Vampire Flicks: Blood of Dracula (1957)

Yesterday, I noted that The Vampire was part of a trend of low budget horror flicks in the late 50's that took a type of monster that was traditionally supernatural and gave it a scientific origin. Among the examples I gave was this film, which I first learned of when I was in high school. You're probably expecting me to say it was in The History of Sci-Fi and Horror but, actually, it was in a large book in my high school's library that talked about the history of film throughout the 20th century. For whatever reason, they decided to show that poster artwork you see here in a sort of honorable mentions type section at the end of the chapter on 1957, as well as describe the film itself as "campy." That was literally all I knew about Blood of Dracula until I finally saw it many years later, when I found a double feature DVD of it and another American-International horror flick from that period, How to Make a Monster, at G-Fest in 2019. I mainly picked it up for the latter, as I'd seen most of it on AMC one Friday night in middle school, but I was also interested in finally seeing this as well. One thing you're likely to hear about it is that it should really be titled I Was A Teenage Vampire, which is very accurate, as it is little more than a variation on I Was A Teenage Werewolf: a story of a troubled teenager who's turned into a monster by a scientist who's determined to prove their theories, no matter the consequences. Other than the type of monster (which, despite the title, has nothing to do with Dracula), the only other major differences are the teenager being a girl (the overall cast is 95% female), and the setting a boarding school. As for comparisons in terms of quality, Teenage Werewolf, which I'll be referring back to many times, is definitely the better film, mostly because of the performance of the young Michael Landon; the lead in Blood of Dracula is fair enough, but few of the other characters are all that memorable or portrayed that well. In addition, not much happens for at least the first half; you don't see the vampire nearly as much as you would like and, when you do, her makeup design is rather laughable; the low budget is sometimes very obvious; and, because of the film's short running time at just 69 minutes, the story feels rushed and the ending abrupt and anticlimactic, which is especially disappointing since it feels as though it's starting building to something. In the end, I wouldn't call Blood of Dracula a total slog, but it's not a great one by any means, either.

Nancy Perkins is a troubled and angry young woman who's recently lost her beloved mother and is not happy that her father, Paul, has remarried just six weeks later. Moreover, Nancy and her new stepmother, Doris, openly despise each other, and Paul's company has relocated him to another city, causing Nancy's life to be completely upended. She's now enrolled in the Sherwood School for Girls, which Paul and Doris drive her to late one stormy night. After she's introduced to the principal, Mrs. Thorndyke, she's shown to her room, and then meets a group of the other students, who barge into her room and harass her. She just sits there and takes it, until one of the girls, Nola, grabs a picture of her boyfriend, Glenn, out of her suitcase. Nancy roughly reclaims the picture, and the girls quickly flee upon hearing their strict house mother, Miss Rivers, coming. When she barges into Nancy's room, she doesn't tell her what happened, nor does she tell Mrs. Thorndyke the following morning, when she formally introduces her to the girls at breakfast. There, the group's leader, Myra, says she's impressed that Nancy didn't snitch, and also tells her about their secret club, the Birds of Paradise, as well as that they could easily make her life at Sherwood miserable if she doesn't fall in line. Myra also happens to be the teacher's assistant to Miss Branding, the school's chemistry teacher, who's been developing a thesis suggesting that the world's scientists are searching for power in the wrong place, that a truly terrible power lies within every human being. She believes that if such power could be unleashed, the scientific community would end their experiments with nuclear weapons and other such weapons of mass destruction. Saying she needs a "special girl" to experiment on, Myra tells her that Nancy fits the bill. Branding meets Nancy in class, with Myra arranging for her hand to be slightly burned with acid, allowing Branding to be alone with her while seeing to her wound. Encouraging her impulse to get revenge on those who've wronged her, she gains Nancy's confidence, getting her to agree to undergo hypnosis. Using an amulet that she says once belonged to a woman from the Carpathian Mountains, she puts Nancy under hypnosis, telling her to always obey her and never tell anyone else of their talk. While Nancy does initially feel better, it quickly becomes clear that Miss Branding has indeed unleashed something dangerous within her, something that eventually begins to emerge of its own accord to prey on the other students.

Besides both being teen-oriented AIP horror flicks from the late 50's, something else that both Blood of Dracula and How to Make a Monster have in common is their director: Boston-born Herbert L. Strock. Having gotten his first taste of the film business when he was a teenager, when he directed for Fox Movietone News, Strock produced and directed the TV movie, The Cases of Eddie Drake, which then got picked up as a series (on Strock's IMDB page, it claims this was the first TV production to ever do so). The following year, he did his first piece of feature directing, when he took over the helm of The Magnetic Monster from original director Curt Siodmak. He went uncredited for that, as he did for his second bit of feature film work, Riders to the Stars, which he co-directed with one of the film's own stars, Richard Carlson. Strock went on to direct Gog, a color 3-D film that capped off something of a trilogy with the previous two films; Battle Taxi, with Sterling Hayden; and, released on a double bill with Blood of Dracula, I Was A Teenage Frankenstein. Following these flicks and How to Make a Monster, Strock's feature directing career slowed down considerably, although he went on to do other B-movies like 1962's The Devil's Messenger, an anthology film made from three episodes of the Swedish TV series, 13 Demon Street, with Strock shooting new scenes that featured Lon Chaney Jr. as Satan, and 1963's The Crawling Hand. He also directed a lot of television, working on shows like Science Fiction Theatre, Highway Patrol, The Veil with Boris Karloff, Cheyenne, Maverick, and Bonanza, among many others. He died in 2005, at the age of 87, in a car accident.

While I still personally find him to be likable and sympathetic, again because of Michael Landon's great performance, I can understand why some would find the character of Tony Rivers in I Was A Teenage Werewolf hard to care about, due to his very ill-tempered, antisocial personality. Thus, Nancy Perkins (Sandra Harrison) is someone you may find easier to empathize with. Granted, the first thing she does in the opening is attempt to kill herself, her father, and stepmother by grabbing the car's steering wheel and almost causing them to skid off the road, and she does come off as bratty in her argument with them afterward, as her father can't help it that his company is making them relocate to a new city. But, that said, given how utterly nasty her stepmother is to her, as well as how she's still reeling from losing her actual mother just six weeks before, while her father is really dismissive of her feelings, and they're basically dumping her at the Sherwood School for Girls, it's not hard to understand why Nancy is so angry and miserable. Then, upon arriving at the school and being shown to her room, she's harassed by a bunch of the other girls, who perform what's basically a low-key hazing, as they rifle through her things and try to force her to fall in line with their secret club. Nancy just sits there and takes it, until Nola fools around with a picture of her boyfriend, Glenn, and she angrily reclaims it, pulling on Nola's hair and shoving another girl to the floor. Though she doesn't say anything to either Miss Rivers or Mrs. Thorndyke about what happened, the next morning, at breakfast, Nancy tells Myra that she simply has her own way of doing things. Myra, in turn, tells her about the "Birds of Paradise" and how they can make her time at Sherwood very miserable if she doesn't conform. Still, Nancy has no intention of following along with the crowd, including taking turns with the other girls in dating Eddie, the school's male groundskeeper. This attitude is what leads to Miss Branding deciding to use her for her experiment, especially when Nancy's hand is burned during an experiment in chemistry class and she immediately attacks Nola, thinking it was something she did on purpose. Later, while seeing to her burn, Branding, after learning of her desire to get revenge on those who've wronged her, encourages her not to feel ashamed about those emotions. Nancy, in turn, becomes intrigued when she says these emotions are best expressed under "certain conditions" and guidance, and, telling Branding that she trusts her, allows herself to be put under hypnosis.

After the first hypnosis session, Nancy awakens to find that the pain from her burn is gone, but is unaware that Miss Branding planted in her mind the hypnotic suggestion to always obey her. This control becomes very clear when Branding is able to employ it during Nancy's initiation into the Birds of Paradise, despite their not even being in the same building. She's sent off to her room when the party is broken up by Miss Rivers and that's when, while down in the basement, looking for supplies, Nola is attacked and

killed. The next morning, when Nola's body is found and the police come in to question everyone, Nancy can only be awakened by Branding. Upon waking up, she says she feels as though she's been drugged, and tries to talk about a nightmare she had, but Branding dismisses it, telling her to forget about it. She also tells her of Nola's death and that she needs to remember that she had nothing to do with it. Later, during a Halloween night scavenger hunt in a cemetery, Nancy comes upon another of her

classmates, Terry. Looking and acting strange, as she just menacingly stares at Terry without speaking, she then becomes a vampire and kills her. She does the same to a teenage boy, Tab, when he, for the second time, tries to hit on her. She runs off when the rest of the girls shows up, then turns back to normal and arrives right when both of the bodies are discovered. As part of the investigation, all of the girls who took part in the scavenger hunt are given polygraph tests, including Nancy. But, during her test, Miss Branding

uses her control to influence Nancy's answers. Later, Nancy tells Branding of this sudden urge that's been taking control of her, which she thinks causes her to do horrible things, but can never remember what they are. She adds that, when trying to remember, she can only see Branding's face, and demands to know what's going on. However, she's told that, once the experiment is over, she will have played a part in saving mankind. That doesn't entirely satisfy her, and she begins to feel that Branding has enslaved her. Then, when Glenn comes to visit her, despite

Branding attempting to send him away, Nancy initially acts coldly towards him, afraid she might get that compulsion to attack him as well. Her fears are soon justified while they're sitting in his car and she looks hungrily at his neck. She quickly runs off for his safety, telling him to leave the school, and goes to finally confront Miss Branding.

The now defunct website DVD Verdict described Nancy's vampire form as, "Looking closer to Nosferatu with big hair." That is a good way to describe her, with her pale face, pointy ears, dark circles around the eyes, prominent eyebrows, and those two sharp incisors (various sources say this is the first American vampire movie where the vampire actually has fangs), but unlike Count Orlock, I find her to be rather silly-looking, especially with that hair. In any case, much like in The Vampire, the monster 

that Nancy becomes  is more akin to a werewolf, as she literally does transform sporadically, through a series of lap dissolves, no less. In fact, these transformation sequences are very similar to those that Tony goes through in I Was A Teenage Werewolf, right down to the close-ups on the face, the swiftness of the transformation, and the rippling effect laid on top of it as the details slowly materialize. Also like a werewolf, she never speaks, but simply growls and hisses, attacking her victims like a predatory animal. 

Initially, the transformation seems to come about as a direct result of Miss Branding's hypnotic hold on her, like when she takes control of her during the initiation and Nancy later kills Nola. But when she kills Terry and Tab during the scavenger hunt, there's no indication that she's being controlled at that moment. Instead, she looks noticeably haggard and unhealthy, even before she fully transforms, something that Terry notices, and also changes into the vampire twice during a very short span of time, as she goes back to "normal" after killing Terry, then immediately 

transforms again to kill Tab. At first, she seems to be acting on her desire for revenge on those who've wronged her, given how her first victim is Nola and her third is Tab. But, she also kills Terry, whom she never had much of any interaction with, and feels the urge to attack Glenn, whom she clearly loves, implying that her vampire side is gaining more of a hold on her. And when she changes and attacks Miss Branding, who's still trying to control her, during the climax, it's as though she's able to aim her vampire side at someone she knows has especially betrayed her. In fact, even before she changes, when Branding tries to make her look at the amulet again, Nancy threatens, "If you don't let me go, I'll do it myself!", and appears to make good on her threat almost immediately.

Though I've been saying that this film is among those that turned traditionally supernatural creatures into scientific ones, there does seem to be more of a supernatural bent to Nancy's "condition" (which also flies in the face of Miss Branding's constant talk about science). To enforce her hypnotic hold on her, Miss Branding uses an amulet she says once belonged to a woman whose lineage hailed from the Carpathian Mountains, adding, "I made a trip to that region to verify this amulet, and the legend connected with it... 

It can heal, and it can destroy. Also, it can release frightening powers." You could argue she's using the power of suggestion but, considering what the amulet does do to Nancy, I'd say it's a lot more than that. Like traditional vampires, she does bite her victims in the neck and drain their blood, and only attacks at night. And though the classic vampire tropes, as well as Dracula himself, are mentioned here in a derisive manner, Nancy is ultimately killed when, during her struggle with Branding, she's pushed back and is impaled through the heart by a piece of broken furniture. Granted, that could kill anyone, vampire or not, but none of the other classic vampire weaknesses are ever tried on Nancy, so who knows if they would've affected her or not?

If you've seen I Was A Teenage Werewolf, then you've already gathered that Miss Branding (Louise Lewis) is Blood of Dracula's answer to that film's Dr. Alfred Brandon (even their surnames are similar). Like Brandon, she believes that what she's doing is an experiment that will benefit mankind, which she sees as on the verge of destroying itself. Her intention is to convince the scientific community to end the testing of nuclear weapons and other deadly practices by showing how there is a force for complete and utter destruction within every living person. Unlike Brandon, she doesn't come off as a raving lunatic when she talks about it with Myra in her first scene, but rather someone who is concerned about the state of the world and feels she can change it if someone would only listen. However, in her eyes, her thesis has been repeatedly rejected due to male academia, and doesn't once consider that it could be because it's, to put it lightly, crazy. Moreover, she's trying to save the world from Armageddon, by attempting to release a destructive force that itself would likely be weaponized, something she seems confident wouldn't happen. (Granted, it's nigh impossible to believe that one single vampire would be viewed as more devastating than nuclear weapons but, still.) Once Branding meets Nancy and sees that she does have the qualities she's looking for (if this potential lies in all of us, then why does she need someone with specific emotional factors?), she proves to be utterly insidious in how she gets her alone and gains her trust by encouraging her more negative emotions, saying that they're best unleashed under certain conditions, leading Nancy to allow herself to be hypnotized by the amulet. With that, Branding not only gets rid of the pain from the burn on Nancy's hand but also tells her to obey her, no matter what, and to never tell anybody what went on between them in her office.

Branding seems to get some sick pleasure out of her control of Nancy, apparently forcing her to transform into the vampire the first time because the noise from the initiation bothers her, and because the presence of so many potential victims gives her the perfect opportunity. She feigns concern over Nola's death when her body is discovered the next morning, but when she awakens Nancy, she greets her with a smile, dismisses her attempt to talk about a nightmare she had, and also assures her that she had nothing to do

with what's happened. Furthermore, when Nancy is given a polygraph test following Terry and Tab's deaths, Branding uses her influence over her to ensure she passes the test without revealing anything that could incriminate her or disrupt the experiment. As per usual, when confronted with what she's doing, Branding says she feels it's all worth it in the name of science. Near the end, when Nancy demands to know what's going on, she simply says that, once the experiment is completed, she'll be happy about the

part she'll have played in "saving mankind from his own destruction." And when Nancy says she feels like what she's having her do is wrong, Branding says, "Who's the judge of that? There's as much merit to one side as to the other. The final result will justify everything." By the end of the movie, Mrs. Thorndyke has Branding take over some of her administrative duties while she tries to keep the school from being closed over all its bad publicity. In this capacity, she tries to keep Nancy's boyfriend, Glenn, from seeing her when he shows up at the

school. And when Nancy confronts her about it, she says that she can't risk the experiment being jeopardized by Glenn aggravating her emotional state. Moreover, when Nancy demands to be released, telling her how she felt an urge to kill Glenn when she was with him, Branding, again, seems to take pleasure in it. Now thoroughly obsessed, she not only refuses Nancy but attempts to force her to look at the amulet and fall back under her control, saying her will is stronger. Unfortunately for Branding, Nancy becomes the vampire and promptly attacks and kills her, strangling her with her own amulet.

Myra (Gail Ganley) goes through a rather abrupt character switch during the film's latter half. As head of the Birds of Paradise, she and the others put Nancy through something of a slight hazing when she first arrives at the school. Though she likes that Nancy doesn't tell any of the administrators what happened, Myra also tells her to get with the program, as every member of the club is a teacher's assistant and they know how to make her time at the school miserable if she doesn't. Myra herself happens to be Miss Branding's assistant, and is aware of her thesis and her frustrations over being unable to publish it. When she talks about the nature of her work, Myra, eager to be part of something important, offers herself as the guinea pig, but Branding tells her that she doesn't have the right stuff. However, when she goes on to say that she needs someone with, "The natural fire, explosiveness close to the surface. A disturbed girl, perhaps, but with a will of her own," Myra knows Nancy would be perfect. She arranges it to where Branding can see her emotional state firsthand by switching out the bottles used in a class experiment, causing Nancy to get an acid burn on the back of her hand, prompting her to react violently towards Nola. But after that, as the movie goes on and she starts to suspect what Branding might be doing with Nancy, Myra has a change of heart, clearly seeing it as a wrong. But, by the time she summons up the courage to tell Mrs. Thorndyke, Nancy and Branding have killed each other. Despite this, she laments the loss of Branding's thesis, which was destroyed in the struggle when acid got poured onto it, but Thorndyke feels it's for the best.

Despite being the first to incur Nancy's wrath and to also end up as her first victim when she becomes a vampire, there's very little to say about Nola (Heather Ames), other than she's an assistant to the school's English teacher. You later learn that her parents are circus performers who are currently in Europe, and everything involving her enrollment at the school has been handled by their lawyer, but it doesn't amount to anything in the long run. Terry (Shirley De Lancey), Nancy's second victim, is more memorable, mainly 

in how her fiance, Eddie (Don Devlin), a kind of dopey guy who works as Sherwood's groundsman, is described to Nancy by Myra as Sherwood's "whole male population," adding that he's, "The exclusive property of Birds of Paradise. We take turns dating him... We divide him up like a jug of water on a lifeboat." Eddie himself comments, "One swallow to each girl," though this idea isn't appealing to Nancy, who says she has her own boyfriend in Glenn. That little scene also doesn't sit well with Terry, who proves to be the dominant one in the relationship 

when she immediately smacks Eddie across the face and tells him, "Listen, lunkhead, you're not the dream-boy you think you are. If there was more supply around here, there'd be less demand... And don't forget you're engaged to me." Eddie notes that their engagement is a secret but Terry tells him that he'd best remember it, adding, "I have to share you, but I don't want you to be so enthusiastic about it." She then orders him to kiss her and to cut short his "date" that night with the excuse that his head hurts because, "You've been thinkin'," in order to meet up with her at their usual spot. During the Halloween night scavenger hunt, the two of them meet up again in the cemetery, but the idea of digging up "some objects" there is too much for Eddie and he leaves. Shortly after, Terry is attacked and killed by the vampiric Nancy.

Since he's nothing but a framed picture for most of the movie, you really don't expect Nancy's boyfriend, Glenn (Michael Hall), to ever actually appear onscreen. But, out of the blue near the end, he shows up, having grown concerned about Nancy due to the stories of the murders. He might as well have not even bothered making the 300-mile, six-hour drive, though, as he has nothing to do other than act confused as to why she's being so cold towards him, and why she seems to want to leave him. He's also a bit pushy, making her go to his car, where he tries to kiss her, before she makes him come out and say what it was he came there to tell her. Unbeknownst to him, he comes close to getting killed in that moment, as Nancy feels the urge to attack him and quickly runs off, telling him to leave before it's too late. After that, he doesn't show up again until at the end, when he, Myra, and Mrs. Thorndyke burst into Miss Branding's laboratory to find both her and Nancy dead.

Just like in I Was A Teenage Werewolf, as well as other movies from that same period like Frankenstein's Daughter, we have a moment where everything literally stops for a few minutes so one of the teenage characters can sing a song. In this case, the singer is Tab (Jerry Blaine), one of Eddie's friends from another high school, who, along with him and another guy, Joe (Jimmy Hayes), drops in on Nancy's initiation. After he tries and fails to dance with Nancy herself, he's prompted by the others to sing a song called Puppy Love (not the one you're thinking of). I'll talk more about this scene and the song itself later, but let's just say for now that it's as corny and dated as you'd expect, but is fun to listen to, regardless. Following that, Tab has most of the girls fawning on him, but when Nola, who's been dancing with Joe, decides she wants to dance with him next, the two guys get into a fight, with Joe throwing the first punch. The sound of the scuffle gets the attention of Miss Rivers, forcing the guys to quickly climb out the window they came in through. Later, Tab comes upon Nancy in the cemetery, just after she's killed Terry, and, again, tries to put the moves on her. He gives up easily when she puts up some surprisingly strong resistance, but then, she turns into the vampire again and kills him as well.

While it's not unusual in most of the teen-oriented horror flicks from this period, the adult characters here are especially useless. Though nice enough, Mrs. Thorndyke (Mary Adams) spends 99% of her brief screentime unaware of what's going on at the school; instead, after the murders, she mostly worries about the impact the crimes will have on its reputation, including possibly leading to it being closed altogether. Late in the third act, she has Miss Branding take over some of her duties so she can deal with a number of concerned parents. At the end of the movie, Myra finally tells her of her suspicions about Branding and the two of them, along with Glenn, break into the lab to find both her and Nancy dead. Though Myra is distraught over Branding's thesis being destroyed, Mrs. Thorndyke says it's just as well, ending the movie on the typical notion that, "There's a power greater than science that rules the Earth, and those who twist and pervert knowledge for evil only work out their own destruction."

Miss Rivers (Edna Holland), the school's art teacher and house mother, has even less to do, acting only as a very strict disciplinarian, as she scolds Nancy for the "ruckus" she makes her first night there, and breaks up the initiation party when it gets too loud (though, she is good enough to give them fifteen more minutes before it's time for lights out). Mr. Mather (Carlyle Mitchell), the dean, appears in one scene where he warns Mrs. Thorndyke of the impact the murders could have on the school and how the board 

will react. He talks about keeping the other girls' parents at bay, and when Mrs. Thorndyke says he's talking about them as though they're vicious enemies, he says, "That's the only way to think of them." He then adds, "Why do they send their teenage daughters to a boarding school away from home? Would you? You'd be surprised how vicious those parents can get. When they leave their daughters in a private school, they also leave all their responsibilities. For what they pay, little or much, they expect you to be mother, father, policeman, minister, teacher, guardian, confidant, and friend."

Mather is very correct when it comes to Paul (Thomas B. Henry) and Doris Perkins (Jeanne Dean). Like I said at the beginning, while they have a right to be furious with Nancy when she almost causes them to crash, they're both really awful towards her in general. Doris is especially horrendous, flat-out saying she's glad they're "getting rid of her," and also mocks the life she used to have, before sneering, "Did you expect us to take you along on our honeymoon?" Paul, meanwhile, not only says nothing to back Doris

down, but, instead, shouts, "That'll do!", whenever Nancy criticizes her. He also makes it clear he couldn't care less about Nancy's plight, and even seems contemptuous about her relationship with his recently deceased wife. Not only did he wait a mere six weeks after her death before marrying Doris (he says his company moving him to another city forced his hand but, still), but when Nancy brings her up, he disdainfully says, "Oh, you're back on that track?" He goes on to call her selfish, that her mother spoiled her, and makes it clear she has no say in the matter concerning Sherwood. When they arrive at the school, Paul and Doris are quick to finish the registration and be on their way, with Nancy saying they'll likely stop at a motel for the night. Though Paul asks her to write them every week, it's doubtful she did so, and you never hear from them again after the opening.

The police are especially useless and don't contribute a damn thing to the story; in fact, they're never seen again following Nancy's polygraph test. The only one who knows what he's talking about is Mike (Paul Maxwell), an assistant to the coroner who, when they're talking about Nola's murder, mentions how, in medical school, he had a roommate who was from the Carpathian Mountains and often told stories from his country about vampires and the "Old World sickness" that drives them, which the state of Nola's body

reminded him of. Lt. Dunlap (Malcolm Atterbury) is dismissive of his claims and tells him not to share them with the newspapers, and even after Terry and Tab are killed, and Mike, again, tries to warn them, Dunlap doubles down, making fun of the various aspects of the vampire legend. That said, he is smart enough to figure that the killer doesn't have to be a man, and that it could be someone at the school. Unfortunately, because the police aren't seen again during the third act, there's never a moment where Mike is vindicated.

I couldn't really appreciate it during the re-watch because of the lousy quality on that DVD (it's a 2006 release from Lions Gate that looks like a DVD-R of a VHS), but thanks to the remastered version from Shout! Factory, which you can watch on Tubi, it's clear that Blood of Dracula is decently made. The black-and-white cinematography is often very stark, with scenes like Miss Branding first hypnotizing Nancy in her darkened office, taking control of her during the initiation, and Nola's death in the basement, which is almost entirely black, save for the 

bit of illumination provided by the swinging, overhead light, coming off as nicely moody. There are also some notable shots and instances of editing, such as several camera angles that shoot up through the steering wheel at Paul during the opening, and the way it cuts back and forth between Nancy and the polygraph while she's being tested. The attacks by the vampire are also fairly well-constructed, especially when she kills Nola, as you don't see her at all. Instead, you just hear her rustling in the dark behind 

her, and the camera then focuses on Nola, rushing at her as she screams, with the vampire's shadow falling over her as she's dragged down to the floor. All the while, that swinging light repeatedly obscures Nola, as after it passes, you see her hand grabbing onto the shelf behind her, before it drops out of sight (unfortunately, Heather Ames' over-the-top expressions and reactions hurt the scene's effectiveness). And throughout it all, you hear the vampire snarling like a hungry animal. Later, when Terry gets it, you see the vampire lunge at and grab her, before the camera suddenly dips down, allowing you to only see her feet as she's dragged behind the tombstone and fed on. 

However, these technical aspects aren't always so great, as they're indicative of the movie's low budget. For instance, the exterior nighttime scenes, such as the cemetery and when Nancy meets Glenn, are clearly day-for-night, and there is some awkward editing when the vampire kills Tab, as it cuts from her grabbing for him to a shot of the other kids rushing to the site, and then back to her now feeding on him, again obscured by the tombstone (and like with Nola, Jerry Blaine's acting in this scene is awful). In fact, you can tell that they had to rely on a combination of

extreme close-ups and editing during any kind of "action" scene. For instance, when Nancy tries to run the car off the road during the opening, it consists of a shot through the rain-splashed windshield of her grabbing the wheel and Paul struggling with and knocking her back, followed by a close-up on the front of the car as it nearly goes over the edge of a drop-off, which you can just barely make out. Similarly, the final confrontation between Nancy and Miss Branding is not only anti-climactic but quite poorly done and even hard to follow because

everything happens so fast. It's shot in a way where you can't really make out that Nancy is strangling her with her own amulet (save for maybe how Miss Branding screams and gags like Una O'Connor in James Whale's horror movies), and when she pushes Nancy away, you then get a quick succession of shots of her knocking over a piece of furniture with a potted plant, a close-up of the broken section of it that she gets impaled on (it happens so fast that I initially thought that was the back of a picture frame; also, that

pointy part is much shorter than what's sticking out of Nancy's chest when you see her dead in the aftermath), and Branding making an exaggerated facial expression as she falls out of frame, choking to death.

Since it's another very low budget flick, it shouldn't be surprising that the movie's sets, which mostly consist of the interiors of Sherwood, aren't much to write home about. The foyer beyond the front door and Mrs. Thorndyke's office are enough to give off the impression that it's an upscale school, but most of the other sets, like the students' dorms, the very small lunchroom, and the chemistry lab where Miss Branding teaches her classes are pretty plain-looking. Branding's office/laboratory is kind of memorable for how darkly lit it often is, even during the day and 

when the lights are on, and also how it's a pretty fancy sitting room on one side and a lab on the other, and the basement where Nola is attacked is a bit creepy because of how utterly dark it is in there, but that's about it. You also don't see much of the school's actual grounds, so the environment comes off as rather small and constrained. And even though one scene takes place on Halloween, as far as decorations go, all you see is a skull and crossbones image on a dorm room wall, and while the cemetery where Terry

and Tab are killed does have an expected spooky feel to it, it's kind of negated by the day-for-night photography. Finally, there's no point whatsoever in going into detail about the sets for the police station, because they're as typical as they come.

While it was hardly new for characters in these movies to be skeptical about the existence of vampires and other monsters, this is an early example of the accepted aspects of vampire lore not only being mocked but also being common knowledge, rather than needing an expert to lay it all out. During the second scene where Mike tries to insist the deaths are the work of a vampire, Lt. Dunlap says, "Look, according to you, we ought to start a witch hunt, search for a Dracula. Search only in the moonlight. Protect all possible victims with garlic leaves, or

maybe dig up a couple of rows of corpses, and drive wooden stakes through their hearts so they'll stay buried. Isn't that what the legend prescribes?" Speaking of which, while Dracula himself has no bearing on this story, he is mentioned by both Dunlap and Mike, who says his roommate told stories, "About vampires, Draculas." Whether this means that the actual vampire character of Dracula did exist at one point in this world or, like in ours, he's just a well-known legendary figure is never made clear but, either way, like traditional vampire lore, I think this is also an early instance of a movie noting just how well known he is among the general public. 

As I hinted at earlier, one of the more memorable scenes is when the movie stops so Tab can sing his song Puppy Love to the girls in the dorm room. Not only is it reminiscent of the scene in I Was A Teenage Werewolf where Vic sings the song Eeny, Meeny, Miney, Mo, but Tab's actor, Jerry Blaine, is credited with writing both songs. Again, it's corny and so very of its time, but I'd take it over the songs in Frankenstein's Daughter and The Mushroom Song from The Giant Gila Monster any day of the week, as it has a nice, smooth sound to it, and Blaine's singing

isn't bad at all, although some of the inflections he goes for make me snicker. And speaking of snickering, check out the lyrics: "Oh, it was Friday night and it sure was hot/I had my daddy's car with his convertible top/We drove by the light of the moon above/And my baby said, 'Oh, yeah, let's make some puppy love,'/She looked at me and smiled so sweet/That I felt like jumpin' right out of my seat/I knew what she was thinkin' of/'Cause her eyes said, 'Come on! Let's make some puppy love.'/Well, then she gave 

me that crazy look/And before I knew it, I was really shook/So, I drove like mad and I didn't stop/'Cause I knew that if I did, I might blow my top!/So, I drove her home 'cause it was late/And asked her for another date/She said, 'That's real cool, my turtledove/We'll take another ride and make some puppy love.'" As for the scene itself, it's not as elaborate as you might expect, as Tab spends the first part of the song sitting down, with the girls gathered around him, and while they then do a little bit of dancing, with him 

memorably sitting and spinning in place on a wooden, round coffee table, and him and two other girls playing around with couch cushions, the sound of a car horn blaring on the soundtrack each time they bump into each other, it doesn't go much farther than that. Still, I do smile at this scene, despite myself.

However, there's not much else to be said about Blood of Dracula. In fact, what hurts the story most is the film's short running time, leading to a first half that does a fair amount of character building in Nancy's case, only to lead into a second half that doesn't offer a truly satisfactory payoff. Even though I Was A Teenage Werewolf isn't that much longer, it still manages to get a lot more out of its protagonist and title monster. After Nancy is placed under Miss Branding's control and starts turning into the vampire, we get only a few attack scenes, which are fairly

well constructed, for the most part, but also very brief and don't show you much. Speaking of which, you also don't see much of the vampire herself (her total screentime amounts to less than five minutes), so monster fans won't get much out of it, and the ending especially feels rushed and isn't that satisfying. The latter is really disappointing because, given Nancy's growing realization of what Miss Branding has done to her, and her having to resist the urge to attack Glenn, it feels as though it's building to a big final 

confrontation, only to give you a brief bit of struggling between the two of them, with Nancy getting shoved back and impaled on that broken piece of furniture, while Branding melodramatically chokes out from getting strangled. (Not only do her facial expressions look really goofy, but she's making an equally goofy face when Myra, Mrs. Thorndyke, and Glenn burst in and see the aftermath.) Going back to Teenage Werewolf, that climax wasn't the greatest either, and there are some loose ends you don't get closure on, as is also the case here, but it's a much more enjoyable and well done movie all around.

Going back to Puppy Love, it's a good thing the movie has that song, as the actual score by Paul Dunlap is totally forgettable. Dunlap, whose career lasted from the early 50's to around the mid-80's, mostly scored for westerns, but he also did the music for AIP's teen horror movies during this period, including both I Was A Teenage Werewolf and Teenage Frankenstein, and How to Make a Monster, as well as other sci-fi and horror flicks from this time like Frankenstein 1970, Invisible Invaders, and The Angry Red Planet. I can vouch for his score for Teenage Werewolf being pretty memorable, but the stuff he came up with for Blood of Dracula is bland and generic. Listening back to the main title theme, it is fine music, and runs the gambit from being horrific and monstrous to poignant and somber, but it's just not memorable, and I can't tell you anything at all about the rest of the score.

Yeah, all in all, Blood of Dracula is just mediocre and little more than a less successful variation on I Was A Teenage Werewolf. It does feature a fair performance from the lead, some instances of competent filmmaking and okay atmosphere, well-constructed vampire attack scenes, and a scene revolving around a cheesy song from the period that is a hoot to listen to. Unfortunately, there are few characters and performances of note outside of the protagonist; the low budget is front and center when it comes to the editing and shooting of certain scenes, as well as in the sets and production design; the vampire has very little screentime and, when she does, her makeup design is hard to take seriously; the actual music score is really forgettable; and after a first half where very little happens, save for building up the character of Nancy Perkins, there isn't much payoff in the back half, with the climax itself being nothing to write home about. At just 69 minutes, the movie isn't a chore to sit through, but I would recommend it for completionists or diehard fans of 50's B-movies.