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Sunday, June 10, 2018

VAMPIRE AND THE BALLERINA 1960 (SHOUT FACTORY) BLU-RAY

Finally!! Another of my favorite films comes to Blu-ray.

I have had my bootleg DVD made from a recording on TCM for years, and now it has finally come to Blu thanks to Shout.

This fun little film centers around a group of beautiful female dancers who are staying in a small village. The problem is that the village is being plagued by bizarre deaths.

In the opening moments of the film a young woman working on a farm is victimized by a hideous bloodsucker and shortly after she dies. One day a couple of the dancers and a boyfriend of one of them stumble upon a castle said to be uninhabited. They run across a stunningly beautiful woman called Countess Alda (Maria Luisa Roland) and her servant Herman.

One of the women is attacked by the same vampire that attacked the farm girl and this starts the terror for all the young women in the dance troupe. The Countess and Herman are both hideous vampires seeking new blood.

The relationship between Herman and the Countess is a bizarre one indeed. Herman drinks the blood of young women then lets the Countess drink blood from him which in turn makes him a grotesque monster that the Countess shuns.

This is one of many vampire/dancer horror films made in Italy during the heyday of Italian horror. It's also the best in my opinion. The women are all extremely beautiful and built more like strippers than ballerinas, but who's complaining? The vampires are grotesque and the ending is pretty cool indeed as the bloodsuckers melt in sunlight.

The film looks great as the print was taken from the only surviving elements. Shout has done an excellent job bringing this forgotten gem to Blu-ray. The film comes with a choice of Italian language or English dubbed. Subtitles are also available as well as a great photo gallery.

Now, there is one extra on here that is probably one of the best I have ever seen. This point was brought up on another website review as well and I will also bring it up. The extra I am talking about is a 10 minute Super 8 version of the film from the long gone Ken Films Company. Young people today have no idea how good they have it when it comes to home entertainment.

This is a good look at how we from my generation used to have to enjoy classic horror. These films were available at K-Mart and I used to own hundreds of them. The films at first were silent and subtitled in either 3 or ten minute versions. Young "fanboys" always bitch and complain about every little thing and yet they have the best of everything. "Fanboys" have been spoiled and I even read a bunch of bitching about this title before it was even released!!

Anyway, it was a wonderful trip down memory lane watching this 10 minute version! I used to own the 3 minute version and thought it was so cool and it was years and years before I saw the film again on TNT's "Monster Vision" and recorded it. At last it has come to Blu-ray and is a contender for release of the year. VERY HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!

2 comments:

  1. I'm glad you enjoyed the 8mm digest courtesy of myself and Mirek Lipinski. It's a lot of fun ("You cheap wench!")and the low-fi look is just as if seeing it projected! It could have been done on a better scanner, but I had to pay for the transfer and opted to choose the service I did.

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