Night of the Vampires is also known as Cave of the Living Dead: crunch these two titles together and you have Night of the Living Dead. This '64 flick also features a black actor in one of the main roles (John Kitzmiller as servant John), but that's where the similarities with George Romero's zombie movie end. Far from a groundbreaking horror classic, Night of the Vampires is unremarkable Euro-cheeze, badly written and with weak performances, but not without a degree of naive charm.
Adrian Hoven plays Inspector Frank Dorin, who is sent to a small village to investigate a series of inexplicable deaths, each coinciding with a sudden power outage. The superstitious locals speak of vampires at work, the creatures hiding in the grottos, but the local doctor (Carl Möhner) doesn't believe in such hooey. Is Professor von Adelsberg (Wolfgang Preiss), the mysterious owner of a nearby castle, involved? Do bats s**t in caves?
To be honest, there's not a lot of obvious vampirism in Night of the Vampires, despite all seven victims being young women aged between 18 and 22, thus providing plenty of scope for sexy vampire action in the same vein (pun intended) as Hammer studios' horror output. Instead, the majority of the film's runtime is spent as Dorin settles in at an inn, happily chats to a local witch, and investigates von Adelsberg's castle after being invited by the professor to stay there. While the vampire women stay fully clothed, and largely out of sight, the professor's sexy assistant Karin (Karin Field) does provide a brief spot of nudity, as well as spending much of the final act with her top open.
3.5/10, rounded up to 4 for the hilarious moment when vampire Maria (Erika Remberg) picks up a huge boulder and hurls it at a dumb cop with amazing accuracy (although this does make one wonder how John is able to restrain super-human Maria while Doren is busy staking the head vampire).
N. B. Actor Hoven would later direct notorious torture shockers Mark of the Devil (1970) and Mark of the Devil Part II (1973).