to become one of the undead(even Lockwood's vampire bride, to serve him for all eternity to replace his dead wife, Sarah who was burned at the stake). Well, that notion is dismissed rather quickly. The ending concludes with Lockwood conducting a séance at his mansion, Ann, James, and other students gathered as participants. Exciting close with James and Lockwood locked in battle, engaged in a spirited dual. Lockwood, interesting enough, encourages his own downfall, by putting together the séance, because Ann is used as the medium for which Anita can inhibit to call Croyden out.It's not a surprise anymore to me that I turn up yet another gem from the 70s in regards to a previously undiscovered quality vampire horror drive-in flick. I think what makes this film stand out is Michael Pataki as the vicious, menacing vampire, Caleb Croft, who, once gaining his youth after draining enough blood from victims, can move amongst the living, albeit at night time. Pataki's Lockwood is rather snobbish and aristocratic, but when he is angered or threatened, he disposes of humans with relative ease and lack of empathy. He will kill your ass and not think twice about it..plain and simple. Smith steps out as a hero, in a change of pace role, until the evil within finally becomes too difficult to contain, but not before he unleashes his fury on the vampire that has caused him much pain. Lyn Peters and Diane Holden are the women of the film, Anne and Anita respectively. Not a traditional vampire film, set in the contemporary, swinging 70s, absent youth, adults portraying the college students here. Television veteran Carmen Argenziano has an early role here as cynical Sam who finds the séance to be a load of hogwash and learns that bullets fired from his gun have little effect on a vampire..and he learns the hard way, to say the least.

Average Hammer pastiche shot long ago by the Americans, conventionally atmospheric and scary, Grave of the Vampire has a disjointed and _resumative script, it takes almost half the movie to prepare the actual plot—a guy's hunt for his vampire father, whose nemesis the youngster became.Lyn Peters looks hot, though, and so does Margaret Fairchild (the sexy librarian). The cast in interesting; Carmen Argenziano plays one of the ghoul's guests at the séance. (And this reunion scene, the reunion at Croft's, is even worse than the rest of the flick. It happened I have seen Grave of the Vampire the same day I saw THE MOUNTAIN OF THE CANNIBAL GOD, which is simply a very good adventure movie, a very well made exotic shocker.) The _ilogicallity naturally holds little interest; Dracula is interesting because he's explained, at least partly, while Michael Pataki's New England ghoul is simply assigned limitless magical powers, which makes him boring. A vampire holds the interest if he's a form of life—or of sickness within life; he's disposable if he's merely a superhero.