A small town is plagued by a rash of unexplained murders. An investigator of the supernatural named Dr. Ulysses (Rafael del Rio) arrives on the scene and asserts it is the work of Count Frankenhausen (Carlos Agosti), a bloodthirsty vampire. It doesn’t take long before the good doctor falls for the virginal Brunhilda (Erna Martha Bauman). Naturally, Brunhilda is the vampire’s next target and Dr. Ulysses sets out to watch her back and protect her neck.
The Invasion of the Vampires is an interesting yet uneven South of the Border horror flick that suffers from a severe whiplash of quality. There are moments here of pure cinematic beauty that are almost immediately undermined by an unyielding onslaught of boring exposition and soap opera theatrics. Despite that, fans of Mexican horror movies are probably apt to ride out the rough passages in order to get to the good stuff.
The episodic feel adds to the overall patchiness of the film. Not even the humorously atrocious dubbing can save the interminable dialogue scenes. These long, dull stretches will have your eyelids lowering in no time. On the plus side, the vampire stuff is strong enough to almost singlehandedly save it. The sequences where a vampire woman takes a stroll through the fog and walks into a lake would look at home in a Mario Bava picture. If B movie cheesiness is more your taste, the hero’s fight with a giant bat will certainly fit the bill.
If you manage to tough it out through the dull spots, you will be rewarded with a pretty neat twist ending, that I for one didn’t see coming. Some purists may cry foul since it flies in the face of the traditionally accepted vampire lore. For this horror movie junkie, it just looked so cool visually that I couldn’t help but go with it. It’s not quite enough to save the flick, but it should be enough to leave a lingering impression on you long after you see it.
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