Kiss of the Vampire
Don Sharp's moody if workmanlike horror film suffers from the absence of Christopher Lee, whose intense, almost feral presence inThe Horror of Draculamade him one of the most memorable bloodsuckers in film history. In his place is a veritable undead cabal led by the vampire patriarch Ravna (Noel Willman), a nobleman whose family literally holds a tiny Eastern European village hostage. When a young honeymooning couple wanders into this terror-gripped crossroads, Ravna decides to make the innocent bride his own, and the dizzy groom can only turn to the dark eyed, wild-bearded Prof. Zimmer (Clifford Evans) for help. It's an unusual chapter in the vampire legend, as these undead are more like a cult interested in adding to their numbers, complete with formal ceremonies. Sharp creates a thick cloud of dread from the empty streets, the mourning peasants, and the fog that seems to carpet the doomed town every night, but has less success with his cast. Only Zimmer emerges as a memorable figure, an almost  demonic-looking vampire hunter who comes off as a shadowy alter ego of Van  Helsing. Christopher Lee returned in Hammer's next vampire picture,Dracula, Prince of Darkness.--Sean Axmaker