Unbelievable and nearly incomprehensible mashup of a movie scores anyway due to its wild ride all over the map, constantly changing genres and tone. If you take a step back from it, it's a very unique experience.
An artist named Antonio Sordi makes his living painting images of nude young women in the throes of death. He periodically transforms into the vampiric image of his ancestor, a similar artist who was burned at the stake--the dialogue suggests that his art was just too good, he had to have been in league with the devil. His main accuser in his trial was a beautiful woman who was also his muse, and she too has been reincarnated as a blissfully unaware dancer who thinks she's having a romance with Sordi. Sordi himself seems to only be peripherally aware that he transforms into a vampire and goes out to stalk beautiful women, bringing them back to his spooky studio in a belltower to paint their dead bodies and then boil them in wax.
The movie has an elliptical feel to it, this story has been pieced together from three different films. But somehow there's something here that actually works. The atmospheric scenes of Sordi's vampire doppelgänger stalking his victims are often very scary. The vampire seems to be able to corner his victims no matter where they are, even in broad daylight. There's a doomy, relentless aspect to these scenes, as nearly 100 percent of the stalking victims end up dead. The schizophrenic remainder of the film veers from boring to rapturous-- the scenes of Sordi's ancestral counterpart being tormented by his muse in a wide open space are absolutely stunning. One thing that makes this movie notable is that the actresses involved are all very beautiful and, even more odd, their styles and mannerisms seem strangely contemporary.
The more serious elements of the movie are intercut with bizarre scenes of crazy beatnik art fans (one of them being Sid Haig), a brief and totally unrelated husband-wife soap opera moment, and more than a few of the costumes are silly. Depending on which cut of the film you view, you also might get stuck with a scene where one of the main starlets performs a ballet dance on the beach--for five minutes straight. I recommend the fast forward button for that. Plot threads this drastically different can never be tied together without some serious lapses in logic and a near total absence of motivation for any of the characters. But fans of the offbeat should take note of this film, as it manages to be utterly bizarre without becoming unwatchably bad.
An artist named Antonio Sordi makes his living painting images of nude young women in the throes of death. He periodically transforms into the vampiric image of his ancestor, a similar artist who was burned at the stake--the dialogue suggests that his art was just too good, he had to have been in league with the devil. His main accuser in his trial was a beautiful woman who was also his muse, and she too has been reincarnated as a blissfully unaware dancer who thinks she's having a romance with Sordi. Sordi himself seems to only be peripherally aware that he transforms into a vampire and goes out to stalk beautiful women, bringing them back to his spooky studio in a belltower to paint their dead bodies and then boil them in wax.
The movie has an elliptical feel to it, this story has been pieced together from three different films. But somehow there's something here that actually works. The atmospheric scenes of Sordi's vampire doppelgänger stalking his victims are often very scary. The vampire seems to be able to corner his victims no matter where they are, even in broad daylight. There's a doomy, relentless aspect to these scenes, as nearly 100 percent of the stalking victims end up dead. The schizophrenic remainder of the film veers from boring to rapturous-- the scenes of Sordi's ancestral counterpart being tormented by his muse in a wide open space are absolutely stunning. One thing that makes this movie notable is that the actresses involved are all very beautiful and, even more odd, their styles and mannerisms seem strangely contemporary.
The more serious elements of the movie are intercut with bizarre scenes of crazy beatnik art fans (one of them being Sid Haig), a brief and totally unrelated husband-wife soap opera moment, and more than a few of the costumes are silly. Depending on which cut of the film you view, you also might get stuck with a scene where one of the main starlets performs a ballet dance on the beach--for five minutes straight. I recommend the fast forward button for that. Plot threads this drastically different can never be tied together without some serious lapses in logic and a near total absence of motivation for any of the characters. But fans of the offbeat should take note of this film, as it manages to be utterly bizarre without becoming unwatchably bad.