Vampire Doll

幽霊屋敷の恐怖 血を吸う人形
[Yurei Yashiki no Kyofu: Chiosu Ningyo]

During a storm, Kazuhiko Sagawa ventures to Tadeshina to see his finance, Yuko Nomura. At her house, Sagawa meets Yuko's mother. He is given the news of a tragedy, that Yuko passed away in a fatal car accident two weeks ago. Devastated, Sagawa spends the night at the Nomura house. As dusk hits, the young man hears a strange wailing sound emanating from inside the house. While investigating, he swears he sees Yuko, but is struck in the back of the head and slips out of consciousness. Upon awaking, he tells Mrs. Nomura what he saw, but she assures him it was only a dream. Restless, Sagawa returns to his room. Peaking out the window, he sees Yuko running away from the house. Rushing off to meet her, Sagawa finds Yuko near her grave. He notes how cold she feels, as Yuko begs him to kill her. Ignoring the plea, the two embrace. Several days later, Kazuhiko's sister, Keiko, grows worried as she hasn't heard from her brother in eight days. Together with her boyfriend, the pair travel to Tadeshina to see if they can locate him...

Live Action Science FictionHorror

Titles

Vampire Doll

Vampire Doll
US Distributor: Toho International (1971) / Time: -

Fear of the Ghost House: Bloodthirsty Doll
[Literal Translation]

Legacy of Dracula: The Bloodthirsty Doll
[UK DVD Title]

Aliens, SDF & Misc.

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Background and Trivia

• Toho submitted the film to the US copyright office on November 9th, 1998 with the registration number of PA0000746576. This registration contained the international title, Vampire Doll, and a shorted version of the Romaji title, Chi o Suu Ningyo.
• Vampire Doll is the first entry in the "Bloodthirsy trilogy", a series of unconnected vampire movies directed by Michio Yamamoto. The name for the trilogy comes from the Japanese titles for the movies, which all have the word word "Bloodthirsty" (血を吸う - Chiosu) in them. The other films in the series include Lake of Dracula (1971) and Evil of Dracula (1974).
• Producer Fumio Tanaka is credited as coming up with the idea to do a vampire film, although did not intend for it to becoming a series of movies initially. Noted in Age of the Gods (self-published).
• The film began as an odd form of miscommunication. Director Michio Yamamoto commented at a wrap party that he wanted to make a movie that would truly terrify people. Producer Fumio Tanaka, overhearing the request, gave him a horror film assignment three days later. However, Yamamoto didn't want to make a monster horror movie but rather was more interested in creating films like those of Alfred Hitchcock. Tanaka, on the other hand, was a big fan of Dracula and very interested in producing a vampire film at Toho. The two compromised through the more unorthodox story found in Vampire Doll around hypnosis. Mentioned in Monsters Are Attacking Tokyo (ISBN: 0922915474).
• Teruyoshi Nakano is not officially listed in Vampire Doll's credits for being in charge of the special effects. In fact, the special effects go uncredited. Several publications do contribute the special effects to him, though, including The Japanese Filmography (ISBN: 0786400323) and Dracula in Visual Media (ISBN: 0786462019). However, these are straight credit listings. Thankfully, Brett Homenick, during one of his conversations with Nakano, was able to bring this topic up. From that it was learned that Nakano not only did the special effects for the film but did so free of charge due to his friendship with producer Fumio Tanaka.

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