Vampires are everywhere these days and their popularity shows no sign of waning, so it makes sense that distributors are rushing to put together cheap collections to slake fans’ thirst.  Mill Creek has assembled 20 public domain horror films, claiming they are some of the “baddest bloodsuckers on the big screen.”  That could almost be true, especially if you use all definitions of bad, but there are a few non-vampire flicks included to fill out the set.
 

The Best: 
     1922’s silent classic Nosferatu is essentially an adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula with names and some details changed.  This is a must for any collector, and the transfer is better than I expected, so if you don’t have it in some other form, this is more than adequate. 
      Both versions of The Bat are very good.  Roland West’s 1926 silent original is based on a 1920 Broadway play written by Mary Roberts Rinehart (if you haven’t read her mysteries, you should) and Avery Hopwood where a killer dressed as a bat (fabulously campy costume) stalks treasure hunters in an old mansion.  Sadly, this transfer is terrible.  The 1959 remake with Vincent Price and Agnes Moorehead (Bewitched’s Endora) is a lot of fun and the audio and video are fine.
      The Last Man on Earth (1964), starring Vincent Price, is an Italian film adaptation of Richard Matheson’s I am Legend.  It’s surprisingly good.
      Bela Lugosi stars in 1940’s The Devil Bat as a wonderfully mad scientist who trains huge vampire bats to kill anyone wearing an aftershave lotion he created.  
      1972’s Horror Express doesn’t have any vampires, but it’s a fun British B-movie with Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee about a zombie-making half man/half ape thing terrorizing a train full of passengers.

The Worst:
      The Witches Mountain (1964) is confusing at best and there isn’t a vampire to be found.
      1973’s Crypt of the Living Vampire is a Spanish movie filmed in Turkey about archaeologists who free the Queen of the Vampires and it is truly awful.
      The Italian Horrible Sexy Vampire is a terribly boring 1970 film about a man who strangles (not bites) women.
      1988’s Prime Evil is neither prime nor particularly evil.  This tedious movie focuses on monks who stay young by sacrificing people to a cheap red Devil-puppet.
      Terror Creatures from the Grave is a 1965 Italian black and white film about a mansion built over the graves of plague victims.  Even scream queen Barbara Steele can’t save this dull, been there, done-that non-vampire flick.

The rest of the films are mediocre but with some fun and/or impressively disgusting moments sprinkled throughout.  The audio and video are generally as mediocre as the movies themselves, and there is some horrendously bad dubbing on a few of the foreign films, but at $15, this is a good, cheap way to round out a collection or have some fun with some good, bad, and so bad they’re good (see: Atom Age Vampire) horror movies.
 

Full Film List:

Disc One:
     Nosferatu (1922)
     Count Dracula and his Vampire Bride (1974), aka The Satanic Rites of Dracula
     Atom Age Vampire (1963)
     The Bloody Vampire (1962)
     Crypt of the Living Dead (1973)
Disc Two:
     Blood of Dracula's Castle (1969)
     Nightmare Castle (1965)
     Prime Evil (1988)
     The Devil Bat (1940)
     The Vampire Bat (1933)
Disc Three:
     The Last Man on Earth (1964)
     Vampire's Night Orgy (1973)
     Horrible Sexy Vampire (1970)
     The Vampire Happening (1971)
     Horror Express (1972)
Disc Four:
     The Werewolf vs. the Vampire Women (1970)
     The Witches Mountain (1972)
     Terror Creatures from the Grave (1965)
     The Bat (1959)
     The Bat (1926)