I Watch Films: Sherlock Holmes: The Last Vampyre
Sherlock Holmes: The Last Vampyre
In a big house near a village in Sussex lives Mr Ferguson; his second, Peruvian wife Charlotta and her baby; his son from a previous marriage Jack; and Charlotta’s maid Dolores. Things were tense – Jack doesn’t like Charlotta, or the baby, and likes Dolores too much. Then the baby dies.
The vicar goes to visit Sherlock Holmes as there are some curious events. Mr Stockhom, who has also lived in Peru, came to the village, and was a guest at the Fergusons, teaching Jack the violin. However the locals don’t like him. Stockhom has been looking up the Sinclair family who were accused of being vampires a hundred years ago, and burned for it. The records show that the Mr Sinclair was a violent rapist, the vampirism unproven. Stockhom left a flower at the grave of the woman Sinclair attacked. Later, after an argument with the blacksmith, Stockhom give him an evil look, and the blacksmith died. He was a guest at the Fergusons' the night the baby died. Obviously the vicar thinks this is all superstition but could the great detective look into it? At a loose end Holmes and Watson travel down there.
Things start to get complicated. The Fergusons’ stable hand Michael has been seduced by Dolores. He is engaged to daughter of the landlord of the pub and she suspects he is unfaithful, though she thinks it might be Dolores or Charlotta. This makes Holmes and Watson unpopular when they arrive in the village as friends of the Fergusons. Talking to Mr Ferguson he admits to being put off by Stockhom who talked about ancient kings having their wives and servants buried alive with them; later he is annoyed to discover that Charlotta and Dolores went on a carriage ride with Stockhom.
Stockhom himself admits to teaching Jack the violin, and that the villagers think he is a descendant of the vampire Sinclairs. He takes Holmes to the ruins of the Sinclair house, where a mysterious figure shines strange lights, Sinclair in pain and then disappearing.
This gets more and more complicated, no one wanting to tell Holmes anything of use, the longer the story going on the more people who act vampire-ishly there are. Of course this is based on a 19th century English story about South America – if it’s not vampires then it’s Incan curses, or curare, or something. To be fair no one has the whole picture that would let Holmes solve the case; on the other I’m still not sure exactly what Stockhom thought he was doing. This is part of the trouble of expanding a medium-long short story to a two hour TV movie episode, you have to add in bits. In this case a morbid character, some questions of infidelity, and a whole lot of occult nonsense.
Watch This: Fun detective story flirting with the outlandish
and even supernatural
Don’t Watch This: Holmes fails to grapple with the case,
leading to more deaths
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