someone ( or and something thing . ) be leave puncture mark on the jugular and drain victim of their blood till dead . police detective karl brettschneider ( melvyn douglas and before slip out of the b movie horror genre for great height ) be stump at who . or what . be behind these notorious crime . the village be overcome by hysteria and karl depends on his trusted medical genius and dr. otto von niemann ( lionel atwill and in yet another effective mad scientist role ) to provide some feedback a to what might be cause the death of innocent . he also fear for the safety of his beloved ruth ( the lovely fay wray who star for the third time with atwill after doctor x and the mystery of the wax museum ) who be niemann assistant . dwight frye steal the film a a rather loony village idiot who collect bat and carry a demented demeanor wherever he go . it easy to see why he become a suspect a local paranoia be at a fever pitch . maude eburne provide the film humor a a very naive ( . and easily influence ) patient of von niemann who believe she have ailment she read about in book near the laboratory where he work . she impressionable and often von niemann just humor her and constant fictional illnesses she feel plague with . lionel belmore return a yet another frighten and superstitious bürgermeister . creaky and static and but rather entertaining nonetheless thanks to the cast . the film be obviously a low budget a they come and but this doesn not hurt the film too much since it put together rather well by director frank r strayer and his crew . i be certain the film print have see good day and though . this be the kind of b horror item you would find package in with 50 other random cheesefests and poverty row programmer . the film villain . and his motif for feed a synthetically make biological creature . certainly provide a different take on the frankenstein formula . many might be disappoint with the end result a the film stray away from be an actual supernatural tale about a real vampire killer cause the murder .