Atom Age Vampire (Seddok, L'Erede di Satana) (1960) (NTSC)

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General		Extras
Category	Cult	Booklet
Rating
Year Of Production	1960
Running Time	86:07
RSDL / Flipper	Dual Layered	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	1,2,3,4,5,6	Directed By	Anton Giulio Majano
Studio Distributor	Gryphon Entertainment	Starring	Alberto Lupo Susanne Loret Sergio Fantoni Franca Parisi Andrea Scotti Rina Franchetti Roberto Bertea Ivo Garrani Gianni Loti Tullio Altamura Gianna Piaz Francesco Sormano
Case	Amaray-Transparent-Dual
RPI	?	Music	Armando Trovajoli

Video (NTSC)		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Linear PCM 48/16 2.0 mono (1536Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	480i (NTSC)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	None	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

     Beautiful stripper Jeanette Moreneau’s (Susanne Loret) seaman boyfriend Pierre (Sergio Fantoni) leaves her when she is reluctant to give up her profession. Distraught, she is involved in an automobile accident that disfigures her face. In hospital she is visited by Monique (Franca Parisi) who tells Jeanette that she is the assistant of renowned Professor Alberto Levin (Alberto Lupo) who, following his studies on atomic bomb victims in Hiroshima, has developed an experimental serum that will allow destroyed human tissue to regenerate. If Jeanette wishes to regain her beauty, she must secretly disappear and come to the Professor’s villa.

     The reality is that the serum, called Derma 28, is untested, being a development of an earlier Derma 25 serum that in fact caused horrible deformities. Jeanette comes to the Professor’s villa and is treated with Derma 28, using up all the available serum. It seems to work, and the scars on Jeanette’s face are healed. Levin falls madly in love with her, but it is only a short time before the disfigurement starts to regenerate. With the serum gone, Levin determines the only possibility of a permanent cure is to treat Jeanette with the genes of other young women. Monique becomes the first of Levin’s victims, but her genes are not enough. Levin, reluctant to kill again, takes Derma 25 at night and turns into a murderous beast, killing young women and bringing back what is needed to treat Jeanette before using radiation to turn himself back into a man.

     Things get worse for Levin. The culmination of doses of Derma 25 mean that he starts to turn into a monster without more doses, Jeanette fails to return his love and seeks to escape, and a Police Inspector (Ivo Garrani) and Pierre, returned from abroad, are becoming suspicious. This is unlikely to end well.

     Atom Age Vampire (original title Seddok, l’erende di Satana) is not really a vampire film. Instead it falls into the mad scientist, Jekyll and Hyde, formula, with the scientist giving all for science, and love. The plot has more holes than a colander, but director Anton Giulio Majano, who was primarily a TV director throughout his career as was main actor Alberto Lupo, play it absolutely straight and give it their all. Alberto Lupo is actually reasonably good, as is Ivo Garrani who injects a bit of humour into the Inspector, but both Susanne Loret and Sergio Fantoni are particularly wooden which undermines the tension somewhat.

     Atomic Age Vampire has been released in a diverse range of cuts, ranging from the original Italian cut at about 107 minutes, a US theatrical version at approximately 87 minutes, a US video about 72 minutes and DVD at 69 minutes. The version in this set from Gryphon at 86:07 minutes seems to be the US theatrical release. In any case, the original version of the film may have been lost, so this is about the best one can expect. Atomic Age Vampire is actually not as bad as some critics, or the IMDb rating, contend. While it still has some superfluous scenes, such as those in the night club which seem to be inserted at random, it otherwise speeds along and is a reasonably interesting variation on the Jekyll and Hyde theme.

     Atom Age Vampire is included in the six film, three DVD collection Blood Suckers, a set from Gryphon of vampire tales from around the world, Germany, Spain, Italy and England, from 1922 to 1974. The full list is Nosferatu (1922) and Vampyr (1932) on disc 1, Atom Age Vampire (1960) and Fangs of the Living Dead (1969) on disc 2 and Vampire Night Orgy (1974) and Count Dracula and His Vampire Bride (1973) on disc 3. The set also includes an informative eight page booklet.

Video

     Atom Age Vampire is presented in a ratio of 1.78:1, and is 16x9 enhanced. The original theatrical ratio was apparently 1.66:1. The print is NTSC format.

     This unrestored black and white print has some problems but is never unwatchable. The worst section of the video is the opening credits, which are mottled and even have a twinge of purple! After that the print does improve. Much of the film is very soft and lacking in detail, contrast is also poor and blacks are mostly OK but occasionally break up into moving mottled shades of grey; see 50:04 for a good (bad) example. Small artefacts are infrequent, but vertical scratches are quite noticeable (for example 25:21, 38:24 or 45:02). There are also a number of largish marks, reel change markers and interlacing errors with sudden movements.

     There are also a number abrupt scene changes, resulting no doubt to the cutting down of the original movie’s length,

     The layer change at 74:16 resulted in a slight pause.

     There are no subtitles.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

     Audio is an English Linear PCM track at 1536 Kbps. The dialogue is fine, effects tinny but acceptable. There is no surround or sub-woofer use. There are a couple of cracks but no hiss or hum is evident.

     The score is by Armando Trovajoli. Often it sounds like it belongs in a 1960s James Bond film, and is sometimes very inappropriate for what is happening on screen. For example, at 5:00 when Jeanette first looks upon her disfigured face the music is breezy and jazzy! I often found it distracting.

     This is the dubbed English language version of the film and lip synchronization was dreadful.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Booklet

     A booklet provides some interesting information and a summary for all the films in this box set.

     The Region 1 US version of Atom Age Vampire is in a double feature with Bloodlust (1959). I can find no information about the run time, audio or state of the video on this release but one review notes that this is a severely truncated print.

     Rather surprisingly, our version is 16x9 enhanced, and seems to be the original US theatrical release version. There does not seem to be another version available. As such, the film in this Blood Suckers package for a RRP of $19.95 for six films is a bargain. I also cannot find an equivalent of this three disc, six film package in any other region.

     Atom Age Vampire is not really a vampire film but falls into the mad scientist genre, with the scientist giving all for science, and love. The plot has more holes than a colander, but otherwise speeds along and is a reasonably interesting variation on the Jekyll and Hyde theme. This English language version appears to be the US theatrical release version of the film.

     Video and audio are acceptable for a film this age in the public domain. The only extra is a booklet.

     Atom Age Vampire is included in the six film, three DVD collection Blood Suckers, a set from Gryphon of vampire tales from around the world from 1922 to 1974.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall