The Return of the Vampire

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Ted B 3.0 stars; Probably a 2 star movie.. Butch, I gave it extra credit for being original and creative in a 1944 movie environment. Imagine, using Germany bombing London às a means to open the vampires grave for a second chance at terrorizing the countryside. And then having his sidekick being a werewolf.. Who thinks up this stuff?. Somebody must put in some overtime to come up with these plot twists... Well. I do bring a little bias to these things, as I was such a midnight Shock Theater back when I was a kid. Rated 3/5 Stars •  Rated 3 out of 5 stars 09/26/23 Full Review CodyZamboni Solid, old school horror, that was not produced by Universal. Bela Lugosi plays Armand Telsa, who could be Dracula's twin brother. Effective use of eeire shadows and fog to enhance the spooky mood. Props to the filmmakers to feature a strong woman in the lead role. Supporting cast standout, Nina Foch, is so attractive, especially in the many scenes where she is clad only in nightgowns, Rated 3.5/5 Stars •  Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 09/25/23 Full Review Audience Member This isn't an official sequel to the 1931 Universal Studios film Dracula but it really feels like it, except that Lugosi's name is Armand Tesla and this is made by Columbia. This would be the actor's last major studio movie. Lady Jane Ainsley (Frieda Inescort) is stalked by Tesla twice, once during the first World War and again during the second. The first time they crossed paths, she ended up staking him and freeing Andréas, a werewolf, from his curse. He becomes her assistant and his makeup would go on to be used again in 1956's The Werewolf. Twenty four years later, during the blitz, some cemetery workers find the body of Tesla and remove the stake from his heart, thinking that it's shrapnel. Now Tesla walks the Earth again, with Andréas back in thrall, taking the name of Hugo Bruckner, a scientist who has escaped from a concentration camp and is coming to work with Ainsley. Meanwhile, Sir Fredrick Fleet of Scotland Yard believes that Ainsley is a murderer and that there's no way there can be a vampire. Director Lew Landers also made 175 other movies, with probably The Raven being his best-known film. It's pretty wild that Columbia did everything they could to make their own Dracula movie. Universal did threaten to sue, as they had the Lon Chaney Jr.-starring Son of Dracula coming out. If you think you may have seen this before, it is the movie playing in Iron Maiden's video for "Number of the Beast." Rated 2.5/5 Stars •  Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars 02/06/23 Full Review joe m Passable, but not the best of the vampire genre. Rated 2/5 Stars •  Rated 2 out of 5 stars 03/30/23 Full Review Audience Member When a vampire's body is unearthed by a bombing raid on London during WWII, his stake is removed and he rises from the dead. With the help of his werewolf henchman, seeks revenge on the woman who staked him two decades earlier. Since Universal owned the rights to the Dracula franchise, Columbia had to make several changes to the story. The fact that the movie takes place in contemporary England, and that the vampire's assistant is a werewolf, are the only new twists in this movie, which in all other respects is a typical vampire movie from the golden age of monsters. Bela Lugosi delivers his lines with his usual flair. Althought he only played a vampire two other times on film - in the original Dracula and in the Abbott and Costello movie - he slips smoothly into the role he made famous. Nina Foch, cast as the requisite damsel in distress, is the only other actor of note and she does a credible job. The rest of the cast was nondescript, at best. Though I wouldn't call it a great movie it features a strong performance by Bela Lugosi and plenty of gothic atmosphere in the form of foggy graveyards and decaying crypts to make the film a more than passable example of the genre. Rated 3/5 Stars •  Rated 3 out of 5 stars 01/26/23 Full Review Audience Member One of Bela Lugosi's better later day roles since he played Dracula in the 1930s, as he once again plays a vampire but this time with a different name (for legal reasons) for Columbia instead of Universal. It's an old-fashioned vampire story (whose time has come and gone) that's set in contemporary England during the London blitz, and plays out as your typical vampire movie (except for the modern setting). It's visually satisfying and well-acted, but too verbose and without a sense of humor. Lifelessly directed by Lew Landers and unimaginatively written by Randall Faye and Griffin Jay, but what helps is Bela Lugosi playing what he does best--a vampire. Rated 2.5/5 Stars •  Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars 02/06/23 Full Review Read all reviews

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