Spikeopath A teenage girl, bit of a rebel, is sent away to a girls school. Her fiery nature brings her to the attention of the science teacher, who, using a Carpathian amulet, uses the girl for nefarious deeds.OK! You understand why plenty of folk love the cruddy schlockers of the 50s (I love me plenty as well), the films that were the bottom half of a bottom of the barrel drive-in double bill. Quite often there's a charm to be found, even some that genuinely have craft, guile and surprise enough to warrant love and affection. Blood of Dracula (AKA: Blood Is My Heritage) is devoid of charm and doesn't work hard to earn support.As has been pointed out by the horror faithful over the years, there is no blood and no Dracula in this film - though Dracula as plural does get a mention during one of the many many long and dull passages of chatter within. The narrative plods along until angry girl meets angry science teacher and it's hypnotism time! Yay. Enter a creature that looks like Eddie Munster with bad teeth. All violent damage is done off screen, an interim pop tune and dance sequence is just bizarre, and the plot's motives really don't make any sense.Herman Cohen (producer) was not dumb. I Was a Teenage Werewolf and I Was a Teenage Frankenstein, the two other films in this schlocky trilogy, are good fun. He was capable of overseeing some good movies pitched at a teen audience - even having something to say about the youth/adult divide. Sadly his vampire excursion is not only lazy, it's also very dull. 2/10

Leofwine_draca BLOOD OF Dracula is one of the schlocky high school monster flicks churned out by producer Herman Cohen in the late 1950s. The best known of these is I WAS A TEENAGE WEREWOLF but BLOOD OF Dracula is a deservedly forgotten film purely because it isn't very good. There's no Dracula present in the story, just a high school reject who becomes a vampire after trying on a mysterious amulet.This is very much a bare bones production and it feels rather silly when watched today. The characters are a bunch of clichés with barely one-dimensional personalities, ranging from jocks to popular girls and some down-at-heel cops. The most interesting of the bunch is Miss Branding, the science teacher who's the catalyst for all the chaos, but in comparison Sandra Harrison's lead is rather dull.The vampire attacks are tame and the film as a whole feels like a rushed cash-in. The vampire make-up is particularly poor and looks like some novelty Halloween costume. The low, low budget precludes the use of any kind of special effects and the ending is abrupt and hastily written. I struggled with this one, despite being a fan of the genre.

mlraymond This low budget 1957 monster movie is typical of the drive-in fare produced by AIP in the late Fifties to attract the teenage audience. It's a moody, low key story with some nice atmosphere, about a teenage girl embittered by her father re-marrying shortly after her mother's death, and dumping his daughter in a private school at the request of his new wife.The new student makes a good impression on the leader of the secret clique that runs things behind the lines, who advises her chemistry teacher mentor that they've found the ideal subject for the teacher's secret project, a girl filled with barely suppressed anger and violence.Many viewers have commented on the lesbian subtext of the teacher's relationships with Myra, the clique leader, and Nancy, the new girl. Louise Lewis gives probably the best performance of the movie as the feminist scholar determined to prove her thesis to a " world run by men for men". She strikes just the right note as the sinister scientist with a benign exterior, seeming only to want to be a helpful mentor to the girl, polite and efficient with the school dean, spouting her lunatic ideas with reasonable sounding phrases about progress and science.Some night time scenes of terror on the darkened grounds of the school are very effective, and the acting is fairly good. As usual for a Fifties AIP movie, there are lots of pretty girls to look at, some rock and roll music and dancing, and a subversive undertone in which virtually all adults are suspect in their motives.The movie isn't as dynamic as I Was a Teenage Werewolf, from which it's obviously derived, but it works pretty well on its own terms as a spooky little thriller. Definitely worth seeing for Fifties horror movie buffs.

MartinHafer Despite the title and the image IMDb is currently posting along with this movie, this is really not a Dracula film and Christopher Lee is not in it. Instead, it's a very, very low-budget and dopey movie about a girls school where a rather bizarre relationship develops between a crazy teacher and an impressionable student. It turns out that this teacher has some bizarre masters thesis involving,...well, I really have no idea what it was about and her turning this female student into a part-time vampire made absolutely no sense. The teacher said something about doing this will "save mankind" and other crap like that, but how could turning a girl into something that looks like the love child of Lily Munster and Nosferatu help mankind--especially when it starts sucking the blood out of people??!! Oddly, although the film was made in the more conservative 1950s, there is a very strong and noticeable undercurrent of Lesbianism. There is a strong sexual chemistry between the female teacher and her female student. This makes the film a real curio, but unfortunately the plot, acting and direction are all very amateurish and it is not a film I would recommend to anyone but bad movie fans. Strictly grade-Z all the way and a not particularly good variation on I WAS A TEENAGE WEREWOLF.