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Luca (Isarca Ravaioli) supervises a group of ballerinas rehearsing for
a performance in a villa somewhere in the country, his girlfriend
Francesca (Tina Gloriani) among them. Mysterious deaths involving sudden
bloodloss have been reported in the nearby village, and somehow the girls
get all intrigued by a local legend of vampires, though Luca assures them
there's nothing to it, naturally. Then one day, Luca, Francesca and
Francesca's best friend Luisa (Hélène Rémy) get caught in the rain,
don't find their way back to the villa but end up at a seemingly abandoned
castle - which is actually inhabited by the Contessa (María Luisa
Rolando). Luisa gets separated from the others and is attacked and bitten
by a vampire. She later returns to Luca and Francesca and claims it was
nothing, but Francesca starts panicking. And she better be, because the
Contessa's manservant Herman (Walter Brandi) is actually a vampire, and
the Contessa feeds on the blood he takes to remain forever young. What's
worse though, Luca is secretly the Contessa's lover, and has a general
(but not detailed) glimpse of the situation. Francesca tries to tell the
others, but nobody is eager to believe her, and when she sees somebody -
Herman, but she can't make him out for sure - entering Luisa's room,
everybody thinks she's suffering from hysteria, which seems to be only
reaffirmed when she's found scared shitless but unharmed in the castle the
next day. Then though, both girls disappear, and Luca and the girls'
pianist the professor (Pier Ugo Gragnani) decide to investigate she castle
after all - and about time, too, as Herman has already chained up and
bitten Luisa, and Francesca is driven to despair. Of course, good triumphs
over evil in the end, and Herman gets staked, which is applauded by the
Contessa even. But Herman takes her with him into the land of the dead,
sucking her dry with his dying breath (assuming that's the right thing to
say with vampires). The Vampire and the Ballerina is by
no stretch of the imagination a great film, it's actually a rather
clichéed horror story relying more on genre mainstays and sexy girls than
actual storytelling, plus the directorial effort is anything but inventive
and the ensemble cast less than shining - but it's a fun old-fashioned
vampire piece anyways, filmed in some lovely sets, the direction actually
works in an old-fashioned way, and there is a certain elegance about this
one. Still, probably not a movie you'll remember in a day or two, but at
least nostalgic fun as long as it lasts.
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