Admittedly, these additions do indeed lend the film a certain campy charm. Once inside the castle, one of the girls spies the large dinning table and says, "I wonder if they'll let me do my high kick specialty on it?" These playgirls love to practice their routines. While watching one of the troupe members bump and grind her way through a particularly hot number, the girls and their male manager are all grins. They use stripping as a way to cheer up after one of the girls has been killed and buried: "The girls have been very upset, as you know, and this was the only way to make them stop worrying about it," says their manager when the castle's housekeeper interrupts the striptease.

While the showgirls contribute to the movie's absurd atmosphere, the presence of Maria Giovannini as a naked vampire is startling. When she first appears, only her face is illuminated, but when she steps from the shadows, we find she's as naked as a jay bird. She steps forward with her shoulders hunched. She's prowling. She comes directly at the camera, as if we're her prey. It's a surprising and jarring moment in an otherwise silly movie, a moment that no doubt had a strong influence on French director Jean Rollin who later in the same decade began creating his own series of sexy vampire movies.

Regnoli's camera does provide occasional flourishes. In the opening moments, he provides a short, moody stroll through a crypt as light slants through a window and a tomb lid begins to move. And later he provides a wonderfully expressionistic moment as a vampire's hand claws its way around the corner of a stone wall. However, most interiors are too brightly lit and look as if they were slapped together from plywood and plaster. Rooms are separated from the main hallway by curtains instead of doors. But on occasion, the phony sets suddenly disappear and suddenly we're in a genuinely creepy location. For example, after the castle's owner, Count Gabor Kernassy, warns the visitors to stay in their rooms at night, one of the girls, Katya (Giovannini), wanders through the halls. At first, her stroll is about as eerie as a church group's haunted house, but suddenly we're in a real castle, with real stone walls and rickety steps that lead nowhere. The effect is unnerving.

Walter Brandi assumes a double role as the Count Kernassy and as his twin ancestor, a 200-year-old vampire. Brandi starred in several Italian horror movies, including Slaughter of the Vampires and Bloody Pit of Horror, but unfortunately he was a wooden actor with little screen presence. In The Playgirls and the Vampire, he steps forward stiffly and does most of his acting with overemphatic eye movements.

Acquired for U.S. distribution by Richard Gordon in 1964, L'Ultima Preda del Vampiro (English translation: "The Last Prey of the Vampire") was quickly rechristened The Playgirls and the Vampire and released as an "adults only" feature. Later, it was re-edited for television as The Curse of the Vampire.

This new DVD release from Image Entertainment contains the original American theatrical version. This means the fleeting nudity is intact, as is the striptease by Erika Di Centra; however, this print also contains the dreadful dubbing that Richard Gordon commissioned for the film's original release. The original Italian soundtrack and subtitles would have been a welcome addition to this DVD package, but it's probably a bit presumptuous to suggest that such care be given to one of Italy's most ludicrous gothic horror movies.