The Bloodcurdling Baron

"The Bloodcurdling Baron" is the fourth episode in the animated horror anthology miniseries Mister Grimm's Storybook, which aired on October 1st, 1989. Adapted from D.B. Grimm's short story "Miss Murray's Host," the episode follows the lost traveler Clara Murray as she narrowly escapes the clutches of the vampiric Baron Plexel von Blutendorf.

Plot Summary
In 19th century England, the doe Clara Murray is traveling from London to Glasgow through the English moors when she is caught in a thunderstorm. She takes shelter in a seemingly abandoned manor, but it is not: its sole resident is Baron Plexel, a dashing noble German buck who seems fit and hardy, but has a loud wheeze and refuses to let her near him. He claims he is recovering from consumption, and that he sent away his waitstaff for their safety. However, he says she can stay and offers to make her supper.

Clara explores the house, and finds proof that others have been there lately: a coachman's hat, women's antler-wax, a French-English phrasebook, and other personal effects that clearly do not belong to Plexel. She suspects he is covering up a romantic affair, but suspects worse when she finds a room full of broken furniture and a bloodied handkerchief. Plexel assuages her fears by saying that the objects belonged to various members of his household, the furniture was broken when a carriage moving it overturned, and the handkerchief was from his tuberculotic cough, but she is not fully convinced.

Clara goes to bed and rests, but late at night hears Plexel calling her for supper. She gets out of bed and heads downstairs unquestioningly, as if sleepwalking. Plexel is in the kitchen, eyes glowing red, and she approaches him arms outstretched. However, she snaps back when she walks into something large, soft, and invisible. Plexel ends his magic to reveal his true form: he is a massively obese vampire, fattened to near-immobility from gorging on dozens' of victims' blood.

Her senses restored, Clara screams in terror and flees into the mansion. Plexel gives chase, moving unnaturally fast for his immense size and barreling through obstacles without a scratch. In the manor's greenhouse, both are trapped: Plexel's bulk is stuck in the door, but he blocks Clara's only exit. After a long stalemate, she tries to kill him by driving a broken tree branch into his fat breast; it fails, and Plexel savages her with his claws and fangs. He is about to drain her blood when the sun rises, causing him to burn like a candle until he disappears entirely.

Bloodied and wounded, but alive, Clara gathers her things and heads back on the road. She sees an inn and decides to stop, exhausted from the sun's heat and feeling awfully famished...