Rent The Bloodsucker Leads the Dance (1975)

Spoilers ... - The Bloodsucker Leads the Dance review by NP

A period piece Italian giallo from the mid-1970s, featuring some wonderful rain-swept locations and some mild sexual moments – all of this sounds like a guarantee of success. Somewhere along the way, however, dullness overtakes proceedings. The dubbing must take some of the blame for this. Although I’ve seen worse, some of the voice actors sound incredibly bored. Whoever voiced the magnificently – almost unnaturally - coiffured, twinkling Count Richard Marnack (played by prolific actor Giacomo Rossi-Stuart) reduces the character to a monosyllabic sneerer instead of the suave charmer of a certain age he is supposed to be. Krista Nell was due to play the starring role, but due to health reasons, played the secondary Cora. Sadly, this was her last film – she died the same year. Patrizia De Rossi plays Evelyn, who bears an uncanny resemblance to Count Marnack’s wife. And they all they all have one thing in common: they all hate Samuel (Leo Valeriano). So when various characters begin dying in graphic circumstances, I drew my own conclusions. I might have been wrong.

The ending is quite abrupt, as often things are with films such as this. It is also not entirely satisfying, with a very effective revelation not quite answering all the questions regarding the previous 86 minutes. Whilst far from the best giallo film I have seen – in fact, it is only loosely a giallo – it has a certain appealing strangeness about it.

Several sexy scenes were inserted into this for its French release, where it was known as ‘L'insatiable Samantha (1977)’.