Count Richard Marnack (Giacomo Rossi Stuart) invites members of a struggling theatre company to spend some time at his castle; there, they learn of the Marnack's terrible past, the Count's ancestors being rather partial to hacking off their wives' heads with a large knife. History repeats itself when the guests start turning up minus their noggins.
Having read some of the reviews here on IMDb, I wasn't expecting to be entertained by The Bloodsucker Leads The Dance, and sure enough, the first half an hour proved to be fairly unremarkable, with an uninspired plot and some truly terrible dubbing to boot. Therefore, I was completely blindsided by the film when, thirty minutes in, it was as though either Jess Franco or Joe D'amato had suddenly seized control of the direction: the film went from dreary gothic horror to graphic sexploitation in an instant, with some very explicit lesbian action. I hadn't been expecting that!
It turns out that the version I was watching was in fact a French release from 1977 called L'insatiable Samantha which features the original sex scenes in their entirety (these were trimmed for the 1975 Italian release) plus hardcore inserts for some extra spice. While the film's murder/mystery storyline is, for the most part, extremely bland, the intermittent scenes of XXX naughtiness add a welcome degree of sleaze to proceedings. Throw in a couple of severed heads, and an incredibly abrupt and therefore rather amusing conclusion, and The Bloodsucker Leads The Dance isn't quite the unbearable snooze-fest I had been led to believe it was.
5.5/10, rounded up to 6 for IMDb.
Having read some of the reviews here on IMDb, I wasn't expecting to be entertained by The Bloodsucker Leads The Dance, and sure enough, the first half an hour proved to be fairly unremarkable, with an uninspired plot and some truly terrible dubbing to boot. Therefore, I was completely blindsided by the film when, thirty minutes in, it was as though either Jess Franco or Joe D'amato had suddenly seized control of the direction: the film went from dreary gothic horror to graphic sexploitation in an instant, with some very explicit lesbian action. I hadn't been expecting that!
It turns out that the version I was watching was in fact a French release from 1977 called L'insatiable Samantha which features the original sex scenes in their entirety (these were trimmed for the 1975 Italian release) plus hardcore inserts for some extra spice. While the film's murder/mystery storyline is, for the most part, extremely bland, the intermittent scenes of XXX naughtiness add a welcome degree of sleaze to proceedings. Throw in a couple of severed heads, and an incredibly abrupt and therefore rather amusing conclusion, and The Bloodsucker Leads The Dance isn't quite the unbearable snooze-fest I had been led to believe it was.
5.5/10, rounded up to 6 for IMDb.