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The Worst Film Ever

Simply A Masterpiece

Good movie, but best of all time? Hardly . . .

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

Small-town doctor Paul Beecher (John Beal) is called to the home of ailing scientist Matt Campbell (Wood Romoff), who has been conducting experiments on vampire bats in a bid to induce man's primitive instincts with the aim of reversing them and thereby advancing human intellect (standard horror movie scientific claptrap). A rambling Campbell gives Beecher the results of his work, some tablets, and promptly carks it.Later that day, Beecher experiences a headache and asks his young daughter Betsy (Lydia Reed) to fetch his migraine tablets. No prizes for guessing what she actually gives him.As a result of taking Campbell's highly addictive drug, Beecher turns into a hairy, drooling, blood sucking creature (who looks more like Mr. Hyde than a vampire) at 11.00pm every night. Will the good doctor find a way to reverse the process before too many innocent people die? And will cop Buck Donnelly (Kenneth Tobey) crack the case before Beecher gets his claws on his gorgeous nurse Carol (Coleen Gray)?Mark of the Vampire (AKA The Vampire) is forgettable B-movie hokum, a rather talky affair with little to offer in the way of suspense and scares, and a distinct lack of decent monster action (although given how laughable the creature is, maybe that's a good thing). The tag-line 'It Feeds on the Blood of Beautiful Women!' is misleading, the 'vampire' killing as many men as women, with one of the female victims an old lady. At just 75 minutes, the whole thing is fairly undemanding nonsense, with the lovely Ms. Gray making the going a lot easier, but it's not one I would go out of my way to watch.A mediocre 5/10.

The biggest spoiler connected with this film is its title. Shot under the working title 'It's Always Darkest Before the Dawn', Pat Fielder's story feels as if it started life as a drama about drug addiction revamped (if you'll pardon the expression) as a horror film. (The line "aspirin never hurt anyone" is ironic, since aspirin is used far more cautiously these days.) The plot, with its drug that causes "regression to a primitive state", sounds more like Jekyll & Hyde. The few perfunctory vampiric details, such as the very inoffensive fang marks left on one victim's neck, and the fact that the pills are extracted from vampire bats, feel like token late additions to the script. The climax takes place out of doors in broad daylight and detective Ken Tobey defends himself with a big hefty stick, which if the film's makers had been on the ball he could have driven into his attacker's chest rather than just used to shield himself with. Veteran cameraman Jack MacKenzie's photography of the small town setting and interiors is clean and attractive, but also fails to deliver in the more shadowy and horrific moments.What makes this film so harrowing to experience is the quality of the acting and the human dimension. John Beal is so sympathetic you genuinely care about him (as you do for the other characters), and for the sake of him and his cute young daughter Lydia Reed you badly want to see some sort of happy resolution for them; even though you know full well that that becomes more and more out of the question with every passing minute. The monster makeup comes as a double disappointment because its crudeness (he looks more like the Neanderthal Man than any vampire) is wholly unworthy of the buildup that Beal's performance has given it.

This movie essentially begins with a man named "Dr. Matt Campbell" (Wood Romoff) being discovered in his laboratory by a delivery boy and in need of serious medical attention. Upon being notified "Dr. Paul Beecher" (John Beal) immediately rushes to the house but Matt dies only a couple of minutes later. However, before he dies Matt mumbles something totally incoherent and gives Paul a small bottle of pills in the process. Not long afterward, Dr. Beecher develops a migraine and accidentally takes the pills Matt gave him by mistake. The next day Dr. Beecher gets a call that a woman named "Marion Wilkins" (Ann Staunton) is extremely sick and this prompts him to go to her house right away. However, upon attempting to examine her she becomes extremely agitated by his presence before suddenly dying of an apparent heart attack. It's at this time that Paul discovers two bite marks on her neck--and it isn't long before more people begin to die of the same thing. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that this was a different type of vampire film which bore a definite affinity to the "Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde" scenario. That being said, it didn't quite have the same character one might expect of a traditional vampire film but even so it was still entertaining to a degree and for that reason I have rated it accordingly. Average.

(There are Spoilers)Delivering a package to the very overworked Dr. Campball's , Wood Romoff, lab Tommy the delivery boy, Brad Morrow, finds the doctor unconscious and on the brink of death. Running to get help Tommy gets the towns kindly and understanding doctor Beecher,John Beal, and he sadly declarers Dr. Campbell dead from a sudden heart-attack.While in the late Dr. Campbell's laboratory Dr. Beecher fools around with his latest experiment with regressing his subjects, bats and mice's, and unknowingly picks up a bottle of the doctor's regression pills. Back home suffering for brain-twisting migraines Dr. Beecher is given his headache pills by his 12 years old daughter Besty,Lydia Reed, as he suffers his latest attack and she gives her dad the wrong bottle; the regression instead of the headache pills that in fact was the cause of Dr. Campball's sudden death. It soon becomes apparent, to everyone but Dr. Beecher, that he's becoming a changed man. Changing from a man who was kind loving and caring to a violent savage who craves for human blood attacking his victims and infecting them with capillary disintegration after he bites them, but doesn't suck out their blood, in the neck.More like a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde type of movie then anything that has to with with a vampire like it's title indicates "The Vampire" has poor and confused Dr. Beecher run around town killing people wherever his regression pills start to lose their effect on him. Needing his regression pills to keep him from going insane and becoming homicidal, as well as dead like Dr. Campbell, the doctor is torn between a rock and a hard place in walking the thin red line of sanity and insanity that the regression pills put him on.Soon the local cop Sheriff Buck Donnelly, Kenneth Tobey, starts to get suspicious of just what Dr. Beecher is all about, this after a number of his patients and associates end up dead. Dr. Beecher himself finally realizes that theirs something very wrong upstairs, in his troubled head, and in is own crazy way tries to correct it; by killing himself.Dr. Beecher is caught in the act at his doctors office by his nurse Carol Butler (Coleen Gray), who's very much in love with her widower and handsome boss, as he's trying to stick himself with a syringe loaded with a fatal solution of deadly chemicals. Both embarrassed and outraged at being exposed for the nut-case that he is, the doctor wanted to die with his secret life kept secret, he goes totally bananas, like the crazed doctor in the similar movie "the Neanderthal Man", chasing Carol outside into the woods in his attempt to murder her. Sheriff Donnally who by now had Dr. Beecher's number, in that he's the one who's been murdering people in town, rushes to the scene in order to both save Carol from Dr. Beecher and the doctor from himself by having him put away, in a mental institution, to be studied and, if possible, cured.Not wanting to be taken alive, being what he is what does he have to live for anyway, Dr. Beecher puts up a furious fight and just when it seems that he got the better of the brave but totally helpless lawman Sheriff Donnelly's assistant Sgt. Ryan, Herb Vigran, shows up and puts an end to Dr. Beechers reign of terror by emptying his gun into him.