The title of "Booby Trap" director Herbert Cass' horror movie "Blood of the Vampire" is misleading. Actually, no traditional vampires with fangs appear in this atmospheric chiller about a mad 18th century Transylvanian scientist performing illegal medical procedures. A man who embarks on bizarre medical experiments, Doctor Callistratus (Donald Wolfit of "Becket") pays the ultimate price for his perfidy with death. Not only do righteous, good people put him to death, but they also have a powerfully built chap who sinks an iron stake into Callistratus' body and then hammer it through his corpse. Meanwhile, the mad scientist's loyal right-hand man, a crippled, deformed hunchback with one drooping eye hanging out of his face, Carl (Victor Maddern of "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang"), takes Callistratus' body to another unethical doctor who performs open heart surgery and brings Callistratus back to life. Mind you, Callistratus had been accused of being a vampire because he conducted experiments on his doomed patients to learn more about their blood and why some blood rejects other blood. British horror writer Jimmy Sangster has conjured up an interesting Gothic melodrama, but the absence of a vampire undercuts the narrative. You keep waiting for the notorious supernatural figure to show up but it never does. Doctor Callistratus manages to obtain a post as a prison warden so he can experiment with a variety of bodies. His downfall comes about when another doctor, Dr. John Pierre (Vincent Ball of "Where Eagles Dare") is put on trial for the unorthodox medical procedure of transfusing blood and sentenced to life in prison. It turns out that one of Pierre's witnesses, who sent him testimony by mail, didn't write the letter that would have cleared Pierre. Instead, another man, Monsieur Auron (Bryan Coleman) intercepted the letter and rewrote it. Rather than being confined on Campbell Island, our wrongly charged protagonist—Dr. Pierre—winds up in another prison; Callistratus runs the prison where Pierre is incarcerated and he uses Pierre to help him in his diabolical experiments. Callistratus is searching for a way to avoid constant blood transfusions because the cells in his blood are at war with each other. Eventually, Auron warns Callistratus that the alarming number of deaths occurring at his prison is bothering the authorities. Just when things for Callistratus couldn't get worse, he hires a new cleaning lady, Madeleine Duval (Barbara Shelley of "Dracula: Prince of Darkness"), to work for him. What Callistratus doesn't know is that Duval is Pierre's wife. She got Pierre defense witness who wrote the damaging letter to come forth and report that his testimony had been tamper with and the court had changed its ruling and cleared Pierre of all foul play. Callistratus responded by reporting that Pierre had died during a prison break and he is taken for his word. Duval shows up incognito to save her husband, but she runs into Auron who wants to rape her. Carl attacks Auron and Callistratus intervenes. He winds up killing Auron because the man tells him that he will turn him into the authorities. At the same time, the evil Callistratus decides to use Duval in one of his unearthly experiments. Pierre manages to escape and thwart Callistratus.No, the make-up for the murderous hunchback lacks verisimilitude, but it adds a grotesque sense of cheesiness to "Blood of the Vampire." Everything else looks good, especially the sets. "Blood of the Vampires" relies on a formulaic, melodramatic plot. The performances are good, especially Wolfit as the fiendish Callistratus, but the far-fetched action and the absence of a vampire undercut the action.

We each have the experiences that brought us to the way we dream, and the forms we use in wrangling the world. My cinematic maturity is pretty traceable because the films and the watching were so self-ware.Going back before well-formed notions of self, this was one film experience that changed me. Or rather I should say that the first two minutes changed me. It was my first movie alone, and my first non-cartoon movie. Sent on a mission to get bread, this ten year old sneaked into a matinée with the 15 cents left over. Sitting virtually alone I knew that what I was doing would be costly, and that I would be crossing a boundary with my life never fully retrieved. This movie starts with some text that tells us about the curse of the vampire being the greatest evil ever visited on the earth and that we are entering Transylvania during what I assumed was its riskiest, spookiest time. The only way to kill a vampire, we are told, is by a stake through the heart. We are in an unkempt graveyard, Leni Riefenstahl's mountains in the background. If a church bell tolls it doesn't matter because I heard it. Tones are muted, the distance is far. We know it is the deepest part of night.Townsfolk carry a wrapped corpse on a stretcher, careful about their delicate business in managing the evil undead. They tip the corpse into the shallow grave, the only real space, and the covering comes off the body's face. We see not the artificial snarling teeth that we expect, but a regular bank president sort of guy.The camera now looks up from the grave at two hired executioners. One has a stake five feet long, the other a wooden mallet with a head as big as his, something I suppose actually existed. But it is huge and the wide lens makes it very much larger as we hear the crunch of the stake through flesh and see and hear the pounding just as if it were our heart. The camera then shows the stake, the palette effectively shifting from black and white to color.A quick title and then we see a hunchback skulking behind a rock. His right eye (the wrong color) drooping two inches too low. Even a ten year old cinematic virgin could see at once that the action we have witnessed we have seen through his eye and that of the corpse. I was out of that air conditioned theater like my life depended on it. The bread did not survive.Now, after more than 50 years I can sit through the entire film. The first sequence is still masterful I think. But the rest of the thing must have been created by another team. Boring. It has dogs, which together with the opening must have been all Sangster had in mind when he started.Funny how you build a life.Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.

Well, fans of Gothic style 50s horror will love this classic movie. For me, I was expecting a little more 'vampire' in the story, like a gorgeous vampiress dressed in a gown with fangs galore to bite the neck of those she seduces - but sadly no.The movie starts with the Count being staked through the heart and buried, before his servant 'Karl' (who plays a good Igor like character) takes his masters body to a mental asylum to revive him.After a Doctor is wrongly accused in court of killing a patient through blood transfusing, he is sent to the asylum for his life-long punishment, only to become a servant to the Count, who wants to use his expertise in surgical practise on other inmates, mainly their blood.This movie has the imagery of Hammer Horror, given by it's writer Jimmy Sangster, but sadly lacks the punch of a good dramatic Vampire story.As classic Gothic horrors go, it's worth a look.

I couldn't agree more with the positive comments on this much-overlooked Hammer-styled gem. The 2006 Dark Sky DVD double-feature (with "The Hellfire Club") is a *must-have* for any fan of the early Hammer films. A delightful drive-in double-feature program design, including concessions ads, trailers and even an intermission, really adds to the enjoyment of the these two classic films. The transfer on both is quite respectable, certainly much superior to anything previously available, and is in anamorphic widescreen. Kudos to Dark Sky for their outstanding work on this and many other rare genre classics!