An effective-enough vampire tale from Charles Bands' Full Moon productions, this has the benefit of being shot on location in Romania, which gives it the kind of truly "stuck in the past", atmospheric feeling inherent to such European locales.
Anders Hove plays the incredibly creepy main character Radu, an animal-like vampire highly reminiscent of Max Schrecks' Count Orlok, with striking long-fingered hands. Radu has obtained the Bloodstone, an ancient relic that drips the blood of the saints, and he's addicted to drinking from this thing. Setting his sights on a trio of lovely young female students doing research on the local folklore, he's opposed by his half-brother Stefan (Michael Watson), a much nicer vampire.
Written by Jackson Barr and David Pabian, based on an idea by Band, and directed by Ted Nicolaou, this is very straight-faced stuff and can be taken quite seriously, with a somber mood established right from the beginning. The local color is extremely effective, with the music score (credited to five people!) giving the proceedings just the right touch. It's sometimes sinister, and sometimes touching & romantic, yet it does have an air of tragedy to it. The makeup effects by Greg Cannom are well-done, and David Allen supplies the stop motion animated title characters.
It's hard to feel much sympathy for the three girls - Mara (Irina Movila), Michele (Laura Mae Tate), and Lillian (Michelle McBride) - as they often act pretty senseless (then again, many horror movies would play out quite differently if they didn't have such characters). The actors are okay, for the most part; it's definitely the Danish actor Hove (recommended for this movie by co-star Watson, with whom he'd worked on the soap opera 'General Hospital') that takes center stage, and he's quite good, giving his villain a truly feral quality, not so much speaking his dialogue as hissing it. Genre icon Angus Scrimm, sporting a funny, ridiculous wig, is written out of the movie much too quickly; it would have been nice to see a little more of him.
Incidentally, the amusing little title creatures, created from Radus' blood, really don't have much to do in this story, not as much as naming the movie after them would seem to indicate. But this is still an entertaining-enough low budget effort; Nicolaou and Hove would both return for all three sequels.
Seven out of 10.
Anders Hove plays the incredibly creepy main character Radu, an animal-like vampire highly reminiscent of Max Schrecks' Count Orlok, with striking long-fingered hands. Radu has obtained the Bloodstone, an ancient relic that drips the blood of the saints, and he's addicted to drinking from this thing. Setting his sights on a trio of lovely young female students doing research on the local folklore, he's opposed by his half-brother Stefan (Michael Watson), a much nicer vampire.
Written by Jackson Barr and David Pabian, based on an idea by Band, and directed by Ted Nicolaou, this is very straight-faced stuff and can be taken quite seriously, with a somber mood established right from the beginning. The local color is extremely effective, with the music score (credited to five people!) giving the proceedings just the right touch. It's sometimes sinister, and sometimes touching & romantic, yet it does have an air of tragedy to it. The makeup effects by Greg Cannom are well-done, and David Allen supplies the stop motion animated title characters.
It's hard to feel much sympathy for the three girls - Mara (Irina Movila), Michele (Laura Mae Tate), and Lillian (Michelle McBride) - as they often act pretty senseless (then again, many horror movies would play out quite differently if they didn't have such characters). The actors are okay, for the most part; it's definitely the Danish actor Hove (recommended for this movie by co-star Watson, with whom he'd worked on the soap opera 'General Hospital') that takes center stage, and he's quite good, giving his villain a truly feral quality, not so much speaking his dialogue as hissing it. Genre icon Angus Scrimm, sporting a funny, ridiculous wig, is written out of the movie much too quickly; it would have been nice to see a little more of him.
Incidentally, the amusing little title creatures, created from Radus' blood, really don't have much to do in this story, not as much as naming the movie after them would seem to indicate. But this is still an entertaining-enough low budget effort; Nicolaou and Hove would both return for all three sequels.
Seven out of 10.