Come back Giallo a Venezia, all is forgiven.It’s rarely I write about bad movies, but I just can’t stop myself when it comes to Alfredo Rizzo’s The Bloodsucker Leads the Dance, giallo-style gothic horror from 1975. Now it’s been unleashed in Sweden to an unsuspecting audience, and I think we’re all grateful to Njuta Films not releasing only good movies, but also very bad ones!
Giacomo Rossi-Stuart is Count Richard Marnack, who lives on an island together with his staff of lesbian-wannabe maids and a highly religious butler. His big hobby is theater and after finding out that his favorite theater group has been shattered, he asks the ladies too come and join him on the island for a while. He falls in love with one of the actresses, and everyone seems to show there boobs at least one time. Soon after that someone is starting to decapitate the guests…
First of all, the man doing the dubbing for Rossi-Stuart was obviously sedated from a visit to the dentist! It sounds like he’s trying to do some ventriloquism, but with a live Italian actor instead of a creepy looking doll! The dialogue could have been written by a dead person and the porn-direction by Alfredo Rizzo makes Giallo a Venzia look like Santa Sangre! Not to mention the flat lighting…
So this is trash, mega-trash. And I’m happy to own it and have it my collection. There’s stuff I like about it too, actually, believe it or not! For example, our favorite bearded uncle Luciano Pigozzi sneeks around the castle, spying on naked girls and looks like the Peter Lorre-wannabe he’s always been. The aftermath of the killings is well-made, with nice gory bodies and heads sitting, laying and hanging around the sets. Good effects, it’s just a pity they couldn’t use more energy to build a story around them. But the main thing with Bloodsucker Leads the Dance is boobs, boobs and more boobs. There’s not even a vampire, just a boob-giallo.
One of the actors, a not-so-hunky fisherman at the other side of the island also looks like a chubby version of Mike Monty! With man-boobs, so it’s something for everyone here! Another fine detail is that they use black & white stock footage of a storming sea, when it’s a color movie! Maybe they’re trying to be a bit arty, evoke the old style gothic horror in some pretentious way – but I guess it was a question of budget for stock footage and nothing else.
I would lie if I told you that The Bloodsucker Leads the Dance is good, but for fan of Italo-horror/giallo it’s of course a must in the collection!
2 comments:
I love that dubbing of Rossi-Stuart, next time you watch Franco's 'Female Vampire' - Jack Taylor has that voice. I read some review where they say he sounds like a 'drunk Italian boxer' and I kind of liked that description ))
This is such a boring film, I gave my DVD copy away. But his new edition looks cool..
Haha, well, that's a quite good description too! Even if I disliked the movie, I'm happy to have in my collection.
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