L'ultima preda del vampiro

The Playgirls and the Vampire is the English-language version of Piero Regnoli's L'ultima preda del vampiro, released in the US by enterprising producer and distributor Richard Gordon.

The film sees a troupe of exotic dancers, their piano player Frank (Leonardo Botta) and manager Lucas (Alfredo Rizzo) seeking refuge at a remote castle after they are forced to take a detour in their minibus. The owner of the castle, Count Gabor Kernassy (Walter Brandi), reluctantly allows the visitors to stay but neglects to tell them about the vampire that stalks the place at night...

The plot for this film is pedestrian (it's very similar to the equally desperate The Vampire and the Ballerina, released earlier the same year) and the script is uninspired, the film relying on the allure of its scantily clad women to retain the viewer's interest. The ladies are certainly attractive, but even with plenty of 'cheesecake' (and a brief glimpse of nudity), The Playgirls and the Vampire is a colossal bore, director Regnoli handling matters with zero sense of style or finesse.

The most entertaining things about the film are the hilarious dance rehearsal, in which each girl does their own thing, all of them gyrating awkwardly out of time to the music, and the terrible special effects used to show the vampire disintegrating when he is impaled. But as funny as these scenes are, they're not nearly enough to make up for the rest of this clumsy Eurohorror, which is as dull and dreary as the castle in which it is set.