The Playgirls and the Vampire [DVD]

When a traveling burlesque show’s bus is waylaid by a storm that washes the bridge out, they luckily find the nearby gothic castle to spend the night in. the ratio of creepy gothic castles to unstable bridges in Europe must be 1 to 1. The generically handsome count is ready to throw them out if not for the lucky break one of the troupe looks just like his long dead love. Nearly naked hijinx ensue as one of the troupe falls victim to the mysterious presence in the castle. How many more of the barely clad beauties will die before somebody figures out it is a vampire. I mean come on, creepy castle it’s less likely it wouldn’t have a vampire than having one.A fun gothic chiller in the transition period of the evolution of European horror. It was one of the first movies to introduce nudity and more direct erotic undertones to the horror genre paving the way for the more explicit Euro-horror fare on the late 60s and 70s. The plot is as paper thin as the gauzy nightgowns the female characters more often than not find themselves wearing. The characters are equally thin, the main girl is as wholesome as a burlesque dancer can be while her fellow dancers are much more real tough as nails burlesques performers. The manager like all mangers of burlesque troupes in 60s cinema looks like Jack Ruby with a pork pie hat over a balding pate as he schemes and sleazes his way through the film chomping on a thin cigar. The middle act is a bit slow, after the death of the first woman when you’d expect the plot to start speeding up with more vampire carnage they instead decide to practice their strip show. I’m not entirely sure which level of grief striptease is but they give it a twirl. The movie is saved by sharp directing and excellent sets that give the film the gloomy gothic feel it needs. It’s cheap, it really exists to have attractive women run around in next to nothing but it has a sweet timid charm that makes it enjoyable cinema junk food.

Early (1960) Italian horror film has it all down pat; effective b&w photography, dark, creepy corridors, stormy nights, gothic castle, mysterious host, age-old vampire curse and naked playgirls! What could possibly be missing? Nothing that would leave me wanting. With the bridge washed out our cuties are trapped inside a decaying castle until they are able to leave, warned not to leave their rooms at night.So what do the playgirls do when one of their own waunders the castle that very night and is brutally murdered, then buried the next morning, wrapped up in a burlap bag and dumped into a shallow grave? They go inside the castle and rehearse their striptease numbers! The show must go on!One of the playgirls resembles a dead 1600's countess and another becomes a vampire. There's a secret lab with bubbling chemicals and some also secret passageways with lots of cobwebs, heavy on gothic charm.When it's all said and done, most of the girls live, and by that time we've seen all of them in various stages of undress, which is a big plus as they're all rather good looking.Nothing meaningful here, just a good time at the vampire's castle. It's all rather well made and not at all embarrasing, even if a tad bit silly at times. I really enjoyed this one and if you're into Euro-Trash cinema, especially gothic horror, then you'll probably like it too.

good b rated movie

As a film,this is two stars.As a piece of Trash-cinema for the exploitation junkie,it rates soemwhat higher.Silly and harmless movie tells the story of a group of models and there promoter who get stranded at a old,dark castle.This is black and White italian cinema of the 60s,so there is plenty of gothic atmosphere and a creepy vampire on hand who has an eye on the babes.And babes they are!The girls are all cute and are in various stages of undress throughout,including a busty blonde striptease and a very sexy vampire girl who prefers to walk about in the nude!(She's usually in the shadows,but there are a couple of choice shots,being this is an uncut european print).All ends predictably,as the vampires are destroyed and the babes move on to....whatever there destination was.Ridiculous,but if your open minded to such ridiculous fare,you may enjoy this as much as I did.

I'm very disappointed. I've bought the DVD to have the italian audio and I cannot find it. I'm pretty sure it's not on the DVD so why the Amazon description says that the DVD includes the original italian audio?The video is pretty good but I'm mad for the missing original language track.

Excellent

Cute Girls... A little entertaining.

A+

fantastic

Discreta la qualità audio e video nonostante ci siano alcune spuntinature e graffi sul flusso video; l'audio italiano non essendo completo (come avvertono nel dvd) passa automativamente in inglese in quelle parti in cui ne è privo e ciò succede diverse volte durante lo svolgimento della pellicola. I sottotitoli sono escludibili. Consigliato l'acquisto ai patiti del cinema horror gotico italiano degli anni sessanta, poiché questa pellicola è uno dei primi film del filone.

This ITALIAN horror from the 60s comes to dvd so what do we have.Well first about the print its good but not great in fact there is a slight drag on the movement in parts the sound is okay for a movie that is dubbed .On the extra side we get a nice short KIM NEWMAN vampire hunter were he gives a history of this movie and others about that time there is also the 8mm silent version of the movie the trailer for the movie and photo gal.The story a bus full of playgirls is lost in the country were they find an old castle i think you no the rest oh by the way years later this movie was more or less remade with a few changes to the script here and there it was called THE DEVILS NIGHTMARE.So to sum up if you enjoy this type of movie as i do you you should enjoy this movie its a shame the print was not better

Good buy