Producer Abel Salazar and lead German Robles, the most indelible stars of Mexico's horror genre, captured the imagination with 1957's "The Vampire" ("El Vampiro") and its sequel "The Vampire's Coffin," plus "The Brainiac" and "The Living Head" (in addition, Robles played a vampire in "El Castillo de los Monstruos" before a quartet of Nostradamus features: "The Curse of Nostradamus," "The Monsters Demolisher," "The Genie of Darkness" and "The Blood of Nostradamus"). Far more prolific as an actor, Salazar helped spearhead the K. Gordon Murray invasion north of the border with six more titles of varied interest: "The Man and the Monster," "The World of the Vampires," "The Witch's Mirror," "The Brainiac," "The Living Head" and "The Curse of the Crying Woman." "The Vampire" may have come first, the filmmakers admittedly inspired by Bela Lugosi's interpretation ('Dracula set on a hacienda'), but even viewed during its time can only rank as average, the obviously low budget revealing itself with the nonexistent man-into-bat sequences, at least cleverly cutting from the vampire ready to leap into the air to a shot of a bat on a wire. Ramon Obon's script supplies the atmosphere but tends to drag with its excess of dialogue, despite the likability of Salazar as the amateur vampire hunter, and especially ingenue Adriadne Welter, who also returns for the sequel (lesser roles to come in "The Brainiac" and "100 Cries of Terror"). Set in Sierra Negra, pretty young Martha arrives to visit her ailing Aunt Mary (Alicia Montoya) at family estate The Sycamores, accompanied by traveling salesman Henry, actually a doctor summoned to examine Mary, whom we see entombed in the crypt before they finally arrive, her sister the black clad Aunt Eloise (Carmen Montejo) not present due to her undead state (attacked in the pre credits sequence and now serving the master). The property has been terribly run down for years, Aunt Mary terrified by a vampire's curse to claim her for a victim, Count Lavud (German Robles) finally emerging at the 24 minute mark to receive a coffin filled with his native soil from Baconia, firmly ensconced in Mexico where his brother had perished a hundred years ago and is now ready for revival in two moons. His ultimate goal is to purchase The Sycamores from the delectable Martha, to the extent that she becomes his latest target for a living blood bank (he only needs two attacks to make her his undead mistress), only her pesky Aunt Mary simply refuses to stay dead and in fact proves to be the one who finds the Count's lair to drive a lengthy stake through his heart (the sequel picks up where this leaves off). Director Fernando Mendez ("The Vampire's Coffin," "The Black Pit of Dr. M," "The Living Coffin") gets by with a few rickety sets and the staging does feature some nice shots of the Count magically appearing in a beam of light, the attacks featuring not only bared fangs (before even Christopher Lee for Hammer) but the bloodsucker shown to bite his victims on the neck, even a young boy doesn't get spared. Its most egregious error is in giving little screen time to the central menace, Robles also shortchanged in the sequel, in which his Count just doesn't convey much menace, requiring a sword off the wall to duel the would be hero to a standstill. It's no carbon copy of Bela's triumph and is quite different in tone yet there are enough charms to carry it through, and remains superior to "The Vampire's Coffin."
Review of El vampiro
