EDITOR’S NOTE: Curse of Dracula was on Chiller Theater on Saturday, December 7, 1963 at 3:00 p.m., Saturday, January 9, 1965 at 1:00 a.m. and  Saturday, August 21, 1965 at 1:00 a.m.

Dracula (Francis Lederer) escapes a band of vampire hunters led by John Meierman (John Wengraf) and gets on a train, where he kills artist Bellac Gordal and makes his way to California, where he moves in with Gordal’s cousin Cora (Greta Granstedt) and her children Mickey (Jimmy Baird) and Rachel (Norma Eberhardt, who was in Live Fast Die Young the same year).

Rachel has been reading the letters that Bellac sent to Cora and is struck by his struggle as an artist. Yet when Dracula moves in, he won’t leave his room and, as you can imagine, does things like sleep all day and scream when he’s near mirrors. He also drinks the blood of Mickey’s cat and throws it down the mineshaft where he’s really sleeping.

While Rachel wants to be a clothes designer, she knows that she’ll probably be a nurse and never get out of Yorba Linda, the home of Richard Nixon. She also takes care of sick people at a parish house, including Jennie Blake (Virginia Vincent), a blind girl who tells her that she knows death is coming for her. After Rachel reads to her, Dracula appears and promises to help her see again. He bites her, which ends her life, but she comes back the next evening, now fully alive. But not before she dies in front of Rachel and her boyfriend Tim (Ray Stricklyn).

A detective comes to town, hunting for Dracula, but is soon killed by a white wolf. That night, as Rachel puts on the crucifix that Jennie left behind. In her dreams, Dracula promises her eternal life if she takes it off, basically telling her to turn her back on God, a wild idea for a 1958 black and white horror movie. He tells her that they will survive this dying world together, yet the vampire hunters arrive and stake Jennie through the heart — there’s a three second burst of blood here, the only color in the film — which breaks the spell that the monster has on Rachel. Tim holds the crucifix, which sends Dracula down the mineshaft and where a piece of wood goes right through him, leaving behind a skeleton.

Gerald Fried did the score for this film and used “Dies Irae,” which he more famously used in The Shining.

Director Paul Landres mostly worked in TV, but he also directed The Vampire. This was written by Pat Fielder, who also scripted the TV miniseries Goliath Awaits, tons of TV and the movie that this played double features with, The Flame Barrier.

In theaters, this was titled The Return of Dracula and it was also titled The Fantastic Disappearing Man in the UK.

As for Francis Lederer, he would play Dracula again in the Night Gallery episode “The Devil Is Not Mocked.”

I loved this movie. It has a shocking air of dark energy, as well as an antireligious air about its villain. It’s also quite interesting that he’s never called Dracula.

You can watch this on Tubi.