"Seddok, l'erede di Satana" aka. "Atom Age Vampire" of 1960 is a cheesy but fun Italian trash Horror film with a bad reputation that tells a story very familiar to fans of 60s Eurohorror. Unluckily for this film (but luckily for my fellow Eurohorror lovers) "Atom Age Vampire" has a storyline that is almost identical to those of TWO fantastic films from the same year, George Franju's masterpiece "Les Yeux Sans Visage" (aka. "Eyes Without A Face") and Giorgio Ferroni's brilliantly atmospheric Gothic gem "Il Mulino Delle Donne Di Pietro" (aka. "Mill of The Stone Women"). Two years later, Spanish cult-director Jess Franco would create another highlight about a similar theme with "Gritos En La Noche" (aka. "The Awful Dr. Orloff") of 1962. "Les Yeux Sans Visage" is positively one of the most fascinating Horror films ever made, and "Mill of the Stone Women" as well as "The Awful Dr. Orloff" are also wonderful films that no genre-lover could possibly afford to miss. In comparison to these fantastic films, this "Atom Age Vampire" is incredibly weak, of course, but, as far as I am concerned, it is not awful and has its qualities.
As said, the story is familiar. An ingenious but nuts scientist is obsessed with restoring the face of a beauty who was disfigured in a car accident. And he has no scruples to commit whatever crime or insane experiments in order to make his ambitions a success and restore her beauty... Most of the performances are ridiculous and the plot line is considerably weaker than in the aforementioned comparable classics, but its still fun to watch. The film does have a certain atmosphere and morbidity, however (allthough not comparable to "Eyes Without a Face", "Mill of the Stone Women" and "Dr. Orloff", of course), and the makeup effects are actually quite well-done. The jazzy score is also quite decent, but it doesn't always fit in. Some of the character behave in downright absurd manners and the dialogue is often more than ridiculous and unintentionally funny ("Am I wrong or are you getting fatter?"). Logic is also not the film's strongest point, of course. So "Atom Age Vampire" is certainly a cheesy film that cannot compete with highlights about the same topic, but I still think it has a certain charm. Try to get hold of the Italian language version, the dubbing is terrible (which is not something that can be blamed on the film itself, in my opinion). This can easily be skipped, but it can also be enjoyable to my fellow fans of low-budget 60s Horror. Make sure to watch "Mill of the Stone Women", "The Awful Dr. Orloff" and especially "Eyes Without a Face" before this one though.
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