Vampire Flicks: The Vampire's Ghost (1945)

We're kicking off this year with a very obscure little item, one that I learned of through what can only be called the definition of happenstance. After I decided to devote this year's October Fest to vampire movies, I immediately knew which ones I definitely wanted to cover, but I also wanted to start off with at least one that was pre-1950's. You might think that wouldn't be much of a problem, as there are a good handful of vampire flicks from that period, most of which are bona fide classics, like Nosferatu, Dracula with Bela Lugosi and its various sequels, and Carl Theodor Dryer's Vampyr, as well as B-movie favorites like The Return of the Vampire, and so on. Ordinarily, you'd be right, but, if you've been reading my blog for a good long while now, you'd know that I've already reviewed all of those movies for past October Fests. The same also goes for Mark of the Vampire, which wouldn't count even I hadn't yet talked about it, given the ultimate revelation. And while I thought the 1933 movie The Vampire Bat might fit the bill, it turns out that's not the case, either. So, I was kind of up a tree until, one night in October of 2025, I happened to check OrbitDVD.com, the official website for this awesome store in Asheville, North Carolina (seriously, if you're ever in Asheville, drop in on them; you'll feel like you're in a film buff's heaven). This is something I do frequently, as they're very good at keeping you updated on what's coming out, and one of the upcoming releases they mentioned then was a Blu-Ray set from Imprint Films called Silver Screams Cinema (1944-1957), a collection of six little known horror films, most of them quick cheapies produced by Republic and Monogram Pictures. I was aware of most of them, like Valley of the Zombies, Return of the Ape Man, and She Devil, but I'd never, ever heard of The Vampire's Ghost. It was not mentioned in that documentary, The History of Sci-Fi and Horror, which I've talked about countless times, nor was it even on a list of vampire films I looked up on Wikipedia. Looking up a plot synopsis, it seemed as though it would meet the criteria, and upon watching it (it's on YouTube, for anyone who's interested), it did, so here we are.

Though, honestly, that's the only reason why I'm kicking off Fangtober with this, as this flick is nothing to write home about. It's very low budget, completely studio-bound, and meant to be set in Africa, but the jungle sets that much of the action takes place on aren't likely to fool anybody. Also, as you can guess, the depictions of the continent, its environments, and the people are really stereotypical and un-PC by today's standards. What's more, while the lead performance by John Abbott is fair, the other actors and their characterizations are pretty forgettable, and the movie tends to meander around for the most part, ending on a note that's anything but climactic. Fortunately, it's only 58 minutes long, the story plays around with the vampire myth and tropes in some interesting ways, the technical filmmaking is quite adequate, with some decent instances of cinematography and atmosphere, and even some surprisingly good instances of visual effects work here and there. If nothing else, it makes for an okay way to kill an hour.

In the small African village of Bakunda, a woman is killed by a mysterious intruder who sneaks into her house one night. She's the fourth in a series of murders that have been plaguing the area, all of whom have been found with bite marks on their necks, and either partially or completely drained of blood. The villagers believe it's the work of a vampire, although Roy Hendrick, an employee of the Liberty Rubber Company, doesn't believe it, and neither do his fiancee, Julie Vance, her father, Thomas, or the local priest, Father Gilchrist. However, because of the negative effect it's been having on their businesses, Roy decides to speak with Webb Fallon, a mysterious newcomer who runs a nightclub down by the Bakunda waterfront, to see if he has any ideas about the cause due to his underworld connections. Before he can get much out of him, Fallon is confronted by Jim Barrett, a sea captain who lost a lot money to him by playing craps and accuses him of cheating. A fight breaks out, but while Roy is bruised up, Fallon manages to diffuse it by staring at Barrett in an intense manner, prompting him to drop his knife. Afterward, when Fallon is helping him tend to his wounds in his private room, Roy notes that there isn't a mirror in there. Fallon also reacts sharply when Roy inspects a small box by his bed, which has Fallon's name on it, but dates back to the year 1588. He explains it away as belonging to a distant ancestor of the same name. He has dinner with Roy, Julie, Thomas, and Gilchrist at the Vance plantation, and reacts strangely when the latter touches him, though he claims it's a recurring side effect of a case of malaria he once had. They also hear the sound of drums, which Fallon says is originating from Malongo village, said to be the home of a cult. Believing it may also be the source of the vampire rumors, Roy opts to go there and investigate, and Fallon volunteers to accompany him. Before they leave, the Vances' servant, Simon Peter, sees that Fallon doesn't cast a reflection in a mirror. During the trek to Malongo, Roy learns that Fallon is indeed a vampire when Simon impales him with a silver-tipped spear but he pulls it out, with no blood on it. Using his hypnotic influence, Fallon enslaves Roy to his will, and tells him that he seeks out happy couples like him and Julie in order to destroy them. They soon return to Bakunda, where Roy finds himself unable to warn the others of Fallon's true nature, while Fallon intends to make Julie his vampire bride.

If there's anything notable about the production of The Vampire's Ghost, it's that it served as an early screenwriting credit by Leigh Brackett, the famous science fiction author who was also, at that time, just beginning to break out with her fiction writing. In an interview with her that appears in the book, Backstory 2: Interviews With Screenwriters of the 1940s and 1950s, she says, "My agent, Hugh King, had been with Myron Selznick, my agency at that time, and he had gone over to Republic as story editor and had sort of managed to shoehorn me in because they were doing this horror film. They decided to cash in on the Universal monster school, and I had been doing science fiction, and to them it all looked the same: 'bug-eyed monsters.' It made no difference." In another interview, Brackett said that she worked on the screenplay for three weeks, with another writer, John K. Butler, who wrote a good number of B-movies in the 40's and 50's (he also wrote The Phantom Speaks, which The Vampire's Ghost was paired up with on a double bill). She also said the movie was shot in just ten days, which was two days over its assigned schedule, and that a cameraman got fired after the second day because it was felt he was taking too long. She clearly didn't think much of the movie, describing it as, "Not the greatest film ever made." Regardless, not long after working on The Vampire's Ghost, Brackett would collaborate with William Faulkner and Jules Furthman on the screenplay for The Big Sleep, the first of many times she would work with Howard Hawks.

Since it was made so quickly and cheaply, it's not surprising that it was directed by an expert at shooting these kinds of B-movies: Lesley Selander, who'd been working in the industry since the silent era. He started out as a studio lab technician, before going on to work as both a camera operator and assistant director, serving in the latter capacity on films such as the Marx Brothers' A Night at the Opera and Fritz Lang's Fury. He directed his first feature in 1936 and would go on to work steadily all the way to the late 60's, making over 120 movies and numerous TV episodes, including 54 episodes of Lassie, in his lifetime. The bulk of his filmography, including his directorial debut, is made up of westerns (he made 107 in all!), but he also made detective movies, action/adventure flicks, and an occasional science fiction film. As far as horror goes, he directed another one for  Republic Pictures following The Vampire's Ghost: 1946's The Catman of Paris. Selander's final film as director was one last western: 1968's Arizona Bushwhackers, after which he retired. He died in 1979, at the age of 79.

Before this, I'd seen John Abbott in the 1944 Columbia movie, Cry of the Werewolf, which I reviewed during the first Schlocktober, and where he appeared briefly at the beginning as a museum tour guide (interestingly, he mentioned vampirism to the tour group) who ends up running afoul of the werewolf in question. While his performance here as the vampire, Webb Fallon, is nothing amazing, he's definitely the best part of the movie, using his skills as a Shakespearean actor to make Fallon feel as three-dimensional as he can. Still, you know right from the start that he's the vampire who's terrorizing the African villages, as the film opens up with a bit of narration where says as much, before the woman receives an unseen and unwelcome visitor. And before he's introduced, he's described as a mysterious newcomer to the village of Bakunda, while Father Gilchrist says that his surname means, "The Stranger. One who walks in the darkness, beyond the campfire." In his first scene, he uses his hypnotic influence to make Captain Barrett back down from the fight he starts, and immediately afterward, Roy sees that he doesn't have a mirror in his private quarters, Fallon himself mentions that he doesn't go out in the daytime very often, and he's very protective of a small box that has his name inscribed on it, along with the date of 1588. And just in case you needed any more proof, when he has dinner at the Vance plantation, Simon Peter, while serving him coffee, sees that his body doesn't cast a reflection in a mirror, and when Fallon realizes what he's seeing, he causes the mirror to shatter. Regardless, Abbott does manage to make Fallon a compelling character. For one, he's the exact opposite of the typical image of a vampire from that time, as he looks like a normal man. He's not as outwardly monstrous as Count Orlock, nor is he as suave and debonair as Bela Lugosi's Dracula. He always dresses in normal clothes (for the time), never once wearing a tuxedo or a cape. His manner comes off as fairly normal, like that of a guy who just wants to run his nightclub without any trouble, and he's polite and accommodating to anybody who comes to him. He even offers to accompany Roy on the trek to Malongo village when he goes there to see if it's the source of the vampire rumors, saves him from being killed by a gun-trap in the jungle, and helps fight off some gun-wielding natives that attack their camp. 

But when Roy discovers what he is, Fallon drops all pretense, using his power to enslave him to his will, and making him unable to warn anyone else. During these scenes between the two of them, Fallon does come off as fairly menacing, as he continually appears at the plantation, hovering over Roy, preventing him from telling the others, and when they're alone, telling him that there's nothing he can do to stop him. He also tells Roy how he first became a vampire, as well as his intentions: "Young people like you and Julie, I destroy them. I cannot die. I live on and on, to destroy peace and happiness." After they've returned to Bakunda, Roy gets Julie to order 

a book for him about vampires from Johannesburg, but when Fallon learns of it, he mocks Roy, who's bedridden and helpless, by flat-out telling him that he's repelled by crosses and can only be destroyed by fire. Moreover, Roy, having noticed his interest in Julie, realizes that, when he said he destroyed young couples, he does so by coming between them and seducing the woman. He pleads for Fallon to leave them alone, but he says, "I like it here. I like Julie. One day soon, she'll join me in eternal life." Roy then threatens to tell Father Gilchrist about him, but Fallon uses his willpower to force him back into submission, telling him, "You are not telling anybody. There's 

nothing you can do to stop me. Nothing." Immediately afterward, Fallon kills both Captain Barrett and Lisa, a dancer at his club who's grown jealous of his interest in Julie, when the two of them conspire to cheat him out of money during a game of cards. When questioned about the murders, he denies knowing anything about who killed them or why. And the next time he confronts Roy (who, for some reason, is in Fallon's room at the nightclub), he, once more, begs Fallon to leave Bakunda. Fallon, however, says, "Where to? This has all happened before, it'll all happen again, no matter where I go, until the end of time." When then asked if he absolutely has to 

destroy everybody he comes across, he says, "On the contrary, I bring life to my victims... Lisa will rise from her grave and walk again, just as I did. So will Barrett. So will Julie." He next stops Roy when he tries to stab him with a dagger, then tells him to go back to Julie and spend what little time he has left with her, adding that she won't be with him for much longer.

This could be the earliest vampire movie that gets into the melancholia and loneliness that comes from being undead. In his opening narration, Fallon laments, "I always come back to Africa. But, even here, there is no rest for me. The path of time is curved upon itself like a circle, without beginning, without end. I must follow it forever. I cannot die. I cannot rest. I cannot rest. I cannot rest." When he tells Roy about how Queen Elizabeth Regina gave "his ancestor" the small box he keeps with him, there's an obvious hint of sadness and longing for those days in his voice. At the Vance plantation, when Father Gilchrist asks him why he spends so much time in the underworld, he 

answers, "Well, fate sometimes leads a man down strange pathways " Gilchrist counters, "Man always has a free will," and Fallon retorts, "Always? Sometimes things drive a man, regardless of his will. Things that may even tear his soul." That leads into how, after Roy learns he's a vampire, Fallon tells him that he's been under the curse of the undead for centuries, after he killed a woman and his soul was damned as a result. And when Julie reads from The Vampire Legend, the book that Roy had her order, "Death, often the most dreaded of human experiences, is denied the vampire. He must prowl the Earth endlessly," Fallon seems rather affected by it. Thus, you can easily guess that his interest in Julie and his

plan to make her into a vampire is so he can have a companion with him in the coming centuries, which he admits to near the end of the movie. When he's forced to leave Bakunda when the locals begin to suspect him of being a vampire, he has Julie accompany him, and they trek through the jungle to some ancient ruins, home to a cult that worshiped a god of death. There, he plans to turn her into a vampire, telling her, "The path of time is curved upon itself like a circle, without beginning, without end. A man may follow that path forever, if he chooses. He need not walk alone. We could walk that path together, Julie. We could visit worlds that no human eye has ever seen." But, in the end, his plan is thwarted.

This film disregards nearly all of the accepted rules involving vampires, while also creating a number of its own. Fallon says those he's killed will become vampires (though they never do), but explains that he himself became one after being cursed due to causing a woman's death back in the 1500's. Whether it was intentional or not is never made clear, but this explanation is first brought up near the beginning, when Julie says that a vampire is, "A dead man denied heaven because of his crimes." While Fallon doesn't sleep in a coffin, the small box he keeps with him contains earth from his grave, and he apparently sleeps with it beneath his head. What's more, the

moon is also tied to his immortality, as once he's enslaved Roy, he orders him to carry him to a nearby mountaintop and lay him down in a spot where the moonlight will fall upon him, with the box behind his head. And sure enough, this rejuvenates him after he was seriously injured when Simon Peter hit him with a silver-tipped spear. Speaking of which, though Simon thinks that would destroy Fallon, it seems to only cause him serious pain, and Fallon himself later says he can only be stopped by fire, which is how he is finally destroyed (albeit, after being speared with the silver tip again). That said, when he catches Roy attempting to throw the dirt out of the box, he says that if he'd done so, he would have to get more earth 

from his grave, suggesting he would've also died from that otherwise. Bullets don't affect him; in fact, they actually pass through him, hitting anybody who's standing behind him instead (Son of Dracula had already done this). Sunlight doesn't pose a threat to him, either, as he's able to walk about in the daytime; rather, it just seems like his eyes are very sensitive to it, as he has to wear dark glasses whenever he does go out in the day and, at one point, makes Roy pull down a window blind because the light shines in his eyes. And he never becomes other creatures, like a wolf or a bat.

As for the tropes the movie does recognize, Fallon has a hypnotic stare and the ability to control other people's minds, and also doesn't cast a reflection, prompting him to remove all the mirrors in his personal quarters (something that, in Dracula's Daughter, Countess Marya Zaleska does to her apartment). He's also able to instantly destroy mirrors through some sort of possible telekinetic ability. As per usual, he's repelled by crosses, but it seems as though the mere touch of a holy man weakens him, too, given what happens when Father Gilchrist puts his hand on his shoulder, after Fallon had been noticeably trying to avoid getting too close to him. 

And while he does live on the blood of others by biting into their necks, Fallon, rather than simply doing so to Julie after he makes her come to him, goes through a lot of trouble to turn her into a vampire. He takes her to the ancient ruins, to a temple dedicated to a god of death, and there, after waiting for the moon to rise, marks her forehead with some of the earth in the box, before going to bite her. That's when the others arrive and Gilchrist repels him with a cross, giving them the opportunity to destroy him.

At first, it seems like Roy Hendrick (Charles Gordon) is just going to be your standard bland leading man when he shows up in Bakunda, drives to the Vance plantation, immediately takes Julie in his arms and kisses her, then talks with Thomas Vance and Father Gilchrist about the recent spate of killings. He decides to talk with Fallon to see if he knows anything, but shortly after he arrives at the nightclub, he gets caught up in a fight and gets the crud beaten out of him. Unaware of how Fallon broke the fight up, Roy gets patched up and invites him to dinner at the plantation that night. Hearing the sound of the voodoo drums, which Fallon says are emanating from the village of Malongo, Roy opts to go there and see if it's where the rumors about a vampire originated. Along the way, he comes close to being killed by a gun trap, but Fallon saves him. However, when Simon Peter throws a silver-tipped spear at Fallon and hits him, Roy realizes what he is when there's no blood on it after he removes it (as well as because Fallon flat out tells him). That's when Fallon uses his influence to enslave Roy to his will, and he spends nearly the rest of the movie bedridden at the plantation. He tries to warn the others of Fallon's true nature but is literally unable to do so, and can also do nothing but endure how Fallon basically taunts him with his intention to eventually make Julie into a vampire. Having done some research thanks to the book, The Vampire Legend, he tries to throw out the earth from Fallon's grave, but is stopped. That night, back at the plantation, Father Gilchrist speaks to him and takes him to the church, where, through prayer, he's able to finally break Fallon's hold on him. By this point, Fallon has left with Julie, taking her through the jungle, to the ancient ruins. But Roy, Gilchrist, Thomas, and Simon manage to track them, and when they arrive at the ruins, Roy finally does something heroic and spears Fallon, before taking Julie away from him.

Julie Vance's (Peggy Stewart) role is even less significant, as she serves as little more than Roy's fiancee and the object of Fallon's desires, i.e. the Mina Seward to Roy's Jonathan Harker and Fallon's Dracula. All she does is worry about Roy when his seemingly fevered condition doesn't improve as the weeks pass, act skeptical at the idea of vampires, as well as become frightened at the possibility when she reads from The Vampire Legend, and become distraught when her father suggests that Fallon leave Bakunda when the locals begin to suspect he's the cause of their recent troubles. In fact, she gets quite upset over the latter, feeling that Fallon, who, in her mind, has been nothing but helpful, is being made the scapegoat simply because he's an outsider, and also doesn't understand why Roy doesn't say anything. Later that night, Fallon hypnotically calls to Julie, prompting her to walk to the nightclub in a trance, and then follow him into the jungle. The whole time, she's able to speak and seems aware, but under his influence. She does agree to become a vampire, but the others' intervention and Fallon's destruction save her from that fate.

There's also little to say about her father, Thomas Vance (Emmett Vogan), as he does little more than act as a concerned, important figure of the community who wants to find out the culprit behind the murders. Like Julie and nearly everyone else, he doesn't suspect that Fallon has anything to do with it, even after the deaths of both Lisa and Captain Barrett, two people who were tied to him. In fact, when the natives begin accusing him, Thomas, fearing for his safety, suggests that Fallon leave Bakunda, telling him as much himself. Little does he know that he then gives Fallon the incentive to run off with Julie, and Thomas joins the others in searching for them. As for Father

Gilchrist (Grant Withers), while he doesn't have much screentime either, he's a bit more significant. He comes off as a truly pious man, trying to bring comfort to the frightened natives of Bakunda, though he doesn't believe in vampires. He also wonders why someone as intelligent and well-cultured as Fallon would spend his life in the underworld, suggesting that the church can help him overcome whatever it is he insinuates is driving him against his will. Inevitably, this leads to Gilchrist's most significant moment. During the third act, he returns to Bakunda, having heard of Roy's condition, and sees him at the plantation. He tells him that he knows it's something more than just a fever that he's suffering from, as well as that Fallon somehow has control over his mind. Gilchrist further says that Roy has allowed it to happen, and that only he can free himself. He takes him to the local church, and there, through prayer, Roy is able to free himself. Now believing that Fallon is a vampire, Gilchrist accompanies the others in tracking him and Julie, saying he knows enough about the jungle to be of use. When they arrive at the ruins, Gilchrist himself stops Fallon from biting Julie by repelling him with a cross, giving Roy the opportunity to spear him and take Julie away.

Lisa (Adele Mara), a dancer in Fallon's club, is a character who doesn't do much during the first act, except perform an exotic number for the customers (it's nothing that special, save for the beginning, which she bends her back in a pretty extreme manner). However, the way she warns Fallon that Captain Barrett (Roy Barcroft) is going to be trouble after he lost a lot of money suggests that she does have some kind of personal connection to him. It only becomes really clear during the second act, when she's obviously jealous of how he keeps going over to the Vance plantation in order to see Julie. He, in turn, doesn't deny it at all, much to Lisa's chagrin, and 

that's when Barrett, wanting revenge on Fallon, both for losing so much money to him and for what he did to him during the fight, offers to team up with her. He tells Lisa that he plans to play again, one draw, and instructs her to bring Fallon a specific deck of cards, within which he's placed a fake ace of diamonds. And, sure enough, when they do play, Lisa draws for Barrett, revealing the ace, which trumps Fallon's king. With that, Barrett takes the money, offering to buy drinks for everybody, while Lisa tells Fallon, "Luck runs in streaks, Fallon. Yours just started downhill." But when he examines the ace and realizes he was tricked, Fallon decides to wreak his revenge. After Barrett and Lisa leave the nightclub and go their separate ways (Barrett tries to get Lisa to help him spend the money, but she opts to go home instead), Fallon stalks the former through the streets and corners him. Barrett pulls out a knife to defend himself but Fallon, again, uses his hypnotic influence and makes him drop it. He then goes in for the kill, and next goes to deal with Lisa. Because of the constantly pounding drums, she knows that Barrett's dead, and when Fallon shows up, it doesn't take her long to realize he's the cause. Whether or not she knew he's a vampire is up for debate, but her warning Barrett earlier that they may regret cheating Fallon, as well as her immediately accusing him of following Barrett after the card game, suggests she does. Either way, she falls prey to him as well.

Simon Peter (Martin Wilkins), the servant at the Vance plantation, is the first to learn that Fallon is a vampire when, while serving him coffee, he sees that he has no reflection in a nearby mirror. Fallon uses his power to destroy the mirror, and when Roy and the others wonder what caused it, Simon answers, "Evil." He takes part in the expedition to Malongo, and when a triggered gun trap doesn't hit Fallon but does hit another native, Taba, when he's standing right behind him, Simon confirms that Fallon is a vampire. He and Taba decide to take matters into their own hands, dipping a spear in molten silver, but at that moment, the camp is attacked by a group of gun-toting natives from Malongo. Taba is killed and Simon is injured, but he manages to throw the spear and hit Fallon with it. All this does is lead Roy to learn that Fallon is a vampire, before becoming his slave. Simon shows up again during the third act, having recovered, and helps Roy, Thomas, and Father Gilchrist track Fallon and Julie through the jungle. He uses the drums to communicate with the other tribes, having them do so in turn to keep them abreast of where Fallon and Julie are. And at the end of the movie, after Fallon has been speared and Julie saved, Simon personally sets fire to the grass in front of the temple entrance and everything around Fallon, finally destroying him.

From a cinematography standpoint, The Vampire's Ghost does have some fairly well done instances of visual flair, such as some great moments of lighting and shadow work in scenes such as at the very beginning, when Fallon enters that woman's home and his shadow falls over her; in the tent, when Roy learns he's a vampire; when the moonlight revives him; when he stalks Barrett through the streets of Bakunda, where all you see of him is his shadow, which falls across Barrett after he's been cornered (the shadow of the palm off to the right adds a little extra to it as well); in the scene with Father Gilchrist and Roy in the church, which is the moodiest-looking moment in the entire film, coming off as downright 

Expressionistic; and, at the end, when Fallon goes to bite Julie's neck, only for the shadow of the cross held by Gilchrist to fall across first her neck, then his face, repelling him. There are also a few memorably atmospheric moments and images, such as Roy carrying Fallon up to and then placing him on the mountaintop; Fallon suddenly appearing in Lisa's doorway; and when he calls to Julie, with the French windows to her room blowing open, after which she walks through the windswept streets, heading towards his nightclub. But, when it comes to scenes like the brawl that Barrett starts in the club at the beginning or the shootout at the camp in the jungle, things fall flat. It's surprising, considering this was made by someone

who spent most of his career making westerns and adventure movies, but still, that fight scene is especially lackluster. There's no energy in the action itself or the editing, you can clearly tell that a lot of the punches aren't connecting, and the sound effects come off as soft and weak, further sapping the scene of any impact. The shootout doesn't fare much better, again due to lethargic editing and no energy to the action itself. And once Roy is enslaved by Fallon and they return to Bakunda, the bulk of the movie's midsection focuses on Roy being bedridden, while Fallon continually visits the plantation, ostensibly to see Julie but also to taunt Roy over how powerless he 

is to stop him from taking Julie away. Other than when he kills Barrett and Lisa, nothing else truly substantial happens until the third act. Speaking of which, the "climax," such as it is, consists of nothing but Roy, Gilchrist, Thomas, and Simon Peter tracking Fallon and Julie through the jungle, with the drumming from the other villages repeatedly telling the former where their targets are. They try to create some urgency through the notion that they have to reach them before the moon rises, but it doesn't amount to anything, especially since it's not established exactly what role it would play in Julie being turned into a vampire. Finally, Fallon's defeat,

as you've likely gathered from how I've described it, isn't that great, especially since he's not seen onscreen again when he collapses after Roy spears him (though, I would probably say that the climax of the Bela Lugosi Dracula is more disappointing, not because you don't actually see Prof. Van Helsing staking Dracula but because of the utter lack of energy to that scene, which feels much more lethargic than anything here).

It's very obvious that the movie was completely bound to the soundstages and backlot of Republic Studios, and the sets leave a lot to be desired. On a positive note, while it's built on a dusty backlot, Bakunda, surprisingly, isn't the stereotypical old Hollywood image of what an African village would look like (primitive, with grass huts and the like). But, while the interiors of the Vance plantation and Fallon's nightclub do their job (the former reminds me of the kind of condo interiors I like to stay in when I'm on vacation in Florida), they're not much to write home about design-wise. Fallon's room at the club is kind of interesting, with the patterned rugs he has hanging on the walls, but again, they're nothing 

amazing. And the jungle sets? Forget it. They're about as realistic here as they are in any of the Three Stooges shorts with this kind of setting. Again, to be fair, the start of the trek to Malongo is shot outside, on the backlot, which does look kind of nice, and there's barely any stock footage used to establish the location, as would become very common in the 50's. But, after those first couple of shots, it's all clearly stage-bound. The set for the temple in the ancient ruins is similarly threadbare, even with the Kali-esque statue you see in the back and the moody lighting. Like I said up above, the most visually striking scene is the one in the church, which may be small in and of itself, but is lit in a very memorable way.

It's something you just have to expect in a movie from this era, especially one set in Africa, but the depictions of both the land and Africans in general are very much of the un-PC "Dark Continent" variety. The movie actually opens with the credits playing over a shot of a native drumming on a log in front of some huts out in the jungle, and when it begins, with that shot of Africa on a map, Fallon, in his narration, says, "Africa. The dark land where voodoo drums beat in the night, where the jungles are deep and full of secrets, and the moon that lights them is still a mystical moon. Africa. Where men have not forgotten the evil they learned in the dawn of time." While Simon Peter comes off fairly respectively, many of 

the other Africans aren't so lucky, including the one named Taba, who often refers to himself in the third person. As you've already seen, while the village of Bakunda isn't stereotypical, many of the people living there still dress like primitive savages, and in fairly small dwellings, while the Vances and Fallon live in luxury. In fact, you see more Caucasians here than actual Africans! Granted, that's because Bakunda is a port town, but it still feels weird. What's more, while Fallon doesn't do this, the idea of the Vances running a plantation here, with at least one African servant in Simon, is morally questionable, to say the least, as is the presence of a Christian church (maybe this is how

it was in Africa at the time, but it's still a tad uncomfortable to look at). And while he has no black servants, Fallon is preying on them, which you could also see as an even more pointed kind of colonialism. Finally, there are the really primitive tribes strewn throughout the jungle, with the headdresses, nose-rings, beaded necklaces, and the like (it's kind of shocking that those who attack the camp actually have rifles), and who communicate with each other through a code of drumbeats, Aanother village, Malongo, is said to be not only a bad place, but home to a cult that practices witchcraft, not to mention those ancient ruins that once belonged to a cult that worshiped a death god. 

As you'd expect, the depictions of voodoo here are especially outdated and stereotypical. The Africans, in general, are viewed as ignorant and superstitious, with their belief that a vampire is preying on them seen by Father Gilchrist as their "reverting" to, "Voodoo magic, witchcraft, superstition." Speaking of which, throughout the movie, you often hear the sound of voodoo drums beating in the distance, seemingly spreading the rumors about a vampire, as well as eventually identifying it as Fallon and telling Father Gilchrist of Roy's mysterious malaise (how the natives know any of this is not explained at all). And when the natives in all of the villages decide to deal with Fallon themselves, they stick objects like dolls, feathers, and such on the doors of his nightclub as a warning, which is about as cliched as you can get.

Despite the very low budget, there are actually a couple of instances of really good matte paintings and rear-screen projection, specifically in the scenes where Roy takes Fallon up to the mountaintop and you can see both the cloudy night sky and other mountains in the background, and when Fallon and Julie arrive at the ruins and you can see the temple in the distance. But the most impressive bit of effects work in the film is when Simon Peter sees that Fallon's body doesn't cast a reflection in the mirror on the wall behind him. This brief shot is quite startling, not only because you can see Fallon's shirt in a sitting position, with the left arm bent at the elbow, only with his hand and head missing, but he's holding up a cup 

on a saucer, as Simon pours him some coffee. And it's not a static shot or a still frame, as you can see Simon's arm move as he pours the coffee. I'm not sure how they pulled that off, but it's likely the work of a man named Gordon Schaefer, who's uncredited on the film, as he was on just about everything he worked on, but whose specialty, according to IMDB, was "transparency projection shots." Whatever the case, they did a good job with that, as I can't see any outline of the actor, as you sometimes get with these kind of matte shots, such as in James Whale's The Invisible Man. 

I don't have much of anything to say about the music score, which was cobbled together from stock music, likely from other Republic movies, and with no composer listed, just a "musical director." It leaves no impression whatsoever, with no memorable themes, cues, or motifs, which is something I could often say even for the least successful of the Universal movies (whose scores were tended to be a bunch of stock music as well, especially during this period). The only bit of music here that does kind of stick in my head isn't even part of the actual score: it's the constant drumming you hear throughout, and even that, honestly, is just me desperately grasping for something substantial to talk about in this section.

The Vampire's Ghost is a very so-so movie. On the plus side, it does have an acceptable lead performance by John Abbott, some interesting takes on vampire traditions, good moments of cinematography and mood, and some shockingly good instances of visual effects work. However, none of the other characters are compelling, the movie was clearly shot completely in and around the studio, with many of the jungle scenes being an obvious set, there are some pretty un-PC depictions of Africans and voodoo to be found here, the music score is totally forgettable, and the few scenes that are meant to be exciting have no energy to them at all, while the middle portion has little story progression, and the climax is anything but. Since it's less than an hour long, I never found it miserable to sit through, but unless you really love old horror flicks, especially cheapies that were quickly churned out by poverty row studios such as Republic, I would not recommend this..