Handlung[]
The Countess is called away to tend a sick friend and imposes on the General to accept her daughter Marcilla as a houseguest. Some of the villagers begin dying, however, and the General's daughter Laura soon gets weak and pale, but Marcilla is there to comfort her. The villagers begin whispering about vampires as Marcilla finds another family on which to impose herself. The pattern repeats as Emma gets ill, but the General cannot rest, and seeks the advice of Baron Hartog, who once dealt a decisive blow against a family of vampires. Well, almost.
Trivia[]
Peter Cushing was cast at a late stage.
The role of the Man in Black was offered to Christopher Lee but he declined the role and John Forbes-Robertson was cast instead. Forbes-Robertson would also later replace Lee in Hammer's Die sieben goldenen Vampire.
Jon Finch's first film role.
This film was given an R rating by the Motion Picture Association of America due to the vampire bites inflicted on the women's bosoms.
James Carreras rejected a suggestion that Bond girl Shirley Eaton play the lead on the grounds that she was too old. Ingrid Pitt, actually older than Eaton, was eventually cast.