Atom Age Vampire (1960)

1960

atom age vampire, italian horror

Atom Age Vampire is an Italian horror film (Seddok, L'Erede di Satana) that has has been dubbed into English. A car accident disfigures exotic dancer Jeanette Moreneau and after the plastic surgeons have given up on her Professor Alberto Levin offers to redeem her beauty by using his secret formula, Derma-25. The cure is not permanent though, and to make matters worse the mad professor soon becomes infatuated with his patient. You can find out more about Atom Age Vampire at A Passion For Horror

Atom Age Vampire (, UK title: Seddok) is a 1960 black-and-white Cinema of Italy Horror film/science fiction film directed by Anton Giulio Majano and starring Alberto Lupo.

Plot

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 ined 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 ugees are arriving, and leave behind the victims' bodies with holes in the neck where Dr. Levin has extracted the glands, the ugees 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.

Cast

{| class="wikitable"
! Actor
! Role
|-
| Alberto Lupo || Prof. Alberto Levin
|-
| Susanne Loret || Jeanette Moreneau
|-
| Sergio Fantoni || Pierre Mornet
|-
| || Monique Riviere
|-
| || the gardener
|-
| Rina Franchetti ||
|-
| || Sacha
|-
| Ivo Garrani ||
|-
| Glamor Mora ||
|-
| ||
|}

Release

Atom Age Vampire was filmed in 1.66:1 aspect ratio on 35-millimeter film and was first shown in Los Angeles on May 29, 1963, three years after its 1960 production and original premiere in Italy.</>