Atom Age Vampire
| Atom Age Vampire | |
|---|---|
Italian poster for Atom Age Vampire
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| Directed by | Anton Giulio Majano |
| Produced by | Elio Ippolito Mellino |
| Screenplay by |
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| Story by | Piero Monviso |
| Starring | |
| Music by | Armando Trovajoli |
| Cinematography | Aldo Giordani |
| Edited by | Gabriele Varriale |
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Production
company |
Lion's Films
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| Distributed by | Film Selezione (Italy) |
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Release date
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Running time
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105 minutes |
| Country | Italy |
| Box office | ₤90 million |
Atom Age Vampire (Italian: Seddok "l'erede di Satana") is a 1960 black-and-white Italian horror film directed by Anton Giulio Majano and starring Alberto Lupo.
When a singer (Susanne Loret) is horribly disfigured in a car accident, a scientist (Dr. Levin, played by Alberto Lupo) develops a treatment which can restore her beauty by injecting her with a special serum. While performing the procedure, however, he falls in love with her. As the treatment begins to fail, he determines to save her appearance, regardless of how many women he must kill for her sake.
Despite the implication of its American title, the film does not feature an actual vampire. The titular Seddok is actually the brilliant but deranged scientist Dr. Levin, mutated by a chemical formula created using radiation. Dr. Levin studied the effects of radiation on living tissue in post-Hiroshima Japan, and created an imperfect and teratogenic serum, "Derma 25", which he later refined into the miraculous healing agent "Derma 28" which he uses to treat the heroine. When his supply of Derma 28 runs out, he realizes he must kill to obtain more, and injects himself with Derma 25 in order to become monstrous and remorseless, so that he may seek these victims without hesitation.
Because many of the murders take place near the docks where shiploads of Japanese refugees are arriving, and leave behind the victims' bodies with holes in the neck where Dr. Levin has extracted the glands, the refugees claim that a vampire (whom they call "Seddok", though this is not a Japanese name) is responsible for the attacks. During a meeting with police, a restored-to-humanity Dr. Levin speculates that the Hiroshima survivors' tales of a mutated killer are due to psychological strain from the radiation damage to their bodies...but also wonders aloud whether the "vampire" these witnesses describe might simply be a disturbed man wishing to be normal again.
Several reference books state the film was produced by Mario Bava, which is incorrect. The producer is Elio Ippolito Mellino under the alias of Mario Fava. The script for the film recalls Georges Franju's Eyes Without a Face, which had been released in Italy several months before Atom Age Vampire. The film was shot at Pisorno Studio in Tirrenia.
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Wikipedia