SHADOWS IN THEIR BLOOD

Fading movie stars Trixie Dolan and Evangeline Sinclair (Encore Murder, 1990, etc.) are at work in a Dracula movie being made by hard-driving, erratic hack director Job Farrady, in a bat- infested old hotel in the resort town of Whitby—freezing cold and isolated in mid-January. All sorts of undercurrents crisscross as the cast assembles—rival actress Griselda von Kirstenberg; Hungarian Igor Ferenczy, onetime movie idol crippled and deformed by the Gestapo; wan young American Lora, Job's current mistress; arrogant leading man Fabian de Bourne and a host of others, all equally improbable. So is the plot, in which every hackneyed vampire clichÇ is rerun, a murder is committed, and retribution is exacted, all in a haze of hysteria and archly barbed dialogue. Babson at her silliest: only for the most forbearing of fans.