Theatre Macabre: The Vampire – review

Director: Stanislaw Lenartowicz

First Aired: 1971 (IMDb list this as a remake of the 1967 The Vampire, but it is likely the same film with Lee's wraparound and English dubbing)

Contains spoilers

Theatre Macabre was a Polish anthology series, which was dubbed into English for the US market, with stories based on classic short stories and introduced by the always welcome Christopher Lee. In this case the story was based on one by Alexis Tolstoy.

Famously, the Tolstoy vampire story that is used as a basis for film is Family of the Vourdalak but, in this case, the story is the lesser known The Vampire, written in 1841. When I looked at a Volume of Tolstoy’s work I suggest it was “a story that deserves a film”. This is not that film, unfortunately, cramming the story into under 25 minutes. It also changes the lore somewhat but the changes themselves are interesting.

Dashka and her Grandmother

Starting at a ball, a gentleman is charmed by a young lady named Dashka. He is watched, however, by a sinister looking man named Riverenko who calls him over. He tells him to beware as Dashka’s Grandmother is, he confides, a vampire, as is one of her friends also at the dance. You can tell them, he suggests, by the sucking sound they make as a secret greeting (in Tolstoy's original this is described as a clicking sound). He warns the man that he is in mortal danger and that should Dashka stay with her grandmother she’ll be dead in three days.

Riverenko and the man

The man goes back to Dashka, as she talks to her grandmother. The Grandmother complains that Dashka never visits and then, to get her to visit her estate suggests he does also. Suddenly Riverenko is there and points menacingly at the Grandmother (he claims she killed his love at another point) and tells the man to meet him the next day in the Orthodox graveyard. When they meet he shows him a grave that has the Grandmother’s name and picture (but the man catches him out as he actually added the picture to the grave).

stabbing the shadow

Of course, the first evening at the estate sees him attacked by both vampires but he has been given a holy blade. Told that blades cannot pierce their flesh (though this blade subsequently does cut a vampire’s arm), he is informed that the only way to kill a vampire is to stab their shadow in the heart. When he does this we see the wall that the shadow falls on bleed. This method of killing is really interesting but different to the source story, which necessitates ramming a stake between their shoulder blades.

vampire attack

The short episode, unfortunately, does not carry the atmosphere that the story begs for and probably tries to do a little too much within the constraints of the running time. Plus, of course, dubbing does not help. However, it is great to see this Tolstoy story get some filmic love – even if it is not nearly as good as some of the films of the more famous story. Theatre Macabre itself is a mixed bag but consistently lovely to look at. I got the series as part of the Eurocrypt of Christopher Lee collection. The score for this episode is 5 out of 10. 

The episode’s imdb page is here.

On Blu-Ray @ Amazon US

On Blu-Ray @ Amazon UK