I mentioned yesterday that I fell asleep during the cheesy horror movie meant for a blog post this week. Let’s see if I can write a post’s worth based on what I stayed awake for.
We picked Atom Age Vampire (1960) merely because it was on the first disc in our set of 50 Horror Classics. I had suggested we watch the first movie, but it turned out to be one we have on another set (that set also includes The Brain That Wouldn’t Die — my favorite!). The vampire movie was number two. In more ways than one, as it turns out, if you know what I mean (that joke was stolen from another favorite movie, Murder By Death)(I’ll explain it later; it’s disgusting).
Atomic stuff was very big in the ’50s and ’60s. A studio executive in the wonderful movie Ed Wood expresses interest in Bride of the Atom for that reason. Combine it with vampires and what’s not to like?
Well, I didn’t see any vampires as I know them. A guy starts killing beautiful girls to take… something from their bodies (a gland, I think, so you dirty-minded readers can stop snickering). I guess that’s kind of like sucking their blood. Nobody is feeding on what he takes; he’s using it to restore beauty to a blonde deformed in a car wreck. She was ready to kill herself, so I guess you could say her beauty was her life’s blood. To be even more metaphorical, I suppose you could say the killer is feeding his obsession with the girl. I am unlikely to say any such thing.
It takes a long time to get to the killing of beautiful girls part. First we have to meet the deformed blonde, before she gets deformed. She is an exotic dancer (I think; they never show her actually working) in love with a sailor who objects to her profession (how unreasonable considering that is probably how he met her). He leaves and that’s why she wrecks the car, which deforms her face.
Then we meet the killer before he is a killer. I guess you could call him a mad scientist, but I refer to him as the Bad Doctor in my notes in the TV Journal. He’s developing this serum to restore blah blah. Who pays attention to the technical stuff in these movies? (Oh, you probably do.) I was more interested in the assistant so in love with the Bad Doctor that she deforms herself (only her arm; she’s not entirely stupid) so he can test the serum on her. This does not make him fall in love with her (some of us girls never learn), so she goes to recruit the now deformed blond as a guinea pig (because she is somewhat stupid).
In a scene that was probably tacked on after they decided to add “Atom Age” to the title, we learn that Bad Doctor was in Hiroshima, where he learned blah blah. I told you I didn’t pay attention to the technical details.
The killings start because the serum, like a magic spell in a fairy tale, works but does not last. Soon the Bad Doctor starts turning into a hideous beast before he kills. I never saw a vampire that looked like that, not even Nosferatu, and he was pretty gruesome. I bet they added “Vampire” to the title, too.
Actually, Steven learned from one of his movie books, Video Movie Guide 2002 (Ballantine Books, New York, 2001), that the movie is a “badly dubbed Italian” film. We didn’t need them to tell us the film was badly dubbed, but I thought it was French, because the names include Jeanette and Pierre. I bet the original title was something quite different that translated oddly.
I fell asleep before the dramatic conclusion, so I couldn’t spoil the ending for you even if I wanted to (and of course I don’t). One other point of interest is that I could swear the staircase in one scene is the same one used in the Vincent Price/Agnes Moorehead movie we watched a few weeks ago (and reviewed in this space).
As a final note, I will share the joke I referenced earlier from Murder By Death.
Lionel Twain: I’m Number One!
Sam Diamond: To me you look more like number two, know what I mean?
Nora Charles: What does he mean, Miss Skeffington?
Tess Skeffington: I’ll tell you later. It’s disgusting.
Mohawk Valley Girl 