Arguably the two most dangerous items in Sandy’s video arsenal are the complete film sets he owns for H. G. Lewis and Al Adamson. This time it was Lewis’ turn, as Sandy decided it was time to watch the film Lewis described as “My masterpiece.” This is the vampire epic–at least in terms of length–Taste of Blood.
A businessman in Miami is sent two bottles of Brandy from England. Sadly for him, they are spiked with the blood of his ancestor, Count Dracula. The guy drinks them and turns into a vampire, whereupon he sets upon seeking out and killing the descendants of the party that killed Dracula; Van Helsing, John Seward, Quincy Morris, etc. This is actually a neat idea, although you kind of wish it was explored in a better movie.
Lewis get try on this one, hiring somewhat better actors and paying attention to things (generally) like lighting and staying in focus. The film is entirely too slow though. They could have cut out the 15 most repetitive minutes, for instance, by slashing a bunch of scenes reiterating that the Dracula guy’s wife is worried about him and that his best friend always loved the wife. Even in the scenes themselves, everyone just moves too slowly, as if to stretch out the running time.
That said, while calling this a masterpiece is ludicrous, it’s not bad overall, just slow. There are a few comic highlights, though. For instance, the guy gets Dracula’s ring, which looks like they glued a garage door opener to a finger band. And Lewis himself provides the comic highlight with a cameo appearance as Limey Seaman, providing a sure candidate for Worst British Accent in Film History. Anyway, it was worth a watch, especially for vampire completists, but it didn’t inspire me to buy the H. G. Lewis box set or anything.
