Grave of the Vampire (1972)

Yawn. Poorly Filmed Snooze Fest.

Lack of good storyline.

Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

This is my second viewing. First time in 2016 and I thought it was better then. It started out great. We have a scene of a grave with tons of fog, eerie music, and the credits. Good stuff. Then the vampire rises. Michael Pataki was a great actor. You will see him as the provoking Klingon in Star Trek Trouble with Tribbles. Where he says "The Enterprise should be hauling garbage." Then "The Enterprise should be hauled as garbage." Without Pataki's performance Tribbles would be a crappy episode. Anyway, Pataki rises from the grave. He is a brutal beast. He attacks a couple who just got engaged and were in the back of their car trying to do their thing. Pataki rips apart the car door, drags out the dude, slams him on top of a grave stone and drains him of his blood, as the girl watches. Then Pataki drags the girl into an open grave and rapes her. This is some serious crazy S***! Pataki then hides in some woman's basement, when she hears some noise and goes to investigate, she is killed. The raped girl is now in a hospital and is interviewed by the cops, and later informed that she is pregnant and that baby is not alive and should be aborted. She refuses and leaves the hospital. Meanwhile, one of the cops goes to the grave yard and is brutally killed by Pataki. The guy gets his head crushed by the grave stone, then gets his blood drained. All good stuff.So, the baby is born, not in a hospital, but in her own home with the help of a friend. Take a look at her friends face when the baby is born. This woman is all smiles, then the smile goes away and the viewer realized, yes there is something wrong here. The girls says "Why is he so gray". Next we find out that the baby is not drinking the milk. When the mother accidently cuts her finger and blood drips on the baby, the baby starts sucking the blood. This is one of the greatest scenes ever. It is a close up of the babies face with red blood dripping it sucking the blood. This is great stuff.If the movie ended here. I would rate it a solid B, B+, 9 stars.But no. We find out that the mother was feeding the baby with her blood and died young. We see the mothers shriveled dead body and the boy is now grown and it's William Smith. Now, Smith is completely miscast as this giant dude. He is pissed off that his mother is dead and wants to find and kill his raping/vampire father. Smith has apparently traveled the world chasing after his father. Next we see him entering a classroom where he makes meets a woman and her roommate. Pataki comes in, and he's the professor. The dialogue here is ok, but the movie is going down hill. Before Pataki comes into the classroom he kills a woman. After the classroom we see Pataki trying to take a book out of a library where the librarian flirts with him but refuses the book. Pataki kills her. All of this is just poor stuff. We then see Smith with the women he met in the classroom in their apartment and what we get is some dancing, some makeout, and we see Smith eats raw meat. Pataki shows up and kills one of the women and leaves her in the shower. Next there is a meeting at Pataki's mansion with 6 of the students. Nobody talks about the murdered woman. Pataki kills all of the students except Smith and one of the first girls. Smith ends up killing Pataki. And that's it. The Freaking End. What a mistake. Apparently this is from a novel and probably the novel had more background info on the vampire, because there was more detail in the movie but it all goes nowhere. Smith is miscast. He's too old for the part. And he's a freaking giant. The women had very little charisma or acting skills. Any atmosphere created in the beginning of the movie was lost after the baby was born. That's when they should have geared up the shock.So, rating is a C for a B movie. 5 stars. Next time I watch this I will shut it off after the baby is born. That movie will not disappoint.

A vampire, Caleb Croft (Michael Pataki), rises from the grave, only to find a young couple making out in the graveyard. He kills the boyfriend and rapes the girlfriend, who becomes pregnant. When the baby is born, it eschews milk for blood. (Like father, like son.) The boy, James, grows up into William Smith, who hates what he is and blames it on his father. James is determined to find Croft and kill him.The first 35 of the film's 90 minutes are prologue. First, the murder and rape are investigated by an oddly credulous police detective. Since the boyfriend's body was drained of blood, he reasons, the killer must be a vampire. Well, sure! What other possible explanation could there be? After Croft murders the detective, the focus switches to Leslie, the rape victim—first her pregnancy, then the raising of her vampire child. Suddenly, it's 30 years later, Leslie has died of old age, and we finally to get to the real story.Despite the large number of vampires murders, there's very little by way of violence. Instead, the film opts for slow-moving scenes of contrived dialogue delivered by a cast so bad, they must have paid to be in the film. The sole exception is Michael Pataki, who makes a fairly imposing vampire. The opening scene, in which Croft opens his coffin and leaves the grave, is genuinely creepy. If only the remaining 85 minutes were even half as watchable.But no. What we have here is typical grindhouse fare: a lame script, horrendous acting, cut-rate sets, ludicrous props, humdrum camera work, a grating (though occasionally effective) score, machete- styled editing, riotously bad sound effects, and one of the most predictable "surprise" endings I've ever seen.Item: At a library, Croft tells a woman she has lovely hair. She replies that she was once a photographer's model. Neither character moves their lips during this exchange.Item: During his showdown with Croft, James is pushed into a fireplace and his back set ablaze. He puts the flames out with a classic stop-drop-and-roll move, then continues to fight as if he's not now covered with third-degree burns. Also, his shirt sustains no fire damage.Item: James defeats Croft in the regular way—by jamming a wooden stake into the vampire's, uh, stomach. It's damned sure not his heart, unless Croft is a Vulcan.Item: At the film's end, James morphs into a vampire. To call William Smith's acting in this scene "histrionic" is a gross understatement. And going by their size, his fangs must have been stolen from a dinosaur museum.I give it three stars out of 10 for Michael Pataki. The film has nothing else going for it.

Grave of the Vampire (1972) *** (out of 4)A young couple leave a party and head to a cemetery where they begin to make out. At the same time Caleb Croft (Michael Pataki) is coming out of his grave. Caleb attacks the couple, killing the man and raping the woman. The woman ends up pregnant and delivers a young child who, you guessed it, needs blood and not milk. Thirty- years later the mom dies but the son, James Eastman (William Smith), goes out looking for his father.John Hayes' GRAVE OF THE VAMPIRE is without question one of the strangest vampire films that you're going to see. The vampire genre delivered countless movies throughout the 1970s and there were some very strange ones ranging from hardcore films like Dracula SUCKS to low-budget weirdos like VAMPIRE HOOKERS. This one here takes its subject very seriously and we've given a bizarre family drama dealing with vampires!Whereas a low-budget often harms films, it actually helps this one because there's no lavish scenes that couldn't be pulled off and instead the director works well with the low-budget and manages to build up an atmosphere that is terrific. The atmosphere of the film is quite wonderful and it's certainly the best thing about the picture. The opening scenes inside the cemetery have fog machines in overdrive and you really do get an eerie sense with the graveyard setting. The second half of the film is quite different but you've still got that atmosphere that leaves you feeling it as the picture moves along.I also thought the story, from David Chase, offers up a lot of twists and turns as far as the vampire myth goes. The film's story isn't a familiar one and I thought the screenplay did a very good job at offer up new ideas as well as a different way to work with the vampires. The performances are another plus and especially with Pataki who is wonderful in the lead role. I thought he managed to be quite menacing as the vampire and he certainly adds to the entertainment. Supporting players were all good as well.GRAVE OF THE VAMPIRE certainly isn't going to be for everyone but fans of the genre will find enough interesting things here to make this worth sitting through, despite Leonard Maltin's BOMB rating.

I wasn't expecting much from this . With a title like GRAVE OF THE VAMPIRE you expect sheer exploitation especially if the synopsis reads " A vampire rises from his grave and attacks a young couple killing the male and raping the female getting her pregnant " and the film almost lives down to expectations when it's revealed " the young couple " look like they're in their late 30s . Honestly if that's what horny teenagers look like no wonder so many British celebrities are being facing historical under age sex charges Strangely and unexpectedly the film doesn't pan out the way you expect it to do . The rape scene itself is rather restrained and actually takes place off screen . The film itself despite have rather poor production values due to a low budget does concentrate on atmosphere . It's also very dead pan as characters reflect on the meaning of life and death and never resorts to gore or camp humour . It's a not great film but is relatively good and better than expected