Vampire Flicks: Grave of the Vampire (Seed of Terror) (1972)

There are a number of memorable and fairly well known vampire movies from the 70's, like the two Count Yorga and Blacula flicks, Werner Herzog's remake of Nosferatu, the 1979 Dracula with Frank Langella, and all of the erotic/lesbian vampire movies, such as Hammer's "Karnstein Trilogy" and Jean Rollin's films. Most of these flicks still can't be considered much more than cult films in the long run, but even by that measure, Grave of the Vampire is quite obscure, despite its public domain status. I know I'd never heard of it until I watched it for this year's October Fest. As I said in the introduction to The Vampire's Ghost, when I decided on this year's theme, I looked up a list of vampire movies on Wikipedia. While I ultimately learned of that movie elsewhere, that list is where I first read this title. The basic plot, about a woman being raped by a vampire and giving birth to his half-undead child (which makes that alternate title of Seed of Terror far more appropriate), sounded rather disturbing for the time, but while I'm usually turned off by that kind of stuff, I can't deny that I was also kind of intrigued and decided to check it out. And, as luck would have it, it happened to be on Tubi (and still is, at the time I'm writing this, though the audio quality there is pretty lousy). I'll say that the first act, revolving around the woman being raped and giving birth to a half-vampire child, whom she allows to feed on her own blood, is quite well done and just as poignant as it is unsettling. But, when it transitions to thirty years later, with the now grown child hunting down his father in order to destroy him, it loses a lot of steam and becomes rather dull for the most part. Michael Pataki gives a fairly entertaining performance as the vampire, and there is some surprisingly progressive screenwriting in regards to the female character, but just about everything and everybody else after that first act is very bland, the very low budget is sometimes clear as day, the climax is okay but nothing special, and the ending is very abrupt and unsatisfying.

California, 1940. Two college sweethearts, Leslie and Paul, separate from a party and head out to the nearby cemetery, the spot where they shared their first kiss. There, he proposes to her, and they begin making out in his car. However, at the same time, a man named Caleb Croft rises from his crypt as a vampire and attacks the young couple, brutally killing Paul and feeding on his blood, before raping Leslie. He then flees the cemetery and takes shelter from the rising sun in a suburban house. Meanwhile, an old homeless drunk named Zack comes across the aftermath of Croft's attack, and Leslie is rushed to the hospital. There, Lieutenant Panzer interviews Zack and asks whether or not the sun was up at the time, and notes how Paul's blood was completely drained, but there was no sign of it at the scene. When he interviews Leslie, having her look through a photo lineup of possible suspects, he slips in a photo of Croft and she has a frightened reaction when she sees it. Panzer tells the disbelieving Sergeant Duffy that Croft was a rapist who, three years earlier, was arrested in Boston and electrocuted to death while escaping through the subway system. His body was shipped to California and buried in the very cemetery where Leslie and Paul were attacked. Eventually, Leslie is discharged, but learns from Dr. Ford that she's pregnant. Though she's overjoyed, believing the baby is Paul's, Ford tells her that the fetus isn't alive or even human, and insists she have an abortion. She refuses and goes home, along with Olga, a woman she met and befriended in the ward. Panzer, intent on finding the killer/rapist, spots Croft on the street and follows him back to the cemetery, only for the vampire to attack and kill him. Months later, Leslie gives birth to a baby boy, but his skin is an unhealthy gray color and he refuses to drink milk. Finding that he has a taste for blood, she begins feeding him her own. Thirty years pass and Leslie dies, while her son, James Eastman, learns the truth of his monstrous parentage and becomes determined to find and destroy his evil father. Tracking him from one country to another, he finds he's returned to California and is teaching a college course in mythology and the occult under the name of Prof. Adrian Lockwood. It turns out that Lockwood, aka Croft, is actually Charles Croydon, a 17th Century English nobleman who, as well as his late, Sarah, were believed to be vampires. Now, Croydon intends to conduct a seance to summon Sarah's spirit and have her possess a new, living body.

Based on an unpublished novel of his called The Still Life, Grave of the Vampire would mark David Chase's first feature film credit, which he would follow up with a successful career writing, producing, and directing for television. He would go on to write episodes of shows like Kolchak: The Night Stalker, The Rockford Files, the 80's revival of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Northern Exposure, and, most notably, he would create and act as the show-runner for The Sopranos. He wouldn't be involved with another feature film until forty years after Grave of the Vampire, when he wrote, produced, and directed 2012's Not Fade Away. In an interview with the Archive of American Television, Chase had this to say about working for Clover Films, the production company behind this flick: "I was there off and on for a year. They’d hire me, and they wouldn’t have anything and they’d fire me and I had to look for work again, and then they’d have a project and I’d go back, or they’d recommend me to somebody else…it was an internship, essentially.” As for the movie itself, he said it, "Was sort of during my knocking-around phase…I was starting to learn how it all actually worked. I think I did visit the set once… I was invited to the screening, and I was aghast, it was really not what I’d written at all." Even so, considering that he came from an abusive childhood, with both of his parents apparently being awful people, particularly his father, you have to think that the movie's central theme must've been very personal for him.

The same goes for the film's director, John Hayes, who's credited with co-writing it with Chase; in fact, Chase said in that same interview that Hayes completely rewrote his initial script. Hayes' career had begun in the 1950's, when received an Oscar nomination for the 1959 short film, The Kiss. His feature directorial debut was 1961's The Grass Eater, which actually starred Rue McClanahan, and he went on to make a number of B- and exploitation movies like Shell Shock, The Farmer's Other Daughter, Sweet Trash, Dream No Evil (also featuring Michael Pataki), and The Cut-Throats. He shot Grave of the Vampire in just eleven days, on a shoestring $50,000 budget. His follow-up was Garden of the Dead, released the same year, and he went on to do other movies like Bust Out, Jailbait Babysitter, and Pleasure Zone, as well as an episode of Tales from the Darkside. He was also an occasional actor, appearing in bit roles in stuff like Disney's The Shaggy D.A. and an episode of Little House on the Prairie! Like Chase, Hayes had a very unhappy childhood, as his parents divorced when he was four, he was raised by his grandmother and uncle, the latter of whom was a drug addict, and his sister, who was raised in a Catholic convent, would be diagnosed with schizophrenia when she entered adulthood. According to Stephen Thrower in his book, Nightmare USA, Hayes, throughout his career, "Returns, time and time again, to the experiences of his childhood, revisiting familial traumas in a variety of settings, from melodrama to horror to hardcore." After directing segments of 1985's adult anthology film, Working Girls, Hayes retired. He died of cancer in 2000, at the age of 70. (I tried, but I could not find a verified image of him.)

During the first act, William Pataki's vampire character, then known as Caleb Croft, is portrayed as nothing but a ravenous, brutish monster who never says a word and brutally attacks anybody he sees, before feeding on them. Upon rising from his grave, he comes across Leslie and Paul as they're making out in the cemetery, and proceeds to rip Paul out of his car (after ripping the door off), toss him around, and smash his back across a headstone, before biting into his neck. He then grabs and drags poor Leslie into an open grave, where he rapes her. After that, with sunrise approaching, he flees the cemetery and takes shelter in a suburban house's basement, later attacking the woman who lives there. He kills her by snapping her neck, then bludgeons her with a garden claw and goes in to feed on her blood. And later, when Lieutenant Panzer follows him to the cemetery and finds his crypt, Croft kills him by slamming the crypt's heavy stone lid down on his head. Thirty years later, Croft is now working as a university professor, teaching a course on folk mythology and the occult under the alias of Prof. Adrian Lockwood. As his son, James Eastman, says, it's merely a way for him to have access to the fresh, young victims he craves. 

Here, Pataki is able to do more with the character than merely sneak around and kill people. When he appears before his class, he has an unmistakable air of snobbish superiority about him, telling those students who couldn't get any seats that they'll have to leave. Once they do, he tells those who remain, "I know that some of you are lawyers, teachers, bored housewives with nothing better to do with their evenings. But with any luck, a few may learn something." He goes on to write his fake surname of Lockwood on the

chalkboard, as if he's teaching a class of elementary students, before proceeding to blow some "goober dust" into the air, explaining its supposed use: "Sprinkle it around your enemy's bed at night, and he will die in his sleep." He then elaborates, "Ground up peanut husks. That's all it is. Can it really kill? No. Not here, with automobiles and electric lights. We could never believe such a thing. But, strip away the light, the automobiles, the antibiotics that keep us one step ahead of death, and we are left with pathetic,

frightened little creatures, wandering in a cruel and hostile world. So we fear the 'gods,' 'demons,' 'devils,' bats, banshees, angels..." James adds, "Vampires?", and Lockwood answers, "Yes, as a matter of fact... It is those answers, answers born out of fear, that we are here to study." He then wonders if there are so many people in his classroom that night because, "Like primitive man, you're still filled with fear? With a nameless dread you cannot shake?" The irony that this is being taught by a real vampire is mixed in with his obvious contempt for the modern world, as well as

mankind in general, especially since, before he came to class, he killed a streetwalker who made a pass at him. We also get an idea of how he views himself in relation to man. When one student, Anita Jacoby, admits that she fears death, Lockwood says, "Death has been the chief dread, the one obsessive preoccupation of man since he first crawled from the caves. Of all the animals, only man is aware that, as surely as he was born, he will some day die. The individual who can inflict death has the complete respect of the other man. They are in awe of him."

Early on, little was revealed about Croft other than he was a murderer and rapist who was arrested in Boston in the late 30's, fled from the police, and was electrocuted to death when they chased him into a subway tunnel, with no explanation as to why he rose from his crypt as a vampire. But, during this scene in the classroom, it's revealed that he's actually Charles Croydon, a nobleman in 17th Century England who, along with his wife, Sarah, was also a vampire. The two of them were hunted by the church and fled to

America, settling in Massachusetts. Croydon proceeded to commit a number of hideous murders near Salem, but has been in continual hiding ever since Sarah was burned at the stake in 1846. It seems as though she was the one person he truly cared about and he misses her, as when he's first seen in the second act, he says her name out loud in a melancholic tone. During his first class, he tells the students, "Death is also very beautiful. Some loved ones we have seen in death never looked more peaceful, more serene." And during the climax, he 

conducts a seance at his lavish mansion, with a select group of students he feels are best able to "submit to suggestion." His intention is to summon Sarah's spirit and have her possess one specific student, Anne Arthur, who feels is the most susceptible, and also bares a resemblance to her. However, things go awry and Lockwood's true identity as Charles Croydon, alias Caleb Croft, is revealed to everyone. He proceeds to kill all the other students and is then attacked by James, who eventually reveals that he's Croydon's son.

Pataki really is the best thing the movie has going for it. He delivers his lines and soliloquies with great relish and passion, and also manages to come off as pretty feral and even intimidating when he goes into full on vampire mode, with the way he looks with his fangs, the brutal ways in which he kills people, and how voracious he is when feeding on their blood. One of his best moments is when he attempts to check out The Mysteries of New England, a rare book that suggests Charles Croydon and Caleb Croft are the 

same person, from the Los Angeles Public Library. The librarian, Miss Fenwick, tells him it's for reference only, but when he insists that he needs it for an upcoming lecture, she acts as though she's going to make an exception. But then, it turns out she was merely coming on to him, and when he realizes this, he becomes enraged and violently strangles her, before baring his fangs and going in for the bite. Intent on not being used like that again, when Anita Jacoby reveals that she knows who he is and asks to be turned into a vampire, Lockwood feigns 

compliance, but instead slashes her throat with a knife when she lets her guard down. He puts her body in the shower, where Anne later finds her. And he manages to be quite formidable in the fight scenes, proving adept at throwing punches and wrestling with people, kind of like Mamuwalde in both of the Blacula movies.

When you first see Croft when he rises from his crypt at the beginning, he's still badly fried from being electrocuted in Boston, with his flesh looking like a mass of scar tissue, and his suit burned and ripped in spots. Seeing as how he was in that crypt for three years before he resurrected, and it tales a while for him to finally emerge, as he seems to be struggling to do so during the opening credits, it suggests the electrocution did quite a number on him. However, it didn't rob him of his inhuman strength, as he manages

to rip off one of Paul's car doors, toss him around the graveyard, lift him up over his head, and break his back over a headstone. And when Lieutenant Panzer spots him some time later, after Leslie has come home from the hospital, Croft has clearly regenerated and looks like a normal man, likely a result of his feeding on various people's blood. As far as the other vampire traditions go, Croft does seem susceptible to sunlight, as he flees the cemetery and takes refuge in a house before dawn breaks. He even goes as far as to cover 

himself with a blanket in the basement, suggesting he needs extra protection from the light. Also, James does kill him at the end of the movie by staking him, which they mention in class as being the "only" way to kill a vampire. After he's staked, his body does wither and seem to age drastically, looking akin to how he did at the beginning. And, not only do bullets do nothing but, in a moment similar to Son of Dracula, when he's shot during the climax, they go right through him and out his back, shattering a vase behind him. Shockingly, he never turns anyone else 

into a vampire, with the sole exception being James' conception. It's also suggested by Anita Jacoby that becoming a vampire is something that happens gradually over time, by ingesting bits of another vampire's tainted blood, rather than taking effect immediately after being bitten or being killed by one. Croft also never turns into a bat or a wolf, but when his vampire side comes out fully, it looks as though he has sharp teeth everywhere in his mouth, rather than just his incisors. He does have the power of hypnosis, as he uses it in his seance, to force Anita's soul out of

Anne's body, and to make Anne faint at one point during the climax. Speaking of which, he's also able to summon the spirits of the dead and have them possess a living body. Finally, there seems to be some kind of connection between him and his son, as he appears to sense when James is having sex with Anne and, in turn, goes to her apartment. And the movie ends with him exerting some kind of evil influence on James before he dies from being staked.

Leslie Hollander (Kitty Vallacher), Croft's unwilling concubine, is a pitiable character from start to finish. One night in 1940, she and her boyfriend, Paul, leave a party and head out to a nearby cemetery, where they had their first kiss. He proposes to her, using his grandmother's ring, she happily accepts, and the two of them start making out in the backseat of Paul's car. However, that's when Croft rises from his crypt nearby, spots them, and attacks. After he kills Paul in front of her, Croft drags Leslie into an open grave and rapes her beside the coffin. Upon being brought to the hospital afterward, she's initially catatonic and badly bruised, and when Lt. Panzer has her look through a photo lineup and she sees Croft's photo, she has a low-key but still very frightened reaction. She continues to suffer from the aftereffects of the assault for a long time, and then, on the day she's discharged, Dr. Ford tells her that she's pregnant. Believing it's Paul's child, Leslie is elated at the news, but is then shocked when the doctor suggests she have an abortion, as the fetus isn't human and may be a parasite that's feeding on her. Because both of her parents are dead, as is Paul, she likely feels  as though this baby is all she has left and refuses to believe what Ford says. It also doesn't help that she's been influenced by her new friend, Olga, who doesn't trust doctors. Leslie tells Ford, "My mother used to bring me here. All those old people in the waiting room? None of them ever got better." He tries to tell her she's wrong but she has none of it, telling him, "You won't touch my baby. It'll be born healthy, and you won't even be there... I know what you're gonna try to do, and I'm not gonna let you!"

Leslie heads home with Olga and, months later, with her help, gives birth to a baby boy. Like Olga, she's initially taken aback when she sees his unhealthy gray skin color, but still refuses to involve Dr. Ford, determined to cure whatever is wrong with her son herself. Even when the baby refuses to drink milk, Leslie won't call the hospital. While trying to get him to breastfeed, she accidentally cuts her finger and sees how he licks the blood that drips down around his mouth. She then deliberately cuts herself on her chest

with a knife and allows him to feed from that. She proceeds to sing a little lullaby, as you see a montage depicting how she repeatedly feeds her son her own blood as the years go by (including by drawing it with a syringe and draining it into a bottle), making for an effectively haunting sequence and a morbid twist on something that is usually soft and tender. She also appears to have shook off her denial and comprehends what it all means at that very moment, as there are tears in her eyes when she begins singing, but her maternal instinct and love for her child doesn't falter. The last glimpse we get of Leslie is when she's lying in a coffin, as James says she literally gave him her life.

Olga (Lieux Dressler) is a woman who happens to be Leslie's roommate at the hospital. From the beginning, she looks out for her, protesting when Lt. Panzer and Sgt. Duffy make her look through a photo lineup the day after she was raped, and comforts her when she's tossing and turning in her bed that night. When it's time for Leslie to be discharged, Olga is right there with her, helping her get dressed. However, as well-meaning as she is, she also inadvertently influences Leslie not to listen to Dr. Ford, telling her, "Doctors pretend like they know everything: pills, needles, talk. And the people whither away." Leslie insists the medication is helping her but Olga retorts, "They help you forget you're alive." She's initially hesitant to leave Leslie alone with Ford, and when she convinces her to, on her way out, she sneers at Ford, "My husband died from pills." When Leslie becomes upset with Ford and refuses to listen to him about the baby, Olga is more than happy to do as she asks and take her away. When the time comes, she helps Leslie deliver the baby, but when she sees his unnatural, gray color, she begins to realize Ford may have been right. She even suggests that they call him, but Leslie refuses and continues to even when the baby won't take milk. She's very disturbed when Leslie cuts herself to let the baby feed on her blood, but appears to stay with her for a while. However, by the time Leslie's son is grown up, Olga, for one reason or another, is out of the picture completely.

Lieutenant Panzer (Eric Mason) immediately suspects that not only is the man who attacked Leslie and Paul the deceased Caleb Croft, but that Croft resurrected as a vampire. When interviewing Old Zack, who stumbled across the aftermath of the scene in the cemetery, he asks if the sun was up yet when he saw the perpetrator fleeing the scene, and notes that Paul's body was drained of blood but none of it was found at the scene. To prove his point, when he talks with Leslie, he slips in a picture of Croft among the photo

lineup she looks at, getting a very frightened reaction from her when she sees it. Panzer then tells the skeptical Sergeant Duffy (William Guhl) that Croft was the very man whose body is now missing from the crypt, explaining who he was and how he ended up there. Duffy, however, continues to look for a rational explanation, first suggesting that Zack may be the murderer and rapist, and that Paul was killed elsewhere to explain why there was no blood at the crime scene. He also suggests that Paul may have committed the rape himself and Leslie is covering up for him. He warns Panzer that he could lose his job and ruin his reputation if he continues going on with this theory (notably, he mentions Bela Lugosi while deriding it). Though Panzer tells Duffy he's convinced him, Duffy retorts, "Like hell I have." And, sure enough, Panzer meets Leslie when she returns home with Olga, assuring her that he'll find the perpetrator. But if you think he's going to become a Van Helsing surrogate, think again. Right after he tells Leslie that, he spots Croft at the end of the street and follows him to the cemetery, where he becomes the vampire's next victim.

Old Zack (Jay Adler) is a jittery, homeless drunk who happened to be sleeping outside the cemetery's rear gate when Leslie and Paul were attacked. Freaked out by the aftermath he stumbled across, and very shaky because he hasn't had a drink in a while, Panzer forces him to explain what happened once more. He says that Leslie's screams woke him up, and after being awakened by the coming dawn, wandered into the cemetery to find Paul dead, Croft fleeing the scene, and Leslie down in the open grave. When Panzer asks if the sun had completely risen by that point, Zack says he was too horrified to notice. He's then allowed to go, with Panzer giving him some money so he can go get a drink to calm his nerves. On his way out, he says, "I'll be down by Bible mission, too. And, no more... more cemetery for me."

When William Smith is first introduced as the now grown James Eastman, he says in a voiceover, "My mother found it difficult to tell me that I wasn't like other children. I could never share a life with whole human beings. I slowly learned that the thing that raped my mother and fathered me was no living, feeling man, but a malignant force, a cancer that refused to be destroyed. It wasn't only her blood my mother gave to keep me alive; her youth and her own life was sucked up into the syringe that fed me. I came to hate Caleb Croft for creating me in his image, and for using my mother as a spawning ground for his evil. I'm determined to destroy him." That's about the most profound bit of acting he gives here; otherwise, Smith, who could be charismatic and entertaining, is almost completely monotone and emotionless. You could argue that it fits with the character's melancholic nature but, by the same token, I could argue that James being half-vampire explains why, even though he's supposed to be thirty, he looks closer to forty, as Smith himself was when he made this film. In any case, he enrolls in the folk mythology class that Croft teaches under the guise of Prof. Adrian Lockwood, clearly knowing who he is when he first sees him. When he's going on his diatribe about the fears and superstitions of man, James brings up the topic of vampires, clearly to see how Lockwood would react to it. He goes on to talk about Charles Croydon, telling the class the details of his history and how he was never burned at the stake like his wife. He and Lockwood then have a back and forth, where James challenges the idea of a vampire like "Croydon" truly being all powerful: "Why must he hide, a vampire with all the awesome, terrible power of Satan, all the Black Arts at his command? Why must he be forced to scurry like a frightened rat?" "But as a vampire, what choice would he have? He would have to protect himself against the anger of righteous people." "You would think the man's personality would compel him to stand up, to terrify all the puny mortals around him. And not to hide in dark holes, behind assumed names... like Caleb Croft."

Later, Anita Jacoby, whom James met in class, invites him to a party she throws in the apartment she shares with Anne Arthur. When he arrives, she kind of comes on to him and tries to get him to dance, but he's too awkward to go for it. Thus, she instead shows him a copy of the book where the author hypothesizes that Charles Croydon and Caleb Croft are the same person, and says she feels James may know more than he's letting on. He tells her that he can't help her, and when he continues to turn down her advances, she

pawns him off on Anne. The two of them go up to James' apartment on the floor above, where Anne intends to cook some food she bought; instead, James decides to have a bottle of Chianti she brought. When Anne sees a partially-eaten piece of raw meat on the stove, he doesn't try to front, and admits that he was the one eating it. That doesn't stop the two of them from getting together and making love, something Lockwood is seemingly able to sense from nearby. By the time James walks Anne back down to her and

Anita's apartment, Lockwood has murdered Anita, whose body Anne finds in the shower. Lockwood himself appears to her, but flees, as James comes rushing to her rescue. The next night, James uses his own power to see to it that things go awry during Lockwood's seance and his attempt to revive Sarah Croydon's spirit. The end result is Lockwood being unmasked as Charles Croydon to everyone present, and after he gets Anne to safety upstairs, James confronts and battles his evil father. During the fight, he has to save Anne again when Lockwood heads

upstairs to finish her off. He eventually tells Lockwood who he is, which surprises but also delights and amuses the vampire. James proclaims that he's going to destroy him, and after another brutal fight, manages to stake him. However, before he does, Lockwood snarls, "Be damned!", and after he dies, the meaning behind his words becomes clear.

I don't know if he's the very first, but James has to be one of the first human/vampire hybrids, or dhampirs, that have appeared in modern fiction (this movie was released just a year before Blade, arguably the most famous example, first appeared in the comics), especially in movies. Since this was back when vampires were still typically depicted as undead, those traits existed in James from the moment he was conceived, given how Dr. Ford tells Leslie that her unborn child isn't even alive, let alone human, and is

more like a parasite that's feeding on her body. This continues when he's born and both Leslie and Olga note his unhealthy, pale skin color, and later find he has more of a taste for blood rather than milk. That latter aspect continues into his adulthood, with his hesitancy to join Anne in eating some spaghetti (due to an aversion to garlic, perhaps?), and her discovery that he's been eating raw meat. We also get a little bit insight into James' struggles in life through the montage leading up to when he's an adult and his

voiceover (though not as much as you'd hope, as I'll elaborate on). Like most half-breeds, he's able to walk around in the daytime, and has superhuman strength, which comes in handy in his fight with his father during the climax. And, like his father, he's able to summon spirits, as he does in order to throw a monkey wrench into Lockwood's seance.

James meets two noteworthy women in Lockwood's class. One is Anita Jacoby (Diane Holden), who not only shows interest in him as soon as she sees him, but is also interested in both Caleb Croft and Charles Croydon. When James brings up Croft during his and Lockwood's back and forth, Anita interjects with an explanation of who Croft was and mentions the book, The Mysteries of New England, which links Croft to Croydon (and unknowingly prompts Lockwood to seek it out). Upon inviting James to the party she throws at her apartment, she talks with him, showing him her own copy of the book, and notes that he seems to know more than he's letting on. She then adds, "Or Prof. Lockwood knows more. Or you know something about each other." However, despite her interest in him, saying she's attracted by how "unobtainable" he is, comparing him to the suspected vampires, Anita is gently rebuffed by James, who says he can't help her. Thus, she pawns him off onto her roommate, Anne Arthur, who mentions that she learned Lockwood once had a wife named Sarah, who's now deceased. This rings a bell in Anita's head, as she remembers that Croydon's wife, who was burned at the stake, was also named Sarah, and determines that Lockwood is Croydon's latest alias (yeah, because there's never been another woman named Sarah in the hundreds of years since; granted, she later says that the book's author described Croydon in detail but, again, the name "Sarah" is what triggers her to make the connection). When Lockwood shows up at her apartment late that night, searching for Anne, Anita not only lets him know that she's figured out his true identity, but that she wants him to make her into a vampire so she can be his new bride. Though she doesn't say why, her mentioning death in class when Lockwood suggested that each of his students have their own irrational fears makes for an obvious answer. Unfortunately for her, Lockwood only feigns compliance, and slashes her throat when she lets her guard down.

Like Anita, Anne Arthur (Lyn Peters), who's also a teacher, of English literature, is immediately intrigued by James, as well as by Lockwood. She sees him after class to compliment him on how he's able to hold his students' attention, and he, in turn, admits that, at first glance, she reminded him of Sarah. She comes close to falling under his influence in this scene, though he does allow her to leave. When she returns to her and Anita's apartment, she's not happy to see the party going on, as she's not in the mood. Anita then sends her upstairs with James to his apartment, where she intends to make the spaghetti she bought. There, while she is rather perplexed and a bit unsettled to find that he's been eating a raw piece of meat, she still decides to go for it and the two of them end up having sex. Afterward, Anne returns to her apartment and takes a shower, only to find Anita's body in there. She's then confronted by Lockwood, in full vampire form, but he flees the premises, while James, hearing Anne, comes running to the rescue. Despite this, she and James accompany some of the other students to Lockwood's mansion to attend a seance. Lockwood reveals that he intends for Anne to be the medium, as she's the one who's most susceptible to suggestion. He turns out to be right, as she does become possessed, but not by the spirit of Sarah Croydon, as he intended; instead, it's Anita's spirit, whom James summoned, and who reveals to everyone there that Lockwood is both Charles Croydon and Caleb Croft. Lockwood tries to use influence to make Anne expel Anita's spirit, but she warns Anne and the others that he'll kill them all. Ultimately, he is able to force Anne to cast Anita out, and she collapses to the floor. She's taken upstairs and, during the fight between James and Lockwood, passes out again when the latter shows up outside the room. She only reawakens after James has killed Lockwood.

The low budget is very clear in many respects, especially in the movie's visual style. Even when you watch a really good print, it's still pretty drab-looking and muted in its color palette, with some scenes looking very faded and showing possible print damage. However, that aside, the direction and cinematography do have some skill behind them. The opening in the cemetery is fairly atmospheric, with the credits themselves appearing over a slow push-in towards and then pan around Caleb Croft's crypt, as you hear eerie, unnatural sounds like a beating heart 

and low seething, portending his imminent resurrection. Both that scene and the one where Lieutenant Panzer is killed have a classic, spooky, Gothic look and feel, with the constant fog and the darkness from the nighttime photography. Speaking of which, there really aren't any day-for-night sequences here (save for when Croft flees the cemetery, but the sun is meant to be rising there), which is a big plus, and the cinematography makes good use of blackness and shadows in many scenes, such as when Croft attacks and kills the woman 

whose house he takes refuge in, when he kills the streetwalker who tries to pick him up, Anne Arthur sees him alone in his dark classroom, parts of the scene in the Los Angeles Public Library, and the seance before the climax. There's some good camerawork as well, like how, in the woman's basement, the camera shows Croft in a distant shot, then pans over to her as she comes down the stairs, and pans back with her as she walks over to same spot, only for Croft to now be gone. Moreover, the 

way Croft suddenly appears next to her, when the lights go out and she strikes a match in order to see, is a well done shock. But the most startling bit of camerawork is when Croft kills Miss Fenwick, the librarian, as you get a big close up of his face and mouth, his fangs bared as he comes right at the camera. And as I said, the sequence that begins with Leslie feeding her infant son her own blood, and the ensuing montage showing the passage of time, is 

effective, coming off as both sad and unnerving (the song she sings, and how she sings it, give off definite Rosemary's Baby vibes). It's also eerie how all you ever see of the baby is the close-up of his mouth when Leslie's cut finger drips blood around it, and when he's a little boy, watching other kids at a playground and later at a baseball field, you only see him from the back and in virtual silhouette. This motif continues when you first see him as an adult, when he's kneeling by his mother's open casket, and when he walks into the university, as the first look you get of his face is when he sits down in Lockwood's classroom.

However, that montage is the one instance where the movie actually does make it clear that quite a bit of time has passed, something it fails to do so twice during the first act. Even though Leslie was obviously discharged from the hospital quite a while after she was attacked, as Dr. Ford then discovers that she's pregnant, it simply cuts from the scene where Croft kills the woman in the basement to Olga helping Leslie get dressed when she's going home, with no dissolves or captions indicating that a lot of time has passed, as if it didn't happen too long afterward. The 

same thing happens when Leslie comes home to have her baby: after Lt. Panzer speaks with her when she arrives, and then spots and follows Croft to the cemetery, where he's killed, it then cuts from his death to Leslie giving birth, as if it's all happened that very same night. 

Touching on the cemetery once more, it's one of the few truly noteworthy settings in the movie due to its atmosphere, and the same goes for that woman's creepy, dark basement. The only other noteworthy one is Prof. Lockwood's big, opulent mansion, where the climax is set. You get to see how fancy and elegant it is on the outside, with the patio, columns, and statues, while inside, there's a big, dark foyer, an equally dark sitting room where the seance is performed, an upstairs room behind a steel door that seems to be where he keeps his coffin, a small 

bedroom up there where James takes Anne for her safety, and, on the second floor landing, a section behind some stained glass, where James throws Lockwood during their fight (the mansion has a third floor, but we never see it). Otherwise, the settings, like the hospital, the home Leslie shares with Olga, the university and Lockwood's classroom, and the apartments where James, Anita, and Anne live, are all pretty standard and not much to write home about. Granted, that's likely the point, but that still means 

there's little to say about them. Moreover, even though the first act is supposed to take place in 1940, there's little to indicate it, save for some old-fashioned cars and how someone is seen listening to the radio rather than watching TV. Lt. Panzer and Sgt. Duffy both look and dress like guys from the early 70's, and that hospital looks and feels awfully modern, as do the medical procedures they seem to be practicing. When it cuts to thirty years later, though, there

is no question that we're now meant to be in the early 70's, especially in that party scene, when you see what everyone's wearing, their hairstyles, and the dance moves they're doing (I have to say, though, that dancing is really lethargic).

Though it's unlikely to ever be viewed as a major genre classic (mainly because it's not), Grave of the Vampire has received some retroactive recognition for how its female characters are depicted (which is possibly due to David Chase's hand in the screenwriting). At the beginning, you have Leslie refusing to allow herself to be pressured into having an abortion, something that a lot of young, wedlock mothers of the time period had to deal with. Granted, she's deluded and thinks the infant is Paul's, leading her to rationalize that, therefore, there couldn't be

wrong with it, while Dr. Ford is correct in his insistence that she's pregnant with something out of the ordinary, but the way Leslie stands up to him is quite daring, both for the time this scene is set and when the film was made. What's more, even though she sees her baby boy's unhealthy skin color, and despite how he won't nurse from her, she still refuses to involve the doctors, to the point where she literally feeds him with her own blood, literally giving her life so he can live. While it's not said outright, the character of Olga, despite saying she once had a 

husband, is alluded to possibly being a lesbian, due to her interest in Leslie. I've also read that her distrust of doctors could possibly come from having suffered abuse at their hands, perhaps from their trying to "treat" her lesbianism. And, even though their roles ultimately don't amount to much, Anita and Anne are still depicted in an unusual fashion for women in a horror film at the time. Though Anita seems as though she may become James' love interest, that not only doesn't happen, but when she realizes that Prof. 

Lockwood is Charles Croydon, instead of becoming frightened, she demands that he make her into a vampire so she won't have to fear death anymore. And even after he kills her instead, she manages to help James foil his plan to conjure Sarah Croydon's spirit and have her possess Anne during the seance by doing so herself, outing him as a vampire to everyone before he manages to drive her out. As for Anne, after Anita pawns James off on her after she fails to get 

with him, she not only succeeds but is the one who takes charge and initiates the sex the two of them have. And despite finding Anita's body and being horrified at the time, needing James to rush to her rescue, the next time we see her, she's quite calm, chocking it up to "British fortitude." Granted, you could also say that's a case of bad acting and direction, as none of the other students are broken up about what happened to Anita, but it's still a shame that, during the third act and climax, Anne does become a typical screaming and fainting damsel.

As I said in the introduction, the movie starts off strong, with the atmospheric scenes in the cemetery, the horrific setup of Leslie watching Croft kill her boyfriend before raping and impregnating her, and her intending to have her baby and see to his needs, no matter what. But, it then not only shifts gears but badly falters when it jumps ahead thirty years, to when James is now an adult. First, while there's a lot of potential in exploring how he grew up as a human/vampire hybrid, never able to have a relationship with others or even play with normal kids, all while his 

mother tried to protect him from the truth, it's almost completely wasted; all we get are the briefest of glimpses and hints in that montage, as well as James' voiceover laying it all out for us. I've heard some say the problem is that the movie's short running time, at just 90 minutes, doesn't allow for it to really delve into those details. However, while it probably could've used a little more time, I would argue that Hammer's The Curse of the Werewolf, which has a similar basic plot, about a child who had an unnatural conception resulting from a rape and is cursed to be a 

monster as a result, manages to get quite a lot out of the sadness and tragedy of his childhood, despite its being about the same length. But, as I said earlier, the major problem with the second and third acts is that, aside from Michael Pataki's performance, it's rather dull, with William Smith's uninteresting lead performance, the supporting characters, including Anita and Anne, not amounting to much, despite how unorthodox they are, and a sluggish pace that's only broken up by some fairly brutal deaths here and 

there. And the climax following the seance is a just so-so fight between James and Lockwood. To be sure, there are fine bits of stunt-work and fight choreography, with the two of them rushing at and throwing each other around, and trading blows; James getting knocked into the fireplace, setting the back of his suit jacket on fire for an extended period, as he stumbles around, trying to smother the flames; some moments where they grapple and struggle with each other, with Lockwood grabbing at James' face and

trying to force his mouth open; Lockwood throwing James over a section of stair railing; and James beating Lockwood with a chain, which he then ties around his throat to choke him, and drags him down the second floor landing, before finishing him off by staking him with a broken table leg and sending him tumbling down the stairs.

Then comes the ending, where James walks down to Lockwood's body and stands over him, only to suddenly be wracked with pain, yelling as he grabs at his collar and then his head (some of Smith's yells sound more funny than anguished). When Anne finally awakens and heads downstairs to see if he's alright, James yells at her to get away, and it becomes clear why, as he suddenly becomes a full-on vampire, with fangs and the like. Horrified, Anne runs away, as James stands up and slowly comes up the stairs, the movie suddenly ending on a close-up of his face

(which also looks more silly than it does scary), before cutting to a title card that reads, "Fin. Ou peut-être pas?..." No translation for this French text is given, but I've read that it means, "The End. Or perhaps not?" Who knows why they decided to end it that way (when I watched this on Tubi, I wondered if I'd been watching a French version with the subtitles turned off the whole time), but, regardless, this abrupt ending reminds of the Count Yorga movies, both of which end with Count Yorga himself defeated, only 

to reveal, at the last minute, that one of your protagonists is now a vampire. It also makes me think of Scream, Blacula, Scream, which also ends very suddenly (and before Blacula is definitively defeated). Gotta say, I'm not a fan of it there, so I definitely don't like it here, and since there was no follow-up to this, there's no real resolution.

One thing's for sure: if you like your vampire movies violent and bloody, Grave of the Vampire, despite being rated PG, does give it to you. In fact, it's one of the more gruesome vampire movies made around that time, even giving the R-rated Scars of Dracula and Dracula A.D. 1972 a run for their money. In the first act alone, before he rapes Leslie, Croft smashes Paul's body over a tombstone (the action itself, which was done in reverse, doesn't come off the greatest) and then violently bites into his neck; drags the one woman down the basement steps by 

her hair, breaks her neck with a loud crack, and uses a garden claw to slice up her face before he feeds on her blood, and smashes Lt. Panzer's head under his crypt's stone lid (which appears to have hinges), before ripping the front of his suit open and feeding. A lot of this violence is implied rather than shown full-on, but it's still quite brutal for the time. You also get graphic shots of Leslie's bleeding finger, the blood dropping around her baby's mouth, her cutting herself near her breast, and taking blood out of her arm via a 

syringe (which looks uncomfortably real) and using it to fill up a baby bottle! When we get back to Croft, now as Prof. Lockwood, we see him kill that streetwalker, who tries to defend herself with a broken bottle, by forcing her down to the ground, grabbing the hand wielding the bottle, and stabbing her with it, before he feeds on her. He kills Miss Fenwick by violently grabbing her by the throat and going in for the bite, and, again, actually slits Anita's throat with a knife, with Anne later finding 

her body in the shower (which kind of reminds me of that popular image from David Cronenberg's Rabid). And after the seance, Lockwood breaks one guy's neck, smashes the back of another's head against the wall, and kills the two women by biting their necks and feeding on them. Finally, Lockwood himself is staked with a ripped off table leg, which breaks in half when he tries to pull it out.

The music score was by Bolivian-American composer, Jaime Mendoza-Nava, who not only worked with director John Hayes before but also did the music for movies like Equinox, The Legend of Boggy Creek, and The Town That Dreaded Sundown. Unfortunately, I can't recall any of his music for those movies, and that also extends to Grave of the Vampire. I vaguely some of his music for scenes like when Lockwood attacks Miss Fenwick and his and James' fight, but the only piece of music I truly remember is Leslie's lullaby to her baby: "When you wake/You shall have/All the pretty little horses/Dapples and Grays/Pintos and Bayes/All the pretty little horses." An orchestration proceeds to accompany her singing, continuing through the ensuing montage, and as I've said, it makes for one of the movie's most effective moments.

Grave of the Vampire is a very mixed bag, and while it does certainly have its strong points, most of them are in the first thirty minutes or so. The first act is very strong on nearly all counts, with the shocking and brutal setup, the atmospheric setting of the cemetery monstrous depiction of Caleb Croft, the poignant portrayal of Leslie Hollander, and the very unsettling, yet poignant scene where she lets her baby feed on her own blood, leading into a similarly effective montage. Also, overall, there are other good points like Michael Pataki's performance, well done instances of direction and cinematography, the violent and very bloody deaths, the atypical manner in which the female characters are portrayed, and some fine stunts and bits of fight choreography during the climax. But, when the movie shifts forward thirty years after the first act, it weakens, as William Smith's lead performance isn't very interesting, the other supporting characters aren't much to write home about, it squanders what could've been a nicely dramatic and emotional look at James' childhood as a half-vampire, the low budget does become clear at points, the music score leaves no impression, the second and third acts are just dull, and the ending is sudden and very unfulfilling. Despite how titillating some of its pros may seem to you, I'd only recommend this if you're a real diehard vampire lover.