Sven- Kiss of the Vampire (1963)

 

From Wiki- Gerald (Edward de Souza) and Marianne Harcourt (Jennifer Daniel) are a honeymooning couple in early 20th-century Bavaria who become caught in a vampire cult led by Dr. Ravna (Noel Willman) and his two children Carl (Barry Warren) and Sabena (Jacquie Wallis). The cult abducts Marianne, and contrives to make it appear that Harcourt was travelling alone and that his wife never existed. Harcourt gets help from hard-drinking savant Professor Zimmer (Clifford Evans), who lost his daughter to the cult and who destroys the vampires through an arcane ritual using the Seal of Solomon that releases a swarm of bats from Hell.

I had never seen this movie, or really heard of it until last week.  Hammer kept trying to make vampire movies without Chris Lee, and while this isn't bad, none of the lead villains have his charisma, charm or sense of menace.  The movie takes it's sweet time to get to the climax, which I enjoyed.  The vampires are a result of decadent living, and Dracula is not mentioned once.  There isn't much action until the end, which was pretty wild.  The movie has an interesting history once it got released to US TV.  The Blu Ray does have both versions on it.  I'm not sure I would ever buy this movie, but I would watch it again.

I'm not sure how well this 2.5 hours of Sven works.  It makes short movies longer, but they end early, so we get fun flashbacks to older Sven shows.