The Vampire

JOHN BEAL is the central character as a Dr. Beecher whose daughter inadvertently gives him pills extracted from a control serum for bats. COLEEN GRAY is his pretty nurse and KENNETH TOBEY a Sheriff who begins to suspect there's something wrong about a couple of deaths ruled as heart attacks.

The suspense builds slowly from the very beginning as the credits unfold over the scene of a newspaper boy discovering an ill doctor in an old mansion. As the story progresses, it's easy to see that the script is way above average in the horror department with dialog that's sensible, concise and always on track.

Beal's haggard appearance helps him to be more convincing than usual in the role of the tormented doctor victimized by the wrong pills. Although it's a variation on the vampire theme, there's a trace of Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde in the way the screenplay develops.

Summing up A rational vampire thriller that passes the time quickly and is fun to watch.

John Beal seems genuinely agonized in the title role. He is a well liked small-town doctor, who has got hold accidentally of pills that -- don't ask! -- turn him into a vampire.

This is crisply filmed and Beal shows the pain of a decent man who knows something is wrong and suspects something is very wrong with himself.

I wonder if this was strictly a drive-in movie or if anyone at the time recognized its merits.

This is a movie that I hunted down for quite some time. A small-town doctor accidentally takes some pills developed by one of his patients that turns him into a vampire. He begins picking off the local town folk. While the editing is clumsy, the premise is a novel change from the usual vampire fare. The cast includes veteran actors John Beal, Coleen Gray (The Leech Woman), Dabbs Greer, Herb Vigran (Adventures of Superman), Paul Brinegar (How To Make A Monster) and an uncredited cameo by Louise Lewis (I Was A Teenage Werewolf; Blood Of Dracula). For those of you who don't think 50s films scare you, get ready for the scene following Carol and Paul's date at the restaurant. Believe me, it packs a punch!

Dr. Paul Beecher, a respected small-town physician and all-around nice guy, ingests some mysterious pills given to him by his annoying daughter. It seems the li'l brat has foolishly mistaken them for his migraine medication! After Beecher develops a chemical dependency for the drug, he slowly realizes that he was responsible for a series of bizarre murders committed while he was under the influence of these pills. Apparently, these harmless-looking tablets have the power to make their user mutate into a hairy, bloodthirsty vampire at nightfall, leaving him with no recollection of what he has done after the effects have worn off. How could these pills be so powerful? Easy! Because they contain a chemical extracted from a vampire bat!!

This fun, fast-paced horror flick was made in that classic monster-movie style that we have all come to love, yet at the same time it has some very unique and clever twists. The vampire, who is played excellently by John Beal, really looks nothing like you'd expect. Rather than having the bloodsucker portrayed as the standard well-dressed, intelligent, and graceful DRACULA lookalike, THE VAMPIRE depicts him as a hairy, ugly, clumsy beast who ambles aimlessly after his targets. In my opinion, the interpretation of a vampire as being angry, primitive, and relentlessly brutal is much more frightening than the notion of a slick, attractive, intellectual vamp.

The characters in this film are eccentric, likeable, and very well-acted; and the special effects, although simple and outdated, are surprisingly effective. Despite the fact that THE VAMPIRE's story may contain a few glaring inconsistencies, it still succeeds as a suspenseful yet down-to-earth creature feature.

The film begins with a nice town doctor being called to the lab or a strange chemist who is dying. It seems that the chemist has developed something that he considers important but when the nice doctor arrives, the dying chemist mentions some pills he created and then dies. What these pills are for, the doctor has no idea but he sticks them in his pocket. Later, when the doc has a headache, he accidentally takes one of these pills and it makes him into a blood-sucking monster with really lousy makeup.

While it's obvious that United Artists did not break the bank to make this film, despite its low price tag, it was reasonably interesting and is worth a peek to horror fans. Sophisticated patrons will most likely find the whole thing rather silly, but what sort of sophisticated or snobby viewer would watch a film like this in the first place?