Atom Age Vampire

Atom Age Vampire is a movie about a woman, Jeanette, (Susanne Loret) who is a burlesque dancer whose boyfriend, Pierre, (Sergio Fantoni) leaves her (why, we're not quite sure, since he seems to like burlesque dancers), and how she is scarred and disfigured in an auto accident. She has a pretty gnarly bit of false flesh applied to the side of her face, courtesy of the primitive makeup effects department, and goes about wrapped up and wearing sunglasses. Her career, as you can pretty much imagine, is kaput.

The assistant to a sadistic, homicidal mad scientist, Dr. Levin (Alberto Lupo), comes to visit her, inviting her back to his "clinic," wherein experiments were held with "Derma 25," a radical chemical agent that transforms animals into monsters or something, and where Monique the Assistant shoots up with the stuff herself. And maybe Dr. Levin does too.

Of course, there's an Igor-like, inarticulate, lab assistant named Sacha (Roberto Bertea) floating around, mainly to be abused by the good doctor. He offers a weird, occasionally counterpoint of pathos, but doesn't seem to effect the flow of the film much.

Monique the Assistant (Franca Parisi) is in love with Levin (one wonders specifically why) and is jealous of Jeanette who is the object of Levin's love. Something poetic about that. Anyway, Jeanette can't keep her good looks, Derma 28 notwithstanding, and so either (this is confusing), Levin is going to have to do some radiation blasts on her in his radiation chamber (he stands in a sort of ring of lights and there is smoke and stuff) or kill some women and extract the "Derma 28" directly from their moldering old bones. So he murders Monique.

Levin injects the stuff himself so he can get his killing frenzy up, and Jekyll and Hyde-style transform into the "Atom Age Vampire," a gnarly, snarling midnight monster show ghoul that kills people. But not nearly enough to be really entertaining.

(There are an interesting few scenes where the doctor's atomic obsession plays through. He collects "fused glass" sold as souvenirs at Hiroshima, and flips through a photo album of radioactive sickness victims that would make J.G. Ballard grin. If he were still here to grin, that is.)

Pierre the Boyfriend and a few bumbling cops get involved, Pierre swearing he saw Jeanette in a car driven by the "Gorilla killer" or something, and the whole thing ends in a confusing mess. I guess. I won't give it away, because you'll want to see it, as the film is an entertaining celluloid atrocity, the monster is groovie, and the actresses are lovely to look at.

Otherwise the last twenty minutes of this film? I can't quite seem to remember it. It escapes me, just as the unfortunate women who are sucked clean of their Derma 28 didn't escape from the clawed, hairy clutches of the shambling "Atom Age Vampire." (Who is really a doctor in love with a stripper who had a bad car accident whose face was scarred permanently, but who is now ALL BETTER. Except that she needs the BLOOD OF THE DEAD to sustain her beauty. I wonder what Erszebet Bathory would say about that?)

A wonder to behold, a cinematic Triomphe de luxe, it may not be. The dubbed dialog is hard to hear. But it would be perfect at three o'clock in the morning, hosted by Central Indiana's resident President of Celluloid Shock and Cinematic Sleaze, the late, great Sammy Terry.

Arising from his coffin,

He'd cackle with glee,

And present a picture for all to see.

A dismal terror tale, tried and true,

A sickening shocker just dripping with grue!

And what to your bleary young eyes would appear,

But a revenant rife with the ripe stench of Fear!

A hideous menace that burst from the lab?

A sickening shambler jumped up from the slab?

No, 'tis an ATOM AGE VAMPIRE that flies in the night,

Let loose from the foul earth, with a bite full of FRIGHT!

(Cue menacing laughter.)

...Now, g'night!