The Bloodsucker Leads the Dance (1975)

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)'.

This movie is not only a very bad movie, with awful actors --or presumed actors--, a bored direction and a story unattractive, it also copies exactly an scene from the excellent "giallio" "Torso", directed by Sergio Martino in 1973 (two years before), one of the most celebrated psycho-thrillers of Italian cinema and a cult-movie around the world. In "La Sanguinusa conduce la danza", the director replays the bed scene between the black girl and the white girl, with an peeping-tom watching from a window of the bedroom. Naturally, the scene in Rizzo's movie is ridiculous and inferior to the softness and charming in Martino's film. To put another black girl, another white girl and another peeping-tom replaying the scene is simply the most appropriate way of prove that Rizzo's movie has no ideas, no originality, no taste, and nothing at all. I think that such things are an offense to spectator.

The Horror Channel plays nothing but erotic soft porn Gothic flicks each night from 10pm till about 4 in the morning, but their 'scare' factor is very limited, if one exists at all. In fact I am sure I will find a multi-million pound lottery win more scary than anything this channel has to offer.The Bloodsucker Leads the Dance deserves special mention because it is I feel, the undisputed low of a channel full of lows. I cannot even begin to tell you how bad this film is, but for the purpose of completing the minimum 10 lines demanded by this site, I will at least give it a go.Firstly the title is misleading and bears no resemblance to the action on the screen. In fact the film might as well have been called 'Toothbrush' or 'Wallpaper' for all it has to do with the plot. At least they used toothbrushes...at least they had wallpaper.There are no bloodsuckers for miles around and whats even worse there are no dances, not one. I'm sure they were making two different films by mistake here.A more suitable title would have been, 'Horny Italian Count Leads Five People to a Scary Castle and Bores us Silly for Ninety Minutes.' Yes that fits better.The acting is terrible and and the dubbing appalling, and that guy who plays Seymour was almost as wooden in his walk as he was in his character....abysmal.The only saving graces of this film are a small but slightly interesting lesbian sex scene, two small and very interesting heterosexual sex scenes, and the added attraction in that every single female character gets her kit off. Bonus.Otherwise steer a wide birth away from this one. No vampires, no dancing, no scenes of a brutal or gruesome nature and no way on Gods earth I will ever, ever, ever watch this one again.No word of a lie, this film could put you off motion pictures for life.

You know something? It amazes me just how much that some film-makers get away with. 'Bloodsucker leads the dance' is billed as a vampire movie, yet it turns out to be anything but!! It's little more thana cheesy soft-porn 'whodunnit' murder-mystery thrillerAtrocious dubbing and misleading synopsis aside, this film does havea few things going for it. Firstly, the music score is quite airy and atmospheric, and the period costumes are quite nice, and the sets are quite elaborate (even though quite a few of them can be seen in the film, 'Nude for Satan')Mind you, some of the set do like as if they're made out of Cardboard.There are also some convincingly grisly scenes of severed heads to spice things up a little.At the risk of giving too much away, what I noticed about this film is the way in which it plays around with the viewer's suspicions and makes you think at first that the creepy butler was behind the murders. I shan't reveal who the real killer is, though!All in all, this film won't win any Oscars, but if you happen to be into Italian 'Giallo' cinema, then you can't go wrong with little number.