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 Blood-drained bodies of young women are found by French police and a journalist
named Pierre Lantin decides to conduct his own investigation. Along the way,
he gets interrupted by Gisele, the "beautiful and wealthy niece of the the
Duchess du Grand." Unbeknownst to Pierre, the duchess is the "vampire
ringleader of a criminal underground of mad scientists and re-animated corpses,
devoted to keeping her forever young!" 1956, 78 minutes, Widescreen, DVD
This is a movie the liner notes tells you is one of "historical significance."
That means that it is very boring, but you'll be bragging to your geek friends
that you have seen it (and probably lie and tell them it was something like a
"revelation" or "seminal."). The historical significance in question isn't the
fact that this is Mario Bava's dullest film, though you would think that would
merit a little mention in the notes, but that this is the first Italian horror
film of the modern age and jump started a genre that is now well known for
innovations like eye-gouging scenes and maggot storms. The notes by Video
Watchdog's Tim Lucas also provide some other interesting tidbits. The movie
was really directed by Riccardo Freda and Mario was the cameraman that finished
up the film after Freda got huffy and quit the movie after filming for ten
days. That might not seem like such a big deal, but Freda had made a bet
with the money men behind the movie that he could shoot in ten days. Mario
swooped in and finished everything up in 48 hours, apparently padding the
epic-length running time to 78 minutes by using stock footage and those
swirling newspaper headline scenes that are mandatory in movies about a crazed
killer stalking a city. They claim that Mario really deserves the "credit"
for this movie since he was the one who shaped the overall concept of the film
as it was released. They probably also knew that I never would have bought
something from the Riccardo Freda Collection, too. So what do we get from a
movie made in 12 days? A lot less than you might expect.  Someone or something is on the loose in Paris (there's nothing I like better
than hearing French people speak Italian while I'm reading English subtitles)
and it is killing off young hotties. Whenever their bodies turn up, they are
drained of all their blood, which is pretty much the effect this movie had on
me. I've never understood why these freaks that go around kidnapping fly girls
(that's still hip to say, right?) and drain their bodies of blood just dump the
corpses in the river or the park or where ever. We all know that's going to
cause a panic and everyone is going to be on the look out for you instead of
just hiding the bodies so that no one knows if they ran away, got a job
somewhere else, or were kidnapped and had their blood drained. It's difficult
to get all riled up about missing people instead of a body drained of blood.
But since there are these blood-drained bodies laying around all over town, we
need to have a nosy reporter to start nosing around. In this case his name is
Pierre Lantin, a blonde guy prone to hunches, wild goose chases, and unfounded
accusations that usually turn out to be correct. Pierre is the kind of
reporter that is always at odds with the police since they have to go on hard
evidence before making an arrest and Pierre just has to sit down and type up
whatever pops into his blonde head before he publishes a completely baseless
story about a vampire running around Paris knocking off French babes. Some of
the fault probably should lie with the cops ("les cops" in French) for their
Clouseau-like handling of stuff like the crime scene. Les cops are hanging out
backstage of somewhere where some chick was last seen before getting tapped for
all her blood and Pierre waltzes in and hands them a shoe of the missing girl
that was laying around somewhere nearby. "Thought you guys could use this,"
Pierre says and walks away like his les turds don't stink. At various points
during the film the cop in charge of the investigation threatens to run Pierre
in for all his crappy anti-cop stories with headlines like "I Found Shoe, Les
Cops Didn't" and "Les Cops Est Tres Dumb." That's how every reporter with a
nose for a scoop knows he or she is on the right track.  Pierre continues his investigation in spite of the threats hurled at him by the
police. I am sure it has nothing to do with the fact that his investigation
requires him to question several of the dead girl's hot friends. That's
strictly a coincidence I'm sure. Pierre is examining a picture that was taken by
somebody of the girl shortly before she disappeared (I really don't have any
idea how he got this picture or why it was taken, but he's got it, so there
must be clue there) and he spots a suspicious man in the photo that seems to be
hiding his face. Pierre immediately concludes that he is the killer. Somehow
or other he finds this guy and follows him and takes his picture then shows it
to the girls who identify him as doing something or other. I really don't have
any clue how we go from a mysterious picture to finding this guy to identifying
him, but I guess that's why Pierre is the newspaper reporter and I'm not. I
guess that's why this film was made in twelve days by two directors, too. At
some point in all this case-cracking, Pierre runs into his old pal, Gisele.
She is the niece of some duchess and she is all about trying to crack Pierre's
case - know what I'm saying? Surprisingly and rather unconvincingly, I might
add, he rebuffs her advances and throughout the movie talks about how even
though she wants him, he doesn't want her. The only reason for this other than
the fact that Pierre is one of those blonde, pretty guys that are known to
rebuff the advances of beautiful women, is that way back in olden times, there
was some problem with Gisele's aunt, the duchess, trying to get her hooks
into Pierre's father, with no success. That's the first time I ever heard of a
guy rejecting a chance to get all hooked up just to impress his father. Gisele
babbles about this and that and then she leaves (without Pierre!).
Meanwhile, in a part of the movie not dominated by stock footage and newspaper
headlines, there's this mad doctor guy who injects another dude with something
to give him a fix so that this guy will go round up more babes for his
blood-draining ER. There's a problem in this relationship at some point that
requires the doctor to fake his own death which results in the headline, "A
Great Loss For Mankind" because you know how hard it is to replace a mad
scientist intent on keeping old women beautiful with the blood of young
virgins. This doctor is also related somehow to the duchess. Eventually
Pierre's boss is getting irritated that since Pierre has begun this
investigation, the only thing he's managed to do is question pretty girls about
the whereabouts of their pretty friends (just give me six more months with
these women, Chief! I know I can break them down!) so he reassigns Pierre to
the society beat. Naturally, Pierre is miffed, especially since he's going to
have to cover a ball that the duchess is putting on. Apparently Paris only has
one duchess and she just happens to be putting on a ball while she's in the
midst of some kind of blood-draining killing spree. What's wrong with people? 
With his new beat of society puff pieces, Pierre heads off to the ball with his
trusty photographer in tow. I think his name was something rather manly like
Robert Fontaine. Robert, unlike Pierre, has been bewitched by the beauty of
Gisele and doesn't mind being at the ball (especially since everybody who is
anybody is there!) and you can tell that he's not long for this world as he
constantly asks Pierre to introduce him to her. Pierre dances a little with
Gisele and then talks to her outside on the veranda (I think it's called a
veranda - where I come from you call them balconies or in the case of most
trailers, decks). I'm not sure if this was some of the stuff that was inserted
by Mario to pad this thing out, because I really don't remember what they said
to each other. I think it was probably stuff about how he doesn't want to hook
up with her, because that was pretty much the only conversation that Pierre
seemed capable of handling. Either that or she was lamenting that her
real-life boyfriend, Riccardo Freda had just quit the film and they were left
in the hands of some guy named Bava who was probably just some cameraman that
wouldn't amount to much. Pierre leaves and Robert apparently decides that he's
got some unfinished business, because the next thing I know, this dude is
climbing up the trellis alongside the castle where this ball was being held!
You can't stop a French guy when his hormones are rumbling around in him like
the six gallons of wine this guy must have consumed before he realized what a
great idea breaking back into the castle would be. I mean, look at how
persistent Pepe Le Pew was. Robert climbs into Gisele's bedroom and she's in
there doing whatever it is that sexy aristocrats do in their down time. I
think she was brushing her hair, counting each stroke (100 every night before
beddie bye). Gisele figures out that Robert has somehow gotten past all the
security in her castle and gets really huffy with him. What's her problem?
This guy goes to all the trouble to meet her and she treats him like he was a
common criminal! He tries to get her to see that he is the guy for her and for
some reason she just isn't all that attracted to the guy that just broke
into her
bedroom in the middle of the night. Was this guy a professional football
player by any chance? Then she starts to get really old and nasty right before
our and Robert's disbelieving eyes. Robert immediately realizes that maybe
he's trying to move this relationship to the next stage a bit prematurely, but
all
his problems are solved when she shoots him dead. It turns out that Gisele is
really the very old and haggard duchess and she has been having her doctor
relative use the blood of chicks to keep her young. Yep, the very beginnings
of the Italian horror film as we know it today started with a rather boring
take on the whole, "old fart uses young blood to retain beauty" angle. How
historically significant. While Pierre is off enjoying himself at the ball, one of the pretty young
things he was flirting with during his investigation goes and gets herself
kidnapped by the duchess' henchmen. How could she be so dumb, you ask? Well,
she's walking down the street and falls for the old " blind guy needs letter
delivered to old abandoned house" con. She takes this letter for the guy and
goes to this house which is where Dr. Whathisname and the duchess are waiting.
Then they clear out and go and hold her at the castle where they do some
transfusing on her, but don't kill her. The cops run the blind guy in and he
gives up the building where they are and of course no one is there. Later,
Pierre realizes that superstud Robert Fontaine hasn't returned from the ball so
he goes somewhere to investigate that. At some point he convinces the cops to
go there and
they also find this dude that was dead, but who is now alive and he says that
he was the one getting the girls, but that the creeps in the castle made him do
it. At the castle the cops find nothing and the captain threatens to run
Pierre in for the fourth of fifth time and just as they're about to leave they
find something suspicious and then Gisele turns into and old hag and dies. The
woman is rescued and the characters all stand around outside the castle
chatting about
who knows what long after the film should have rightfully been over. This movie
is
significant in its boredom factor and you're amazed that the Italians even
bothered making horror films after this one. The liner notes say that it
flopped in Italy and attribute that to the fact that Italians made it and that
no one wanted to see an Italian horror movie. Well, duh. Italians will stay
away in droves from a dull movie as well as anyone else. The notes go on to
say that starting with the second Italian horror movie, everyone used
pseudonyms in an effort to trick their fellow countrymen into actually seeing
the movie. "A tradition that continues to this day," Lucas proudly asserts. I
can see the Italian Film Board's brochure for their horror movies now, "Italian
Horror Cinema: Fooling you into seeing boring crap for fifty years!" There's
no gore, no interesting people, and a rather uneventful story in this one, that
makes you appreciate the fact that later generations caught on to the fact that
in lieu of story and/or three dimensional characters, audiences would accept
drills through heads, guts puked out of mouths, and of course the standard
maggot storm. Bava does do a nice job behind the camera as usual, giving you
shots that look a lot better than a movie of this caliber deserves and he is
occasionally able to evoke the old Universal horror flicks of the thirties and
forties with his shots of the old ratty castle the duchess inhabits. Bava also
does a remarkable job with the make up effects that age Gisele before our eyes,
through a combination of creative lighting and greasepaint that will leave you
straining to see how he did it without the time lapse stuff they used in movies
like The Wolf Man. You can see the beginnings of a guy that knows he way around the camera in
this film, skills he would put to good use later in his career in much better
films, but this is really just an uninteresting and uninspired effort at best.
It seems unfair to lay the blame at Mario's feet since he only was in charge
of the movie for two days and was responsible for the film's best aspects, but
whoever said life was fair?
Reviews © 2004
MonsterHunter
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