La strage dei vampiri

SLAUGHTER OF THE VAMPIRES (aka: CURSE OF THE BLOOD GHOULS) stars Dieter Eppler as the be-fanged monster of the title.

Wolfgang and Louise (Walter Brandi and Graziella Granata) have moved into their new castle, unaware that a certain coffin is hidden in the wine cellar! Soon, an enigmatic stranger crashes their housewarming party, bewitching Louise. In no time at all, she is donating her blood to him, the old-fashioned way! Can Wolfgang and the vampire-hunting Dr. Nietzsche (Luigi Batzella) uncover the true cause of Louise's "anemia", before she is lost forever?

SOTV is a black and white Italian film that makes great use of it's location and gloomy atmosphere. Eppler is excellent in his sinister, bug-eyed role. Obviously drawing heavily from DRACULA, this movie still manages to remain interesting and creepy.

EXTRA POINTS FOR: The woo-woo musical score!...

"The Slaughter of the Vampires" tells what is a pretty standard story. It does things competently but never extravagantly. Written and directed by Roberto Mauri, it stars the creepy looking Dieter Eppler as a blood sucker. On the run from angry villagers, he holes up in the basement of a castle. This castle belongs to newlywed couple Wolfgang (Walter Brandi) and Louise (Graziella Granata). In no time our night stalking antagonist is seducing Louise. Fearful for her life, Wolfgang turns to a specialist, Dr. Nietzsche (Luigi Batzella), who's a pretty fair stand-in for Van Helsing.

The atmosphere is decent, the dialogue fairly eloquent, and some of the performances are adequate. Eppler and Batzella are clearly standouts. It doesn't hurt any that there are some very attractive ladies present. However, Wolfgang is a pretty big dummy, as one will see, and it's a good thing Dr. Nietzsche is so competent. Pacing is deliberate, and the running time is a reasonably short 79 minutes. Overall, the film is romantic and sexy, and eerie enough, if never exactly scary. However, none of this really makes up for what is such trite material.

Certainly watchable, but hardly inspired.

Six out of 10.

This was renowned as the best of the 3 virtually interchangeable vampire 'classics' emanating from Italy early into their Gothic Horror phase; however, while that may be so, it is still nothing to write home about! I am not sure about THE VAMPIRE AND THE BALLERINA (1960) since it has been some time from my sole viewing of it, but this at least maintains a period setting throughout (beginning with villagers rising up against a bloodsucking couple). Incidentally, while Walter Brandi also turns up here, he is not the monster – the latter, in fact, is played by Dieter Eppler and he proves one of the hammiest ever depicted, while hilariously looking like Criswell from the Ed Wood movies! Brandi, then, makes for an ineffectual lead (he is even bitten twice throughout, offering virtually no opposition to his female assailants!) – though he does contrive to ambiguously participate in the climax, where we are unsure whether he intends harming a little girl or not, before trapping Eppler and proceeding to impale him with the pointed edges of a wooden gate!

During the course of the film, Eppler manages to vampirize two ladies: Brandi's wife Graziella Granata (who is virtually put under a spell by the villain, whose coffin is hidden in their country-estate's wine-cellar!) – an unintentionally amusing scene has her responding to Eppler's disembodied voice, then he nonchalantly appears from behind a nearby tree! – and her maid (who looks an awful lot like a plumper version of Isabelle Adjani!). The most impressive member of the cast is Paolo Solvay, actually a pseudonym for director Luigi Batzella (best-known for the nonsensical erotic Gothic NUDE FOR Satan [1974]), here appearing as Dr. Nietzche(!) and evoking Peter Cook, of all people, in appearance – in his case, the most hilarious bit has him telling Brandi of Granata's imminent demise and getting no reaction whatsoever (incidentally, the English dialogue of this one is exceedingly stilted, which may well have been an intentional choice so as to complement Eppler's stagy performance)! Another future film-maker, Alfredo Rizzo, turns up here as well but in a minor role this time around.

In conclusion, I recently watched an interview with director Mauri on the "Stracult" program on late-night Italian TV: apart from SLAUGHTER itself (in Italian), this section included scenes from a number of his other efforts…and I was sufficiently intrigued to acquire the black-and-white Giallo NIGHT OF VIOLENCE (1965), the psycho-drama MADELINE, STUDY OF A NIGHTMARE (1974; with Camille Keaton, and whose failure through poor distribution Mauri particularly bemoaned) and THE PORNO KILLERS (1980; albeit in its softer original form) soon after!

I first watched this film on TV in the late 60's, early 70's. At that time i thought that it was a pretty good film. Recently, i purchased it on DVD and have, somewhat, changed my mind. The atmosphere, castle and surrounding settings are very good, however, the acting could be better. The opening sequence is great, however, the movie goes downhill from there. Graziella Granata, is drop dead gorgeous and Walter Brandi, her husband/male lead is OK. My main problem is with Dieter Eppler, the Vampire. He is way too stiff and his makeup is overdone. He,i assume, does his best with what he has to work with but looks like an extra in a stage play, who just comes in and out. The music is fine and the film, overall, is worth watching. I just feel that it could have been so much better. John R. Tracy

The Vampire and his bride were on the run from the villagers when the bride was caught and staked. Now The Vampire is in search of a new bride. Wolfgang and his wife, Louise, acquire a castle and move in. Now The Vampire has his eyes on Louise and wants to make her his new bride.

If you like the story of Dracula, then it's possible you will like this Italian Gothic chiller. Louise and Wolfgang are much like Mina and Jonathan Harker, while Dr. Nietzsche is sorta a Dr. Van Helsing character. Carine is like Lucy and The Vampire, of course, is like Dracula.

I didn't have a problem with the dubbing from Italian into English - the copy I watched was fine. It's beautifully filmed, one of the best Italian films I've ever seen. The movie is written well -- just a revamping of the classic story of Dracula - and it's well acted out as too.

I really enjoyed this film - and I do recommend it to Vampire fans and for those that love Classic Gothic Horror.

8.5/10