A teenage girl, bit of a rebel, is sent away to a girls school. Her fiery nature brings her to the attention of the science teacher, who, using a Carpathian amulet, uses the girl for nefarious deeds.OK! You understand why plenty of folk love the cruddy schlockers of the 50s (I love me plenty as well), the films that were the bottom half of a bottom of the barrel drive-in double bill. Quite often there's a charm to be found, even some that genuinely have craft, guile and surprise enough to warrant love and affection. Blood of Dracula (AKA: Blood Is My Heritage) is devoid of charm and doesn't work hard to earn support.As has been pointed out by the horror faithful over the years, there is no blood and no Dracula in this film - though Dracula as plural does get a mention during one of the many many long and dull passages of chatter within. The narrative plods along until angry girl meets angry science teacher and it's hypnotism time! Yay. Enter a creature that looks like Eddie Munster with bad teeth. All violent damage is done off screen, an interim pop tune and dance sequence is just bizarre, and the plot's motives really don't make any sense.Herman Cohen (producer) was not dumb. I Was a Teenage Werewolf and I Was a Teenage Frankenstein, the two other films in this schlocky trilogy, are good fun. He was capable of overseeing some good movies pitched at a teen audience - even having something to say about the youth/adult divide. Sadly his vampire excursion is not only lazy, it's also very dull. 2/10

There were flashes, albeit brief, of good acting in this drive-in special.Sandra Harrison played a troubled teen dumped in a boarding school by her father. Her resentment was tapped by the science teacher (Louise Lewis) who was bitter towards the men who ruled her profession.She decried experimentation into atomic energy as means to war and unrest, and proclaimed her efforts to tap an inner energy as the formula for peace in the world. That inner energy was a vampire. Now, we don't often see female vampires (Queen of the Damned and Let Me In are two that come to mind.). Being 1957, we, of course, are spared the blood and gore - kinda like a Twilight film, but no sparkles.It was an interesting film for those who like to explore drive-in classics, but not much for anyone else.

Let's see...a mad female science teacher spouting her twisted ideas in a secluded girls' boarding school? She "seduces" her innocent young students with her pseudo-scientific rants, waves her amulet and turns them into a blood-sucking vampires. They are doing her bidding, murdering fellow students and following her directions with total devotion? You are practically beaten over the head with the subtext in this movie and if you don't see it, you must be blind. It is great fun (if you can sit through the transformation scenes). A B-movie? For sure? But with the subtext, it was treading on interesting ground for 1957. It is a classic and if you take the subtext into consideration it is one of the best and most entertaining of the 50's B horror genre.

This low budget 1957 monster movie is typical of the drive-in fare produced by AIP in the late Fifties to attract the teenage audience. It's a moody, low key story with some nice atmosphere, about a teenage girl embittered by her father re-marrying shortly after her mother's death, and dumping his daughter in a private school at the request of his new wife.The new student makes a good impression on the leader of the secret clique that runs things behind the lines, who advises her chemistry teacher mentor that they've found the ideal subject for the teacher's secret project, a girl filled with barely suppressed anger and violence.Many viewers have commented on the lesbian subtext of the teacher's relationships with Myra, the clique leader, and Nancy, the new girl. Louise Lewis gives probably the best performance of the movie as the feminist scholar determined to prove her thesis to a " world run by men for men". She strikes just the right note as the sinister scientist with a benign exterior, seeming only to want to be a helpful mentor to the girl, polite and efficient with the school dean, spouting her lunatic ideas with reasonable sounding phrases about progress and science.Some night time scenes of terror on the darkened grounds of the school are very effective, and the acting is fairly good. As usual for a Fifties AIP movie, there are lots of pretty girls to look at, some rock and roll music and dancing, and a subversive undertone in which virtually all adults are suspect in their motives.The movie isn't as dynamic as I Was a Teenage Werewolf, from which it's obviously derived, but it works pretty well on its own terms as a spooky little thriller. Definitely worth seeing for Fifties horror movie buffs.