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Released by: Cheezy Flicks
Released on: April 10, 2009.
Director: Paul Landres
Cast: John Beal, Coleen Grey, Kenneth Tobey
Year: 1957
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The Movie:
Better known as Mark Of The Vampire, this 1957 film from director Paul Landres is a lot of fun no matter what title it goes by. The film begins when a scientist named Doctor Matthew Campbell (Wood Romoff) who has developed an experimental drug made out of the blood of vampire bats which he has been using on himself, basically playing human guinea pig. Soon he becomes very sick but before he passes away, he tries to warn a fellow doctor, Paul Beecher (John Beal), about his foolishness. His message gets a bit mixed up, however, and before you know it Paul has taken the mysterious bottle of pills from Campbell's place and wandered off with them.
Paul happens to suffer from nasty migraine headaches and carries with him a bottle of painkillers to treat himself with. Well, wouldn't you know it, he screws up and switches bottles and before you know he's popping vampire blood pills like Rush Limbaugh on an Oxycontin rampage. Instead of turning into an obnoxious right wing mouthpiece, however, he starts to turn into a horrible monster, the kind that feasts on human blood, much to the dismay of many of his patients and his foxy nurse (Coleen Grey)!
This one moves along very quickly at only seventy five minutes in length, and it's a fun, well paced picture from start to finish. The movie hits the ground running, giving us just enough information on Campbell's experiments that we sort of know what's going on before switching the story over to Beecher's exploits, where the real story begins. Beal plays his part well, doing a pretty good job with what is, and let's be honest here, a really silly script. He infuses enough emotional turmoil and inner conflict into his portrayal of Doctor Beecher that you can't help but feel for the guy. Obviously it was an accident that turns him into the monster he becomes, he doesn't really do anything to deserve the curse that is put upon him. Coleen Grey is also good as the nurse wholly sympathetic to his plight. She not only looks beautiful here but her character comes across as just a genuinely nice human being truly concerned with the plight of her employer.
Part Jekyll And Hyde story and part traditional vampire movie, the highlight of the film is the last twenty minutes or so, with the time lapse transformation from man into monster standing out as the coolest thirty seconds in the entire movie. Sure, the effects aren't good by modern standards and you can plainly see that he's just got a bunch of fuzz and latex glued to his face and hands, but there's definitely a whole lot of wacky charm to this movie.
Video/Audio/Extras:
The 1.33.1 fullframe tape sourced transfer is at least clean and stable, not suffering from tape drop outs or wobbles like other releases have in the past. Some mild tracking lines are present towards the bottom of the screen a few times but otherwise the image looks okay for what it is. This can't touch a proper film sourced transfer but the picture is watchable enough. The MGM DVD, which double featured the movie with The Return Of Dracula, presented the film in 1.85.1 anamorphic widescreen which is likely how it was shown in theaters but there aren't any obvious cropping problems here indicating it might be open matte.
Likewise, the English language Dolby Digital Mono track, the only one on the disc (there are no alternate language options or subtitles provided), sound alright. There aren't any issues discerning the dialogue or following the story and any background hiss that does creep into the mix is minimal.
Extras include a few trailers for unrelated titles and a couple of amusing intermission and concession stand drive-in ads, menus and chapter stops.
The Final Word:
As fun and entertaining as it is completely disposable and ridiculous, The Vampire has received a better DVD release from MGM than it has here, making this release kind of useless. The movie itself is a kick though, good, goofy B-movie fun with a great finale and some fun performances.
