Atom Age Vampire (1963)

Good movie, but best of all time? Hardly . . .

Excellent but underrated film

Absolutely Fantastic

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

Pierre (Sergio Fantoni) is a Navy Lieutenant by his bars, a Chief Petty Officer by his collar insignia. He breaks up with his stripper girlfriend Jeanette (Susanne Loret) who immediately explodes her car going down an embankment. WOW! Do sailors really date strippers?She is in a hospital with a slightly disfigured face, one that skin grafts could cure, or her long hair could cover...which it does for most of the movie. She believes her face will always be this way as she contemplates suicide with the gun she is packing in her purse while smoking cigarettes in her hospital room. My how things have changed.Never fear, a woman with stereotypical sunglasses and a trench coat (Franca Parisi) shows up and offers her help through Professor Alberto Levin (Alberto Lupo) who has a machine that goes ping, an oscilloscope, a centrifuge, and a "radiation chamber" that could be an early microwave oven. His new product Derma 28 he wants to use on a human guinea pig, hence the stripper with the deformed face, one that he instantly falls in love with to the dismay of his assistant.The professor uses the substance and it turns him into more of a hideous Mr. Hyde, than a vampire. I think "Atom Age Mr. Hyde at Times" wouldn't sell as well as the vampire thing. They could of at least gave him a long teeth. The make-up was pretty bad. It must have been stuff left over from our Lend-Lease program.Not much in character build-up. Acting and script were pretty sad. Might have some film history interest as a vampire film worse than anything with Kristen Stewart in it. Just kidding Kristen, I really did like how you played a dead chick in that Snow White thing you otherwise ruined.

Atomic Age Vampire, is not your average vampire movie.The movie opens with a woman horribly disfigured after an automobile accident.The story, it does not immediately feel like horror.Unusual treatment is suggested. The movie adds a mad scientist; or a weird science horror twist, to the plot.The treatment, suggesting: affecting people with vampirism.Miraculous regeneration treatment with a cost.From the start, it feels more like science fiction than actual horror.The story, seems to be a little over- drawn. It takes a while, to get to the vampire element of the tale.When I think atomic age; I think of films lie Return of the Vampire. I don't see the relation to era in the movie's title.Atomic Age Vampire, is not necessarily a bad movie; it just does not feel to me as being a classic horror film.

Atom Age Vampire is an Italian movie that is not, in fact, about a vampire. Tricky, huh?It deals with people who have been disfigured due to cliff-side car accidents, the detonation of nuclear warheads, and other such everyday occurrences. Our antagonist is a mad scientist—I'll bet you didn't see that one coming—sends one of his aids to a local hospital to persuade the survivor of aforementioned car wreck to visit his estate so that he can test his cell-regenerating serum on her. The woman's face resembles ground beef, and it seems that this "doctor" is well aware of the fact that this is completely unacceptable. Actually, she'd rather commit suicide than survive as an outcast.I mean, sure, society puts a lot of pressure on people to "fit in" and "look normal"; but the degree to which this theme is overblown in Atom Age Vampire is…well…almost comical. I say "almost" because it's so heavy-handed that even the actors don't seem to buy it as a viable subtext. Because of this, they neither take it seriously or approach it as hamminess. Quite simply, there's a whole lot of "dull" going on.Did you notice the word I used in the previous paragraph? "Actors." Hmpf. They're mostly cardboard cutouts who sputter lines like "Oh, no! We should go to the police!" or "Let me go! I said 'let me go!' Let me go! I said 'let me go!'" I suppose that the intended tone for the dialogue could have been lost in translation—the dubbing here is atrocious to say the least—but there's no getting around the fact that the story is so moronic that had it been portrayed by any venerable stage performer of the past century it would have been regarded as the most high class display of deceptively simple gobbledygook ever created.It really is that scatter-shot and downright confusing. Here are some highlights: the doctor who's developed the serum in question appears to also have been disfigured, though he inexplicably transitions between being a hamburger face to a scowling physician whenever the mood should strike him (maybe they were trying to rip-off Jekyll & Hyde?); he falls in love with his patient (and, it seems, a myriad of other women) and goes about terrorizing them in the middle of the night; he's assisted by a man-servant named Sasha who does little more than mime his thoughts and occasionally appear frantic; at one point the woman being treated is infuriated and closes (notice I said "closes"—she doesn't really "slam" it) a window shut only to have every square inch of the glass in the pane shatter; etc., etc., etc.One could probably say that some sort of clever commentary is just begging to be identified; you know, something to do with the horrors of war; how "ugly" we all really are—that kind of thing.But, in case I haven't spelled it out in enough detail, here's what I think: Atom Age Vampire just plain sucks.

The stripper Jeanette Moreneau (Susanne Loret) is dumped by her boyfriend Pierre Mornet (Sergio Fantoni) and she drives her car to talk to him. However, she has a car accident and the left side of her face is completely disfigured by horrible scars. She is approached in the hospital by Monique Riviere (Franca Parisi), who is the assistant and lover of Professor Alberto Levin (Alberto Lupo), and she tells Jeanette that her face can be restored.Jeanette secretly goes to the professor's house and is treated by him, using a process that depends on the cells that Prof. Levin, who is also a monster that strangles his victim, removes from the women that he kills. While treating Jeanette, Prof. Levin falls in an unrequited love for her and kills Monique. Meanwhile, the police inspector that is investigating the mysterious murders, suspects of Prof. Levin."Seddok, l'Erede di Satana" (meaning "Seddok, the Heir of Satan"), a.k.a. "Atom Age Vampire", is a trash Italian horror film that combines "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" with Georges Franju's "Les Yeux Sans Visage" and the vampire of the messy American title. The result is a predictable film, with one actress that recalls Sophia Loren and the other that recalls Madonna. But anyway, it is entertaining and worths be watched. I saw the 87 minutes version and by the way, who is Seddok? My vote is five.Title (Brazil): Not Available