MeTV.com – Svengoolie

Tonight on MeTV we end the year by bringing back an American international offering from the 1950s that takes its place among teen monster movies like I Was a Teenage Frankenstein and I Was a Teenage Werewolf – but this film brings a twist on the formula by making the terror a woman! Should old acquaintances be forgotten – but not the old gruesome murders in “Blood of Dracula”?!

In this 1957 chiller, we meet Nancy, whose life has taken an unfortunate turn – not only that her mother has died, but she is also resentful that her father took a rather evil new bride shortly after Mama’s death. Tensions between her and the new parenting arrangement have now forced Nancy to attend a distant girls’ school so that father and his new partner can begin their life together – without her.

When she spends her first night at Sherwood School for Girls, it’s no picnic – a clique of popular girls, the “Birds of Paradise”, break into her room, rummage through her belongings and make her life difficult. By not scolding them when the house mother comes in to see what all the fuss is about, Nancy actually passes her “test”! Myra, the “head bird,” introduces Nancy to the only boy on campus, a groundskeeper who the girls take turns dating. However, Nancy is unimpressed by the lawn-mowing Lothario, for obvious reasons once you see him – and besides, she has a much better example of a boyfriend at home.

When Myra goes to the office of the school’s chemistry teacher, Miss Branding, where she works as an assistant, the teacher tells her about her excellent thesis, in which she claims that there is a terrible power within all of us, just waiting to be discovered. to be unleashed. She tells Myra that to confirm her theory, she just needs to find a student to “experiment” on – someone with anger issues. Based on what she’s seen of her, Myra suspects Nancy would be the perfect subject.

Miss Branding plans for Nancy to have a terrible mishap in her next chemistry class – this will allow her a face-to-face meeting with the troubled girl. She works to gain Nancy’s confidence and then asks her to hypnotize her (ostensibly to help her solve her problems). Nancy agrees and Branding dons an ornate amulet that Nancy jokes is costume jewelry – only to learn that it is actually an ancient artifact from the Carpathian Mountains (yes, the original home base of Count Dracula, the famous vampire)! She claims that this piece of jewelry has great and unusual powers. The branding puts Nancy into a hypnotic trance – and then brings the poor, unsuspecting girl under her control!

This control is first tested on the evening of a “Birds of Paradise” party, where some uninvited male guests sneak into the girls’ dormitory and come dangerously close to getting caught! Miss Branding sent word that even at this late hour, after the party ended, Myra should go to a storage room to get the things she needs for tomorrow’s chemistry class. Branding grabs the amulet and exerts her control over Nancy from a distance. The result: Myra is fatally attacked by, well, something that leaves two puncture marks on her neck – and all the blood is drained from her! When a forensic pathologist’s assistant recognizes this condition and brings up stories that an exchange student from a village in the Carpathians told him about vampires, the investigators scoff and refuse to even consider the theory. So much for openness…

They’ll have to take the theory seriously soon – if more similar murders happen! Nancy begins to suspect she’s involved – but can she free herself from Branding’s “experiment” before more chaos ensues?

As I said, this film has similarities to the other AIP teen monster films, particularly Teenage Werewolf, with both main characters being disturbed teenagers who undergo hypnosis to supposedly “help” them. I guess they thought it was too awkward to call this movie “I Was A Teenage Female Dracula”… Anyway, let’s go through the cast list, with some faces you’ll recognize from other films of the era for some production background, invite you to guess in another round of our Too Drawn Out game, provide another alternative for further education, and provide a song. We’re also excited to bring back part of the interview we did at the Flashback Weekend horror convention a few years ago – with the one and only Robert Englund, who made a rare appearance in full Freddy Krueger makeup! We also have a much-anticipated revisit with a Dracula-like family of duck hunters. It’s a celebrity-filled show with cameo appearances and some anniversary greetings that our staff would like to show you again.

Blood of Dracula is on tonight (or is it on?) at 8pm Eastern/Pacific time, 7am local time. If you need help finding the time and station in your area, you can consult your local listings or check www.metv.com. As always, viewers will be live-tweeting on Twitter/X during the show and also posting comments on Bluesky, both using the hashtag #svengoolie – and you’re welcome to join in! Chicago area viewers can catch an encore of “Phantom of the Opera” this morning at 11 a.m. on WCIU, The U.

As 2024 comes to a close, we would like to thank you for being with us this year – for your generous support and celebrating the first half of my 45th anniversary as Sven (and more to come) and for your loyalty. We hope that the New Year brings us all health, happiness and success – and that you will join us again every week

Tonight, however, we’re drinking another cup of kindness – even if it sounds like Nancy’s drinking something else!