The Last Vampyre

The case begins, as Holmes might put it, a short train journey from Baker Street. In a village that likes to think of itself as respectable, a local man claims he found his South American wife, Carlotta, bent over their young son, drinking his blood. The accusation spreads like a bad smell. The neighbours talk in doorways, the vicar gets drawn in, and deaths connected to a man named John Stockton keep surfacing, which gives Holmes a tangible thread to pull.

Holmes is sceptical, to say the least. He does not believe in vampires, and he does not believe that the undead would choose a village with a decent train service for their mischief. But he goes anyway, because death has a way of interrupting his plans, and because Watson has the look of a man who has already packed.

The village closes ranks around its secrets. Rob Ferguson, the husband who made the accusation, is a decent man caught between his wife and his neighbours. Carlotta is given the sort of silence that follows a claim no one can prove. Reverend Merridew tries to hold the community together, and the deaths around John Stockton refuse to stay in the background. Whatever is happening here, Holmes observes, it is not supernatural, because the supernatural is rarely so methodical.

Jeremy Paul wrote it, Tim Sullivan directed. Roy Marsden is John Stockton, Keith Barron is Rob Ferguson, and Yolanda Vazquez brings a quiet, defiant dignity to Carlotta. Maurice Denham is Reverend Merridew, with Richard Dempsey, Juliet Aubrey, Jason Hetherington and Elizabeth Spriggs filling out the village. Jeremy Brett and Edward Hardwicke anchor the whole thing as Holmes and Watson.

The first half of The Last Vampyre works by keeping the horror human. The villagers are not monsters. They are frightened, and frightened people believe all sorts of things. Holmes, for once, is the most reasonable man in the room. Whether he is also the only safe one is what the second part has to answer.