The Vampire and the Ballerina (1962, Italian L’amante del vampiro) is a mish mash of bad and good elements. Such movies promise novelty and insight, but rarely deliver, and this falls into that category. The characters, the herd, if you will, of ballerinas and their instructors, are virtually interchangeable, dancers with little else to distinguish them. The predators, the vampires, have more going for them, a mysterious reserve married to sudden bursts of violence.
The promise comes from the choices made by the vampires. For example, a woman begins the transition from human to monster – and is destroyed, not by relatives or churchmen, but by the very vampire that has brought her to this cusp. Turns out he’s jealous of his world and does not wish to be challenged. It’s an emotional, even mad proposition – but believable. What are they trying to say with this twist?
Not much, it turns out, if anything. There are delicious hints of family dysfunction between the two vampires in this movie – but not much is really made of it. As we wait, in vain, for elucidations, the victims fall, the women fulfill the usual Italian movie stereotypes, and then they wander about at random. The men go to search for them in the forest – and find them, without explanation, in the castle.
The seams of plausibility fray, and then burst gracelessly all over the admittedly charmingly decayed castle. It could have been an interesting take on the vampire tale; it might have even been entertainingly mad, putting the powers of dance against the blood lust of the vampire. But it doesn’t dare such an outre approach to the concept; it spins meaninglessly, staggers at random, and in the end the movie falls with a ripe splat to the roof of the castle, there to turn to dust under an inexplicably invisible sun.
Regretfully, not recommended.
