A vampire, Caleb Croft (Michael Pataki), rises from the grave, only to find a young couple making out in the graveyard. He kills the boyfriend and rapes the girlfriend, who becomes pregnant. When the baby is born, it eschews milk for blood. (Like father, like son.) The boy, James, grows up into William Smith, who hates what he is and blames it on his father. James is determined to find Croft and kill him.The first 35 of the film's 90 minutes are prologue. First, the murder and rape are investigated by an oddly credulous police detective. Since the boyfriend's body was drained of blood, he reasons, the killer must be a vampire. Well, sure! What other possible explanation could there be? After Croft murders the detective, the focus switches to Leslie, the rape victim—first her pregnancy, then the raising of her vampire child. Suddenly, it's 30 years later, Leslie has died of old age, and we finally to get to the real story.Despite the large number of vampires murders, there's very little by way of violence. Instead, the film opts for slow-moving scenes of contrived dialogue delivered by a cast so bad, they must have paid to be in the film. The sole exception is Michael Pataki, who makes a fairly imposing vampire. The opening scene, in which Croft opens his coffin and leaves the grave, is genuinely creepy. If only the remaining 85 minutes were even half as watchable.But no. What we have here is typical grindhouse fare: a lame script, horrendous acting, cut-rate sets, ludicrous props, humdrum camera work, a grating (though occasionally effective) score, machete- styled editing, riotously bad sound effects, and one of the most predictable "surprise" endings I've ever seen.Item: At a library, Croft tells a woman she has lovely hair. She replies that she was once a photographer's model. Neither character moves their lips during this exchange.Item: During his showdown with Croft, James is pushed into a fireplace and his back set ablaze. He puts the flames out with a classic stop-drop-and-roll move, then continues to fight as if he's not now covered with third-degree burns. Also, his shirt sustains no fire damage.Item: James defeats Croft in the regular way—by jamming a wooden stake into the vampire's, uh, stomach. It's damned sure not his heart, unless Croft is a Vulcan.Item: At the film's end, James morphs into a vampire. To call William Smith's acting in this scene "histrionic" is a gross understatement. And going by their size, his fangs must have been stolen from a dinosaur museum.I give it three stars out of 10 for Michael Pataki. The film has nothing else going for it.

None other than David Chase, future creator of 'The Sopranos', is screenwriter of this not bad vampire tale, directed by John Hayes ("Dream No Evil", "End of the World"). Overall it has a good atmosphere going for it, an amusing story that throws a couple of twists into the mix, and the entertaining combo of tough guy William Smith as the hero and fellow B movie veteran Michael Pataki as his nemesis.The movie begins with vampire Caleb Croft (Pataki) crawling out of his grave and attacking two college students. He kills the boy and then goes on to rape the girl! While she is pregnant, the doctor warns her of the nature of her fetus, but she delivers the baby anyway. A few decades later, and the baby grows up to be James Eastman (Smith), who's all too aware of what his father was and vows revenge. He tracks Croft down, and finds him working as a night school professor named Lockwood. Eastman soon has to keep Croft / Lockwood from sinking his teeth into the lady he loves, Anne Arthur (Lyn Peters)."Grave of the Vampire" won't knock schlock movie lovers out of their socks, but it's still reasonably enjoyable. It's one thing to have a vampire character with raping on his mind, but the advertising also makes a big deal out of the fact that James as a baby sucks blood instead of milk, advising the viewer ahead of time that the movie isn't for the faint of heart. "Grave of the Vampire" is actually rather low key throughout, but it comes to life for a decent final fight between father and son. The acting from the principals is passable; Smith is certainly interestingly cast in the lead (he really is at his best when playing various bad guys) and Pataki delivers a decidedly aloof performance as the vampire. Things begin well with the opening credits sequence and the creepy prologue, and there are some fine moments along the way, especially when one unfortunate young woman discovers Croft in her basement. The tone is very serious, and Hayes's direction is efficient all the way to the kind of ending that was prevalent in 1970s cinema. There's no nudity, and use of gore is limited.All in all, this is worth a look for those exploitation and horror fans looking to discover the schlock cinema of yesteryear.Seven out of 10.

David Sindelar (who has watched and reviewed something like 3900 fantasy, science fiction and horror films) included "Grave of the Vampire" in his "essential 300" selection out of his survey, and it's easy to see why. The movie has a point of view and an atmosphere that stays with you long after more gruesome and better financed horror movies have faded from your memory.This movie vampire is a predator, pure and simple - none of the sexiness of a Frank Langella, none of the aristocratic bearing of a Bela Lugosi, none of the polish and charisma of a Christopher Lee - this vampire is a sociopathic killer, and the movie (although not explicit) pulls no punches in the way it portrays his assaults on his victims. There are several interesting twists in the screenplay: 1) a police detective starts to track down the vampire on a hunch in the first 15 minutes or so, and the viewer is tricked into thinking this will be a heroic police procedural - but then the vampire dispatches the detective in a way that leaves no room for doubt that the detective isn't going to solve this case. 2) The vampire's also a rapist (from his previous life?) and his female victim becomes pregnant. So we get some scenes very reminiscent of movies like "Rosemary's Baby" and "It's Alive"...but the movie burns through this in about 10 minutes and we realize, no, this isn't going to be the main thrust of the movie either. 3) Finally the movie settles on the son's crusade to avenge his mother and punish his father. Now here's what's weird: even as the movie sheds its baggage and gains its focus, it then bogs down in a bunch of badly acted and staged 70's style partying and permissive sex and just kind of fiddles around until...suddenly...4) the last 10 minutes of the movie erupt into a viscerally intense knock down drag out, no holds barred slug fest the likes of which you will rarely see in cinema. The vampire doesn't understand how strong his son really is until it's too late, and the son manages to drive a stake through his heart...only to fall victim to the same curse now that he's become a killer. And the movie comes to a disturbing, creepy end.Whatever the director had in mind here, aping the Universal and Hammer classics wasn't it! (And that's a good thing). Pataki (as the vampire) and Stone (as the son) are reasonably good, especially for such a cheaply made movie like this. The acting everywhere else ranges from satisfactory to appalling. The lighting and sets and music are amazingly well done for such an obviously small budget movie.Some of the dialog suffers from the "No human being ever talked like this" effect, but there's not enough of it to sink the film completely. So...not really a "good" movie, in the sense that a Hammer film from the era would be a "good" movie, but a great example of the kind of overlooked and underrated obscurity that rewards the person who digs into the archives.

Grave of the Vampire opens with a vampire rising from his grave and attacking a young couple who have decided for reasons only known to themselves to make out in a graveyard in the dead of night. The vampire kills the guy and rapes the girl. She subsequently gives birth to a human-vampire hybrid. The boy grows up with a hatred of his vampire father and seeks him out for vengeance.You would have to say that this one is certainly a slightly left-field vampire tale. The idea of a half-vampire seeking revenge is not the usual script in this sub-genre; likewise the idea of a vampire who goes around raping and sexually assaulting women is hardly textbook stuff. The vampire in question is a night school lecturer who teaches the occult. One of his students even wants him to vampirize her! So at the very least, Grave of the Vampire has a few unusual ideas. But the movie also is a very low-budgeted one and the cheapness does at times detrimentally effect the overall whole. It does seem a bit clunky irrespective of the interesting set-up. Worth watching if you like scuzzy 70's movies but it's best not to expect too much.