THE VAMPIRE (1957)
Article #706 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 2-19-2003
Posting date: 7-19-2003
Directed by Paul Landres
Featuring John Beal, Coleen Grey, Kenneth Tobey
A doctor accidentally takes some pills that turn him into a vampiric predator.
Personally, I don’t particularly find the concept of taking a traditional monster and trying to turn him into a science fiction monster to be necessarily interesting, so I didn’t really go into this movie expecting much. However, I ended up really liking this movie; I think it’s very effective, largely because it fleshes out and differentiates the various interesting characters, and the whole thing is quite well acted. In particular, John Beal (in the title role) really projects a sense of the horror of his situation and his desire not to hurt the ones he loves. This compensates a lot for the fact that the monster make-up is pretty lame; fortunately, you really don’t see much of it. The movie doesn’t have much of a reputation; it’s sitting with a 4.1 rating on IMDB, but I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Fantastic Movie Musings and Ramblings 
Hmmm, interesting how the film now has a 5.8 rating on IMDB almost 14 years later…
I wonder if it got better : )
Jaime.
BTW, thank you VERY much for maintaining your older site and leaving even your very oldest reviews here for us to check after all this time! I ALWAYS check your review if it is listed on IMDB.
Thanks! I plan to leave the old site up as long as I can, at least until I can port all of the reviews to the new site. However, the old site is getting old and if it starts giving me trouble, I’ll have to bring it down.