Seddok, l'erede di Satana

Many of us grew up seeing this Italian horror flick on TV under its alternate American title, ATOM AGE VAMPIRE. The most readily available copies are truncated and badly dubbed into English, and ran anywhere from 60 to 80-ish minutes, despite it originally being something like 105 minutes. My review is based on rediscovering the movie through a recently released Italian DVD in its original running time and true title - SEDDOK, L'ETEREDE SATANA. The results are definitely better, as there is a new striptease scene added in addition to more dialogue (all of it in Italian) and extra scenes with the monster featured in the film ... but this is still only a so-so time killer for dedicated horror hounds only.

A gorgeous blonde stripper (Susanne Loret) has half her face scarred up after a bad car wreck, and so an older doctor (Alberto Lupo) who's been experimenting with glandular treatments manages to restore her beauty. But he ends up falling in love with her, and when the cure proves only to be temporary, the doctor must go out and kill other women in order to keep the restoration process going. Since he can't bring himself to murder, he willingly transforms into a horrible monster to give him the guts to carry out his diabolical intent.

If the bulk of that synopsis does not sound familiar, well it should ... this is not by any means a fresh idea, and most recently had been dabbled with in a superior French film, LES YEUX SANS VISAGE (1959). The film in its original length does seem somewhat overlong and padded, though in all fairness the Italian DVD is only partly in English, as the new scenes were never dubbed. And since it's not English subtitled either, we are still away from the "perfect" release to evaluate the movie in the U.S. **1/2 out of ****