The Playgirls and the Vampire

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Made in 1960, Piero Regnoli's THE PLAYGIRLS AND THE VAMPIRE is one of the earliest Italian horror films. After skipping out on an unpaid hotel bill, a busload of curvaceous showgirls is forced off the road by a thunderstorm. They prevail on the hospitality of a nearby castle, where the reclusive Count Kernassy nearly orders them away-until he sees Vera, a leggy dancer who's a dead ringer for his beautiful ancestor Margherita! Unfortunately, Vera is also attractive to the Count's 200 year old, bloodthirsty ancestor-who's a dead ringer for his descendant!
Hilariously awful movie about a busload of showgirls and their disreputable manager who break down outside a spooky castle after running out on their hotel bill. Little do they know the hospitable count who owns the castle is a vampire. The girls wander around in various states of undress and practice their tacky "dance routines" while the count eyeballs them and his spinsterish housekeeper mutters snide remarks. One girl falls prey to the vampire and comes back in the nude! Wearing nothing but fangs, she attempts to vampirize the manager. The heroine becomes the object of the vampire's lust because she resembles his long lost lover. Of course it all wraps up neat and tidy. There's no gore but lots of cheap lingerie and atmosphere. This is a wonderful example of sixties EuroTrash at it's most silliest. I love this movie on terms that are hard to explain to the uninitiated. It's released by Image and the print is good and the soundtrack adequately clear so you can relish the cheesy dialogue and psuedo-atmospheric sets. No budget, bad acting, bad dubbing and the script sounds like it was made up as they went along. Servicable b&w photography works well, the ENERGY is there and the earnestness to put over a Gothic horror movie in a spooky castle despite the frequent lapses into tasteless cheesecake is what endears this one to me. The people who can appreciate this flick on it's own terms, like me, know who they are and I hope they enjoy it as much as I do. It's a lot of fun and a true Euro-shlock classic.