One of the more unusual horror flicks of the forties, Return of the Vampire takes place amidst the rubble-strewn streets of wartime London. A bomb has unearthed the coffin of Armand Tesla (Bela Lugosi), a blood-sucker whose previous reign of terror struck fear into the hearts of the Ainsley family during World War I. With a helping hand from the Wolf Man (where'd he come from? – Matt Willis), Tesla is once again free to roam the Earth, but chooses to update his image and masquerade as Hugo Bruckner, a German émigré scientist. Can Lady Jane Ainsley (Frieda Inescort) save daughter Nicki (Nina Foch) from his hypnotic gaze—and will Scotland Yard's Sir Frederick Fleet (Miles Mander) ever admit to the existence of the supernatural? Return of the Vampire is a surprisingly effective and atmospheric feature from Columbia, a studio whose horror output was generally unimpressive, to say the least.
Review of The Return of the Vampire
