Grave of the Vampire
1972 film by John Hayes
Grave of the Vampire is a 1972 American vampire film directed by John Hayes, and starring William Smith, Michael Pataki, and Lyn Peters. Its plot follows a vampire who rapes a living woman, resulting in the birth of a child who feeds only on blood. It is based on the novel The Still Life by David Chase.
The film is also known as Seed of Terror (American reissue title).
Plot
In 1940 California, college student Paul proposes to his girlfriend, Leslie Hollander, in the cemetery where they shared their first kiss. During the proposal, Caleb Croft—a serial rapist and murderer in life, now a vampire—awakens from his crypt. Caleb brutally murders Paul and rapes Leslie. A local lieutenant, Panzer, investigates the crime, and discovers that Croft's tomb is also empty.
Panzer visits a catatonic Leslie in the hospital. When he shows her a mugshot of Croft, she violently recoils.
The public source identifies “Grave of the Vampire” as 1972 film by John Hayes. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Grave, Vampire and film.
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Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 30, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3232308. 5 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 5 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1972 and 1940.
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This entry incorporates text from “Grave of the Vampire” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.