The Slaughter of the Vampires (1962)

Waste of time

Great Film overall

As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

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've been a fan of the horror genre for so long now that it's becoming dangerous to stumble upon a film I never heard or read anything about before. On one hand, it's exciting because this perhaps could be the hidden gem you've been waiting for forever (particularly since it concerns an Italian Gothic horror movie) but on the other hand you're very cautious with expectations because it's simply not normal that you never saw the title mentioned anywhere on forums or in magazines ever before. "Slaughter of the Vampires" definitely looks promising enough, with a title like that and very appealing DVD cover art illustrated here on the website (I'm a sucker for that) but the end result is overall sadly mediocre. It's a very rudimentary and straightforward vampire movie and you'll undoubtedly have a feeling of déjà-vu more than once. A young couple, Wolfgang and his bride Louise who boosts a massively impressive cleavage, moves into a castle unaware that a Christopher Lee wannabe vampire already inhabits it. During their Victorian house-warming party, when the butler goes to the wine cellar to pick up a few bottles, the camera zooms out and there suddenly comes a vampire emerging from his coffin from behind a the wine barrels! How could anyone have missed that during the open house showing day? There's a coffin in the wine cellar! Anyway, the nameless vampire carelessly joins the party upstairs and ends the night by biting the brand new lady of the house in her neck. He also turns out to be quite a smooth talker as he even offers flowers to the girl he enslaved as his immortal bride. Louise condition grows increasingly worse and the local doctor advises them to travel to Vienna and obtain help from the acclaimed Dr. Nietzsche. I don't think he's supposed THE world-famous Nietzsche, as he was more of a philosopher if my memory serves me well, but perhaps a cousin of his? The old vampire chap naturally finds his way to Vienna as well, where it will eventually become a virulent showdown."Slaughter of the Vampires" is like a very basic and primitive re-telling of the Dracula saga in which the character names have been changed and certain sub plots have been removed in order to make it even more simplistic. There's no Renfield, no Carfax Abbey, etc. So, not a hidden gem, unfortunately, but a rather dull and redundant Gothic vampire movie that fully deserves its obscurity status. The lead actresses are beautiful, Graziella Granata who depicts Louise is particularly exquisite, but none of the cast members appear to be very interested in the in the script. They just stand there motionless and bring their lines in the most random fashion. I'm not too familiar with director Roberto Mauri, but if Mario Bava or Antonio Margheriti had directed this film, surely there would have been a lot more passion and intensity bursting from the screen. Apart from the occasionally atmospheric music, a few nice touches of scenery and the impressive rack of our lead actress (which is exactly right to plan a wooden stake in between), there's absolutely no reason to track this movie down.

"Slaughter of the Vampires" was made around the same time as another Italian Vampire film, Mario Bava's classic "Black Sunday". Unlike "Black Sunday", there isn't the sense of atmosphere or thrills. "Slaughter of the Vampires" plays out pretty much like any other run-of-the-mill Vampire flick. The dubbing is only average. The film plods along at times and there is little in the way of action. The Italian countryside locales are beautiful though. I also have to admit that the women are quite lovely(I may be a little biased due to my Italian heritage). The film isn't a total loss though I wish it were better than the title suggested. Worth a peek.

WARNING: POSSIBLE SPOILERS AHEAD: I have a weakness for European low-budget horror films from the 1960s so I watched this film wanting very much to find some good in it. Unfortunately, my attempt was in vain. Walter Brandi (spelled "Brandy" in the credits) plays the vampire (or one of them). He had been in a movie before this called THE VAMPIRE AND THE BALLERINA where he sported a cool make-up job. Well, he has no such cool make-up job in this film. In fact, there's not much of anything cool in this film. The music score is nothing special. The B&W photography isn't that great and neither are the sets. It's mostly a bunch of un- interesting people sitting around talking for the greater part of it's running time. WARNING: POSSIBLE SPOILER AHEAD:At the end, the vampire is staked and disintegrates. Sound cool? Don't bet on it. If you want cool disintegration scenes, see FRIGHT NIGHT (1985) or HORROR OF DRACULA (1958) or THE EVIL DEAD (1982). If you want to see a disintegration scene handled poorly, watch as the filmmakers dissolve from Walter Brandi to a series of drawings of withered heads then a skull then nothing. Also, the drawings move about in relation to one another with each dissolve. I made a better disintegration scene as a kid with a Super 8 camera and some modelling clay. After seeing this, I understand why it isn't even mentioned in most books about horror films.