I Vampiri

Director: Riccardo Freda
Script: Piero Regnoli, Rijk Sijostrom
Cast: Carlo Angelo, Dario Michaelis, Wandase Guida, Angiolo Galassi, Renato Tontini, Charles Fawcett
Running time: 81.5 minutes
Year: 1957
Certificate: 12

A vampire is stalking Paris and four girls’ bodies have been found in the river, all drained of their blood. A shadowy figure creeps into a theatre dressing room and chloroforms a dancer, Nora, then kidnaps her. Meanwhile, Pierre, a keen journalist, is after a story so he’s following up on the cases and is hounding the cops. Inspector Chantal, who is investigating the deaths, does not approve of Pierre’s probing. Soon Pierre suspects that aristocratic family Du Grand, who live in an ancient castle, may be connected to the murders, but Inspector Chantal refuses to provide support for his investigations. During his investigations Pierre avoids the harassment of Giselle du Grand, who is the niece of the wealthy matriarch of the family, Margherita du Grand. As Pierre probes deeper into the blood-letting mystery he puts himself in increasing danger and also those around him.

Often cited as the first modern Italian horror film, I Vampiri’s reputation has grown considerably throughout the years and is now considered to be a classic of the gothic horror sub-genre that it inhabits. Unfortunately, because it’s been so copied over subsequent years, watching it now it’s less impactful since most horror fans are all too familiar with the, by now, standard horror tropes that it’s full of. However, it’s still a decent film; one that is nicely shot and framed, replete with a, at times, bombastic Dick Barton-like score by composer Roman Vlad.

Whilst there are some memorable moments throughout the film, including a female student finding a room full of skeletons and a sequence involving the sudden aging of a main character, the film’s plot is perhaps a bit too simplistic for modern audiences that are used to binge-watching relatively complex series with large casts, with even larger character arcs. However, the actors manage to rise above the sparse plot details and deliver some memorable performances, especially the countess, with her cat-like eyes.

Radiance have done a splendid job bringing new life to a relatively aged movie, resulting in it looking like a film that was shot this year, albeit in black and white. Not that that’s a bad thing, especially with Mario Bava as the Director of Photography displaying his usual panache with clever use of light and shade. The sound is also very clear and sharp.

As per usual for Radiance they’ve put together some decent special features:

Lust of the vampire (1959) and The Devil’s Commandment (1960) – We get two versions of the film, the former the UK version (at 65 mins) and the latter, the US version (72.18 mins).

Audio commentary with Tim Lucas – Here the author of the definitive Mario Bava biography talks about the film in detail including the fact that it was released a month before Hammer’s Curse of Frankenstein (1957) and therefore it represents the first gothic horror movie of that era, plus it’s also Italy’s first horror film with sound.

Bloodthirst (17 mins) – A 2013 documentary on the making of the film by film historian Fabio Melelli. Apparently the actress who played the countess was Ricardo Freda’s wife, who had to suffer through three hours of make-up for the aging process, which was mostly done through the clever use of changing the lighting type. The documentary features some nice imagery and clips, including an archive Bava interview, taken from a chat show, where he declares that he learned about cinema from watching French films, which he loved.

Lamberto Bava (15 mins) – An interview with Lamberto Bava, from 2022, where he discusses his father’s career, right from when he started out, helping his granddad, Eugene, who was a head of SFX, to his last film. Apparently Mario enjoyed playing with different film stocks and used Cinemascope to save money on such film stock. Apparently Mario Bava directed some scenes in I Vampiri, especially those featuring visual effects.

Leon Hunt (21 mins) – An interview with the author of ‘Mario Bava; the Artisan as Italian horror auteur’. Apparently Bava has status as a pioneering filmmaker, who led the gothic revival, or at least led neck-and-neck alongside Hammer films. Sadly, I Vampiri wasn’t as successful as its producers had hoped for, but was a smaller, lower-risk film, so didn’t actually lose money. Freda had concocted a magical, fantastical subplot for the film, but this was jettisoned due to time constraints – the film was shot in only 14 days.

The Devil’s Commandment trailer (1.41 mins) – Sadly, a seemingly rather old print of the trailer has been used, but it’s still a fun watch.