Marino Girolami is also the Frank Martin who directed Zombie Holocaust and the Franco Martinelli who directed Special Cop in Action and Violent Rome. He’s also the Dario Silvestri who made God Was in the West, Too, at One Time.

In this film, Professor Fabius (Raimondo Vianello) has learned how to possess other people. He takes over a teacher at a lady’s reform school by the name of Giacinto Floria (Ugo Tognazzi) and becomes a sex maniac, ruining that man’s nice relationship with his girlfriend Mafalda (Abbe Lane, the former wife of Xavier Cugat).  Nobody really has sex but just the idea of it in 1960 seemed to be enough.

Basically, this movie is Werewolf In a Girl’s Dormitory as a comedy. Look for Hélène Chanel (The Witch’s Curse) and Linda Sini (Seven Blood Stained Orchids) in the cast.

Count Gabor Kernassy (Walter Brandi) lives in a castle surrounded by darkness and a forest, so when an entire group of exotic dancers, their piano player and their manager ends up on his doorstep, it all seems like a buffet. Yet one of those dancers, Vera (Lyla Rocco), is the reincarnation of his long lost wife Margherita Kernassy. How does this keep happening to these vampires? Well, maybe he isn’t the undead one. Ever think of that?

Directed by Piero Regnoli, who was one of the writers of I Vampiri as well as Patrick Still Lives, Burial Ground, Demonia, Nightmare City and so many great films, has made a movie that seemingly shares so much with The Vampire and the Ballerina. This film, however, has more of a lost romanticism and had the original title L’ultima preda del vampiro (The Vampire’s Last Prey). It was released in the U.S. as an adult movie and then edited for TV as Curse of the Vampire.

Regnoli co-wrote this with cinematographer Aldo Greci, who shot this and so many other movies including Play Motel.

This has a good vampire and a bad one, so to speak, as well as a housekeeper Miss Balasz (Tilde Damiani) and groundsman Zoltan (Antonio Nicos) who are on the side of good. But still, this is a movie where Katia (Maria Giovannini) can die and get buried and everyone keeps on dancing because, I mean, why stop dancing? It’s also the kind of early exploitation that has her get a stake to the heart and blood pours all over her shapely legs. Didn’t Russ Meyer say it best? “While violence cloaks itself in a plethora of disguises, its favorite mantle still remains… sex.”

Al Adamson directed his first movie with his father, Victor, and wrote the script with Alan Greedy. His father was also the cowboy actor Denver Dixon.

In the days before the Mexican Revolution, the daughter of a wealthy landowner named Maria San Carlos (Caroll Montour) is set to take part in an arranged marriage with Escobar (Al Adamson using the name Lyle Felice). Not in love, she and Joanne (Shirley Tegge) run away with Escobar’s mercenaries after them. Her servant Manuel (Sergio Virel) and another team of henchmen are also sent.

The high point of this — I don’t have the box set, so I’ve been hunting a copy — is that there’s a duel with bullwhips.

The interesting thing is that this is all told from a female POV — novel for 1960 and a Western — and gets pretty rough with Mariah nearly being raped. It’s 67 minutes long and would start the foundation for the movies that Adamson would make.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Assignment: Outer Space was first on Chiller Theater on Saturday, April 24, 1965 at 11:20 p.m. It also aired on May 21, 1966 and June 1, 1968.

Known as Space-Men in Italy, this was Antonio Margheriti’s first full directorial effort. How magical is it that at the same time that this was being filmed, Mario Bava was filming Black Sunday in the next sound stage over.

This takes place in 2116, as Interplanetary Chronicle of New York reporter Ray Peterson (Rik Van Nutter, Uncle Was a Vampire) is writing a story about the infra-radiation flux in Galaxy M12. The space station commander thinks that he’s in the way, which doesn’t help when they both fall for the station’s botanist Lucy (Gabriella Farinon, Blood and Roses).

Then the out of control Spaceship Alpha Two appears, headed straight to Earth with enough radiation to destroy it. Lives are lost, including Al, who is played by Archie Savage. He’s probably the first black man to play an astronaut on film, first in First Spaceship On Venus and then in this movie.

Peterson becomes a hero and uses Space Taxi B91 to fly out to the death ship and shut down its power. He’s rescued by the commander, gets the girl and all is well in the world of Italian science fiction.

Using the name Anthony Dawson, Margheriti would make more science fiction films, including Battle of the Worlds; Wild, Wild Planet; War of the Planets and, late in his career, Treasure Island In Outer Space.

You can watch this on Tubi.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Atom Age Vampire was first on Chiller Theater on Saturday, December 26, 1970 at 11:30 p.m. 

Seddok, l’erede di Satana was renamed Atom Age Vampire in America. It was directed by Anton Giulio Majano and written by Majano with Gino De Santis and Alberto Bevilacqua.

An exotic dancer (Susanne Loret) has her face ruined in a car accident. She goes insane when she sees her face but is offered a chance by Monique Riviere (Franca Parisi Strahl), the assistant of Dr. Levin (Alberto Lupo). The idea of saving the beauty that she has lost appeals to Levin, so he starts injecting her with a special serum called Derma 28, which he based on research done on burn victims in Hiroshima. Before you can say, “Corruption is not a woman’s picture” or “Eyes Without a Face,” he’s fallen in love with her and he’s killing women to keep her ravishing, even if it lasts less and less with each murder, because the supply is running out. In order to forget things like morals, he injects himself with Derma 25, which makes him into a monster who no longer cares how many women he has to kill. The police bring in Dr. Levin to consult and he blames Japanese immigrants for the crimes. Of course, it’s been him all along.

There are two amazing remakes of this movie.

Animator Scott Bateman used the English dubbing to create a soundtrack for his animated version of the movie.

Adam Roberts also made Remake, a scene-for-scene reshoot that also has the dubbed English soundtrack, but moves the camera so we never see anyone. It also looks like a bad VHS dub, which is an intriguing choice.

There’s no vampire in this, but once Dr. Levin starts losing control of his beast side, you won’t miss any of those blood drinkers.

You can watch this on Tubi.