Description:
A physician who was hanged during the American Revolution for being a vampire is resurrected. He confesses his crimes to a priest, but starts to kill again. His modern descendant turns out to be a serial killer who also wants to be a vampire.
Because of his research into the nature of blood and the cure of diseases of the blood, Benjamin Latham, medical doctor and Tory, was hanged as a vampire and Satanist in 1776 at Old Fort Pitt in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania after being convicted because of bogus testimony given by Patience Latham, the wife of Benjamin's brother Jacob, who claimed to have seen him drinking blood that he took
A physician who was hanged during the American Revolution for being a vampire is resurrected. He confesses his crimes to a priest, but starts to kill again. His modern descendant turns out to be a serial killer who also wants to be a vampire.
Because of his research into the nature of blood and the cure of diseases of the blood, Benjamin Latham, medical doctor and Tory, was hanged as a vampire and Satanist in 1776 at Old Fort Pitt in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania after being convicted because of bogus testimony given by Patience Latham, the wife of Benjamin's brother Jacob, who claimed to have seen him drinking blood that he took from his patients. To prevent Benjamin from rising again, a stake was driven through his heart, garlic wrapped around his neck, his hands shackled, and his body secretly buried at a crossroads. But Benjamin didn't stay dead.
Pittsburgh today. When little Stephanie Cayman is found dead in a sandbox, the coroner suspects from the swelling on her finger that she was either bitten by a venomous snake or she cut her finger on something poisonous. Lieutenant Ron Vargas finds a piece of glass in the sand but suspects murder because the girl's mother saw someone sitting in the sandbox with Stephanie just minutes before she died. The autopsy reveals that Stephanie was indeed poisoned by something both neurotoxic and hemotoxic. It caused her blood to coagulate, the coroner explains, and when the heart kept trying to circulate the clotted blood, it literally exploded. Further tests on the finger discover that the toxin was introduced through the cut on her finger when someone human, not a snake nor Stephanie, licked the wound. The toxin was in the licker's saliva.
Along the banks of the Ohio River, Benjamin Latham comes upon four hoods harassing a group of sunbathers. Benjamin orders the hoods to stop. When they don't, he knocks out one of them and is then chased by the other three. One of the hoods, Elijah Alfred, follows Benjamin to the roof of a parking garage, where Benjamin finally decides that he's done playing. He easily lifts Elijah by his collar and tosses him onto the hood of a car. Then he slits Elijah's wrist and laps up his blood.
Because he was a Catholic in his colonial days, Benjamin seeks help from Father Ed. Benjamin confesses how he was condemned and hanged but recently awoke when his coffin was unearthed by a large bulldozer. Naked and surprised, he managed to get out of the way in time, he says, along with his medicine box that had been buried with him. He tells how he found some clothes to put on then wandered into the yard where Stephanie was playing in her sandbox. When she cut herself on a piece of glass, he couldn't stop himself from sucking the blood from the wound until he noticed that Stephanie was dead and realized what he had done. "Superstition has created a vampire," he concludes. Father Ed thinks it may just be a case of amnesia following trauma and that Benjamin probably hasn't killed anyone.
Elijah's body has shown up in the coroner's office. Coroner Nick has an electrophoresis run on the man's slit wrist and finds saliva in the wound that matches that of the saliva found on Stephanie's cut. The conclusion: someone with poisonous saliva is killing people and sucking their blood. By that evening, news of the "Vampire Killer" is all over the television. That night, Sally Minton is attacked by a masked man as she returns home from babysitting. The man ties her up, rapes her, and drinks her blood. When Sally's body shows up at the coroner's office, however, the electrophoresis shows that the saliva in her wounds was not toxic and that the blood type does not match that of the original vampire killer. The coroner thinks it's a copycat killer, but Vargo disagrees. "This one is also a necrophiliac," he adds.
Early the next day, Benjamin visits the Fort Pitt Museum, but it isn't open yet. As he is waiting outside, he is approached by an antique dealer who is interested in the medicine box that Benjamin is carrying. The two get to talking, exchange names, and find that they are both Lathams. Matthew remembers being told that one of his ancestral uncles was Benjamin Latham, a doctor in colonial Pittsburgh, so Benjamin concocts a story about being from England and that the medicine box is a family hierloom. They go to Matthew's shop, where Matthew anxiously examines the box, noting that the box and everything in it is in perfect condition save for a missing fleem (blood-letting tool) and offers Benjamin $1,000 for the box. Benjamin agrees to sell the box, but he refuses to sell the fleem.
Benjamin returns to the museum where he has a run-in with a photographer when he fails to move out of her camera shot, having never seen a camera before. He apologizes to her, and she apologizes for snapping at him. She introduces herself as Lenora Clayton and explains that she's working on a book about colonial Pittsburgh. Lenora ends up taking Benjamin home with her. The next time Benjamin goes to see Father Ed, he confesses that he and Lenora are living together. Even worse, he thinks that Lenora is becoming like him and that she, too, will eventually develop the craving for blood. Father Ed responds by thanking Benjamin for restoring his faith in the supernatural and, thus, in God's existence.
Meanwhile, Elijah's three friends -- Jorell Jordan, Garth Weir, and Paul 'Mountain' Hill -- have been tailing Benjamin, looking to exact revenge on him for killing Elijah. First, however, they want to find out what they can from Father Ed. When the priest goes out to the parish cemetery to smoke a cigarette, the three hoods confront him. Unfortunately, Mountain gets out of control and stabs the priest in the guts. Benjamin and Lenora, who just happen to be passing by the cemetery, see the attack. When Benjamin stabs Mountain in the abdomen, the other two take off. As Lenora rushes to Father Ed's side, Benjamin goes after Jorell and Garth, but they get away. With his dying breath, Father Ed offers his blood to Benjamin, but Benjamin refuses. Not from a friend, he says, only from enemies, and he slits Mountain's arm and laps up his blood while Lenora watches.
Lenora now knows what Benjamin is, but she doesn't care. Benjamin decides to focus attention on his descendent, Matthew Latham, whom he suspects of having an evil side. He takes to following Matthew and his current girlfriend Janice. When Matthew attacks Janice and she retaliates with Mace and a .22 bullet to his abdomen, Benjamin picks up Janice's dropped gun and contemplates finishing the job. Instead, out of a sense of family, he takes Matthew home and, using his surgical skills and Lenora's help, he extracts the bullet. Matthew survives the extraction and reveals to Benjamin that he wants to be like him...a vampire. We're both predators, he rationalizes, because we both take what we need from others and leave them dead. He begs Benjamin to turn him, but Benjamin refuses on the grounds that it would be incestuous and that their blood would probably poison each other. Matthew suggests that Benjamin could turn Lenora and then Lenora could turn him, but Benjamin again refuses. When Benjamin goes out hunting for a bite, Matthew sharpens the long end of a cross to fashion a stake and waits for Benjamin to return.
Benjamin instinctively knows where to find Jorell parked outside of Applebee's, so he hides in the back seat of Jorell's car. When Jorell gets in the front seat and prepares to drive away, Benjamin strangles him and drinks his blood. What Benjamin doesn't know is that Lt Vargo was also tailing Jorell. When Vargo sees Benjamin exit Jorell's car, he chases after him. Benjamin runs home, where Matthew tries to drive the stake through his heart, hoping that Benjamin's powers will pass into him, but Benjamin easily knocks Matthew to his feet. Vargo enters the house and tries to shoot Benjamin, but Benjamin is able to overpower Vargo, too. While Vargo is down, Benjamin runs out the door. Vargo follows Benjamin onto a bridge and manages to shoot him in the chest. With another shot, Vargo shoots off Benjamin's left arm. A third shot hits him in the middle of the forehead, and Benjamin falls off the bridge into the dark water below.
The strangeness of the vampire killings leads the local TV station to intervew Doctor Harrison Lubbock, a self-acclaimed vampire specialist. Lubbock admits to knowing of 27 vampires but refuses to say whether any of them have killed humans for their blood, as that constitutes privileged information. As Lubbock explains how vampires can regenerate new limbs like a starfish and how their wounds heal like putty in a hole, Benjamin can be seen walking out of the water, his left arm missing, a large wound in his chest, and the back of his head blown off. He falls to the ground and, while Lubbock goes on about vampires being superior to mortal humans, Benjamin's wounds start to close and he starts growing a new arm.
Meanwhile, Matthew has convinced Lenora to turn him into a vampire. To transform properly, it must be done in a cemetery, she tells him. She leads him to a large gravestone, then makes him kneel before it. She stands behind him to say a prayer to Satan and to point a "secret metallic talisman" at the back of his head. Then she fires the .22, transforming Matthew from a living being to a dead one. As Benjamin steps out from behind a tree, Lenora uses the fleem to poke a hole in Matthew's wrist. She sucks up the blood, then joins Benjamin. They walk off together, hand in hand, as Benjamin assures her that there are many more evil people out there and that they will be providing a service to mankind by preying on them together.
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UPC: 631595040791
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