BLOOD OF DRACULA (1957)
Article #54 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 5-9-2001
Posting date: 9-22-2001

A teenage girl is sent away to a girls’ school, where she comes under the control of a science teacher who tries to “save the world” by causing her to turn into a bloodthirsty vampire.

This movie was a part of a set of movies that included I WAS A TEENAGE WEREWOLF and I WAS A TEENAGE FRANKENSTEIN, and it’s surprising it wasn’t called I WAS A TEENAGE VAMPIRE. As it is, it obviously models its plot off of WEREWOLF, but it emphasizes the weaknesses of that movie while losing its strengths; there isn’t a performance here to equal Michael Landon’s, for example. The scientist’s plan to save the world makes no sense whatsoever, there are far too many scenes that have no point and lead nowhere, and the whole girls’ school setup is contrived and unbelievable; this is one movie that I don’t believe for a second of its running time.

It also has an especially lousy musical number, “Puppy Love”; this is why fast forward buttons exist. I don’t know if this song was supposed to be rock ‘n’ roll; if it was, somebody didn’t know what rock ‘n’ roll was. At any rate, I would have been glad if someone had recognized it for the sickening tripe that it was and cut the song from the movie; unfortunately, they would have just had to add some new padding elsewhere. It was not a hit single.