This film begins on a dark, foggy night with two men and a woman in search of a body that has been hung on a tree and left to die alongside a rural road. Although the sight is horrifying to them, what they are most interested in is the mandrake plant that has grown underneath the body hovering above it. However, just before they can dig it up, they see a carriage coming through the fog and they immediately take cover behind a tree. To their astonishment, neither the carriage or the horse pulling it makes any noise and the driver looks like Death himself. And then, just as quickly as it came, it disappears in the fog further on down the road. Obviously shaken by this experience, they hurriedly dig up the mandrake and head back to a large house where "Count Valsamo de Cagliostro" (Antonio Raxel) has been patiently waiting for them. We then learn that Count Cagliostro has dedicated his life to hunting vampires and assisting him is his daughter "Ines Cagliostro" (Begoña Palacios), her fiancé "Dr. Riccardo Peisser" (Raul Farell) and the Count's loyal butler "Justus" (Pancho Cordova). Likewise, it is also revealed that their quest for the mandrake root was necessary for his research on identifying vampires-living or dead. What Count Cagliostro doesn't realize, however, is that the one vampire he has been diligently trying to locate by the name of "Count Siegfried von Frankenhausen" (Carlos Agosti) has recently purchased a house not far away and just happened to be the passenger in the deathly quiet carriage that very night. Now, rather than reveal any more, I will just say that I had previously seen several Mexican horror films and after reading a generally positive review on those pertaining to vampires, I decided to satisfy my curiosity and see for myself. To that effect, I was generally pleased for the most part as the plot flowed rather smoothly and the acting was quite solid as well. There was, however, one particular flaw in that the object used to simulate a flying bat looked more like a flying bunny rabbit instead-and this completely ruined the overall effect. I was also somewhat surprised by the ending but after a bit of research I discovered that there is a sequel titled "Invasion of the Vampires" which apparently takes up where this film ends. Be that as it may, in spite of the particular flaw just mentioned, I don't consider this to be a bad film by any means and I have rated it accordingly. Average.
