'I don't approve of your smoking but I
guess one more won't hurt you now.'
Welcome back to a slightly new look to this Dark Corner of this Sick World.
'It won't go on much longer.'
The lockdown has caught up with us we've run out of the reviews we shot beforehand,
but don't worry the picture quality may be slightly down but the quality of the reviews remains the same.
Welcome back to my Dark Corner of this Sick World.
‘Hey, beat it you guys! Old horse-face is on the warpath’
Seems unnecessary.
1957’s Blood of Dracula might as well have been called I was a Teenage Dracula,
it’s part of the same cycle of films
and very much in the same pattern in its blending of angsty teen drama and B movie horror.
‘I like the cheery atmosphere’
Nancy has been sent to boarding school by her father and wicked stepmother.
‘I’m certainly glad, Paul, that we’re getting rid of her’
and her new roommates aren’t much better.
Nancy doesn’t fit in, which is bad news.
‘You’ll have to join our secret organisation, the birds of paradise’
Essentially the birds of Paradise is an escort service
with the slight problem that gardener Eddie is the only male on the premises.
‘We take turns dating him’
They said gardening school was a waste of time but who’s laughing now?
‘You’re not the dream boy you think’
Don’t have to be; I’m the only game in town.
But Nancy, who has a boyfriend back home, still isn’t interested.
‘That just leaves more water in the jug for the rest of us’
Well, there’s an image I’m going to be scrubbing out of my mind for days to come.
‘One swallow to each girl’
and is presumably why Eddie brings in reinforcements.
'Remember guys, this is no pantry raid.'
You gotta help me guys, the jug is empty.
But before this we meet science teacher Miss Branding.
‘We live in a world by men for men’
and I do think there’s something interesting in a woman who has been pushed out of the scientific community because of her gender.
‘Isotopes and fall out in our lungs and glands history natural shape and proportion.’
She recognises that the predominantly male scientific community’s obsession with nuclear energy is dangerous,
there is another way.
‘I can release a destructive power within a human being that will make the split atom look like a blessing’
Okay, I didn’t necessarily mean, another way to kill everyone.
‘Nations will stop looking for new artificial weapons because the natural ones...'
'– we the human race - will be too terrible to arouse’
So you can save the world from the nuclear threat by replacing it with something even more epically horrifying.
That is good B Movie science.
‘For my experiment, I need a special kind of girl with special potentials’
Gee, I wonder where this is going.
‘Wait till you meet our new girl, Nancy Perkins’
Miss Branding hypnotises Nancy with an antique amulet.
‘Also it can release frightening powers’
Stay still while I use it on you.
‘You eyes are getting drowsy’
It’s after this that Eddie and his mates crash the girls party, which to be honest did need help.
Miss Branding activates Nancy,
and now the real horror begins.
‘Hey Tab, how about singing puppy love for the girls’
Hollywood’s embarrassing attempt to get down with their youth audience.
#some lame love song#
Hard to believe anyone thought Rock n Roll was a threat.
Anyway Nancy is just a bit spacey,
‘Nothing, I just feel a little dizzy, that’s all’
‘It’s the excitement of the party’
Yeah, that must be it.
But after everyone has gone,
and when the police examine the body.
‘As if the blood had been Drained completely’
Sidebar, a film in which kids are killed always has a problem to deal with.
‘What about the girl’s parents?’
You don’t want to drag the tone down, so how do you address the grieving family in a way that seems natural.
‘They’re circus performers in Europe on a tour’
Yeah I think we’ve covered that.
The girls try to get back to normal life.
‘Earlier today I buried several objects in the cemetery’
via a scavenger hunt in a cemetery,
This is the first US film in which a vampire has fangs.
So, you know, it’s got that going for it, but little else.
You may have noticed that for all Miss Branding’s scientific talk she just uses no science,just the amulet
And for all her apocalyptic predictions.
‘When I can demonstrate that there is a destructive power strong enough to destroy the world buried in each of us’
I’m unconvinced that one vampire is more dangerous than nuclear holocaust.
The film stumbles to a hasty conclusion as Nancy confronts Miss Branding
who does the only sensible thing,
turning Nancy into the vampire,
Oh how could I have predicted this?
Nancy herself dies by falling on a broken table and the headmistress does a bit of B Movie moralising.
‘There is a power greater than science that rules the earth and those who twist and pervert knowledge for evil only work out their own destruction'
Although to be honest, I think part of the film’s message is that women dabbling in science is basically witchcraft.
‘Okay, make fun of it if you like’
Thanks for watching. For more vampire reviews click here.
Cult cinema is full of unofficial series like the I was a Teenage films,
what are your favourite films that you place together even though they’re not part of an official franchise.
