THE INVASION OF THE VAMPIRES (1963)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological, metaphysical*

Due to a very slow and rambling first half-hour, the sequel to Miguel Morayta's BLOODY VAMPIRE doesn't score quite as highly as the first film, to which INVASION is a direct sequel with essentially the same cast. The biggest change is that the wife of vampire Count Frankenhusen, originally played by Erma Martha Bauman, died in BLOODY, so this time Bauman plays the couple's grown daughter Brunhilda. There's some suggestion that the daughter may get pulled into the aegis of her bloodsucking father, but the two never share an extended scene together, so it would appear that Morayta wanted to avoid that particular can of worms.

Once again the lead vampire hunter Cagliostro provides long lectures to his followers about his specialized weapons against the vampire threat, once more emphasizing "clannic acid" but adding this time that his vampires are particularly vulnerable to fire, which I didn't think was much of a thing in previous vampire films. 

Things finally pick up toward the end. One of Cagliostro's younger hunters penetrates the Count's sanctum, and Frankenhausen assumes the form of a giant bat to attack the crusader. The bat's role is played by a large-eared dummy that can't help but look risible, but the scene itself is played straight, and it leads to a better one. The hunter manages to impale the bat with a spear, which simply immobilizes the vamp. In response to his plight, all of Frankenhausen's undead minions rise from their coffins-- though all of them have stakes through their innards! I guess Cagliostro's servants had been busy finding the bloodsuckers out? But here the stakes don;t immediately kill vampires, as in Bram Stoker's DRACULA. My impression is that the stakes do nothing more than pin the undead creatures to their coffins-- which notion may be closer to the folkloric idea of what stakes were supposed to do. At any rate, the scene of the stake-bearing ghouls wandering through dry-ice graveyards is the film's high point, and well worth waiting for.