Grave of the Vampire / Seed of Terror (1974)

Grave of the Vampire / Seed of Terror (1974)

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“What’s growing inside your womb isn’t a human being!”

Synopsis:
A half-human vampire (William Smith) seeks revenge on the legendary vampire (Michael Pataki) who raped his mother (Kitty Valacher).

Genres:

Response to Peary’s Review:
Peary seems at least mildly impressed by this “little-known” horror flick, which he refers to as “pretty good” and “unusual in many ways”. However, I’m hard pressed to see exactly how it merits either of these dubious accolades. It starts off on a sour note (vampiric rape in a graveyard – ew!), and never really improves. The performances throughout are uniformly bad (with chiseled Smith in particular lacking charisma):

… and the sloppy script suffers badly from lapses in both coherence and logic. We’re shown little to nothing about Smith’s life as a “half-vampire”, for instance — we know he eats raw steak and drinks Chianti (most cinematic vampires seem conveniently capable of drinking red wine, by the way — perhaps simply because it looks like blood!), but what else goes into his daily existence as a mutant breed? And what’s up with the totally illogical ending? Unless you’re a diehard fan of the vampire genre, you can certainly feel free to skip this one.

Redeeming Qualities and Moments:

  • Some creepy scenes

Must See?
Definitely not.

Links:

One thought on “Grave of the Vampire / Seed of Terror (1974)”

  1. In just about total agreement. Skip it.

    Although…

    It does have one interesting idea: a normal woman giving birth to a vampire. There is one creepy sequence in which the mother notices the child will not drink from her breast. But when she cuts her finger…

    But, as noted in the assessment, very little is developed from that. Or anything else. The film seems to want to be longer and suffers from being under-written. The jumps in logic are maddening. This pic really needed to get a good writer on-board. Much of what’s here is corny (esp. some of the dialogue); a step or two above Ed Wood – but not even as good as Ed at his ‘best’.

    The film is not without sudden surprises…two or three? But you’ll probably be so bored waiting for them that the shocks will pale.

    If I have a ‘fave’, it’s the scene in the library. The librarian tells the main vampire the library is about to close and then, for a reason that defies logic, lets down and brushes her luminous hair seductively before telling the vampire he really must be on his way. It’s a spoiler…but he kills her…for being a tease!

    There’s more than a fair share of bad acting and directing, and the ending is just about laughable.

    This one is designed to be something like the third part of a triple-feature at a good ol’ drive-in theater – where you don’t really care at that point.

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