Dracula’s dead, but there are still plenty of vampires about in Hammer Films’ studio-bound gothic world. House director Terence Fisher keeps things snappy and Peter Cushing still stands tall as the movies’ best Van Helsing. Meanwhile, Christopher Lee turned down this film, so the villain role is played by David Peel, who’s sort of a grown-up Little Lord Fauntleroy with a taste for blood. His creaky old baroness mother keeps him on a chain in the lower depths of her castle so that he doesn’t terrorize the countryside, but she’s not above luring in young women for him to feed from. When he manages to get loose, what does he want? MORE WOMEN, of course! It’s not a bad thing at all. Actress Andrée Melly, who’s already kinda cute as the shy roommate of heroine Yvonne Monlaur, becomes even more sexy while sporting fangs and a wild look in her eyes. The best part though is when the baroness’s prune-faced old maid (Freda Jackson) goes from weeping with fear to laughing maniacally, in the same scene, with resignation over all of the death about to happen after Blood Boy escapes the castle. It’s good, breezy entertainment from Hammer’s most reliable period.