Circle of Fear (TV Series) Elegy for a Vampire (1972) User Reviews

When it comes to vampires, everyone's a suspect!

[mark.waltz · 5/10 · 26 February 2021]

The future Barney Miller and the future B.J. Hunnicutt (Hal Linden and Mike Farrell) join forces in this "Ghost Story" episode to discover who on a women's college campus enjoys being a ghoul. Is it aging security officer Arthur O'Connell, a deceased vampire expert named Pendegrast or one of the two men?

This is a straight forward tale of blood lust, and there's no real mystery because we find out early on who the culprit is through their own suspicions and the creepy eyes that transform them into Mr. Toothy. It's nice to see the future 70's TV icons (already known for their other stage and TV work), but the lack of real suspense makes this barely passable.

Uneven

[ebeckstr-1 · 6/10 · 19 December 2022]

When I was a kid watching this show I would never have noticed the logic gaps and silly decisions made by characters in an episode like this. There are too many of them here to allow this episode to be one of the best of the series. One thing it does have going for it is night for night shooting, instead of the lame day for night shooting we sometimes see in low budget shows. It also features that classic '70s made for TV horror show scoring, a combination of electronic sounds and music. Really fun from a nostalgia standpoint. It also features a good cast, although they aren't given enough to work with here.

Barney Bloodsucker

[BandSAboutMovies · 5/10 · 11 March 2022]

Coeds are being drained of their blood on a small college campus, the same place where the departed Professor Pendergast had been studying the hypothesis that vampires suffer from a blood disease. And since he's been seen at two of the attacks...

David Wells and Frank Simmons (Hal Linden and Mike Farrell, great casting!) are conducting patrols of the campus, trying to protect the female students from whatever killer is on the loose. And yes, perhaps Wells could be that killer.

This episode is based on "Pendergast" by Elizabeth M. Walter, whose "Traveling Companion" was turned into an episode of this show, as well as "The New House" and "The Concrete Captain" also being based on her stories. She also had "The Spider" appear on Night Gallery. The screenplay comes from Mark Weingart and Richard Matheson, while the direction was by Don McDougall, who also made Riding With Death and the "At the Cradle Foot" episode of this series.

Vampire On Campus

[AaronCapenBanner · 4/10 · 14 November 2014]

Hal Linden and Mike Farrell star as David Wells & Frank Simmons, two men who become involved in the recent mysterious murders of young coeds on a college campus. It seems that there is strong evidence that the attacks are the result of a vampire, which would tie in to the studies of a deceased professor named Pendergast, who has been seen nearby at the scene of the crimes. Has this professor somehow been resurrected as a vampire, or is it someone else, assuming it is a vampire responsible... Hokey episode has some spooky scenes but is undermined by the miscasting of both Linden & Farrell, and an ending that is just downright silly(if still surprising).