Tuesday, April 15, 2014

Elvira's Movie Macabre, Episode 1: Grave of the Vampire

Elvira Grave of the Vampire
Elvira's Movie Macabre, Episode 1, Grave of the Vampire
The violent, disturbing Grave of the Vampire, was the first movie shown on Elvira's Movie Macabre. It aired on September 26, 1981, and was not typical of the type of movies shown during the show's five season run. 


This dark, violent British production stars Michael Pataki as a brutish vampire apparently lacking in Dracula's powers of seduction, since he finds it necessary to brutally rape a young woman (Kitty Vallacher) in order to sire a child. The product of this unholy mating is a half-human, half-vampire baby boy, bottle-fed on the blood of his now-insane mother (a truly sickening sight) until her eventual death from anemia. Later as a young man, the son (William Smith) is able to spend short periods in daylight, and his bloodlust is considerably lesser than that of his father. Tormented nevertheless by his evil condition, he curses his bloodline and defies his vampire heritage, tracking his father down to the university where he teaches occult sciences. Aside from Pataki's coarse but imposing performance, this low-budget film is a fairly routine genre entry, but the climactic, bloody duel between father and son vampires is quite gripping.




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