THE INVASION OF THE VAMPIRES (1963)
aka La Invasion de los vampiros
Article 2760 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 11-27-2008
Posting Date: 3-4-2009
Directed by Miguel Morayta
Featuring Ema Martha Bauman, Rafael del Rio, Tito Junco
Country: Mexico

Residents of a hacienda are being terrorized by a vampire called Count Frankenhausen. A student of the occult arrives to take care of the problem.

Like its predecessor, THE BLOODY VAMPIRE, this Mexican horror movie is pretty uneven. On the plus side, it is extremely atmospheric at times, and occasionally makes very effective use of sound. On the minus side, the plot is hard to follow, the dubbing is atrocious, and the bat is pretty silly-looking. Still, it does some interesting things with vampire lore; my favorite touch is that the vampire’s victims don’t rise from the dead and become vampires themselves until the Count’s death, and the result is something like a scenario from NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD. In the final analysis, I think it’s superior to THE BLOODY VAMPIRE, since it does a better job of sustaining its atmosphere; the scenes of the newly-risen vampires wandering around with stakes in their hearts (a failed attempt to destroy them when the local priest doesn’t allow them to burn the bodies) are quite eerie.