It stars Gianna Maria Canale, Carlo D'Angelo, Dario Michaelis, Wandisa Guida, Paul Müller and Antoine Balpêtré.

She lives with her aunt, who hides her face in a veil, as well as the scientist Julien Du Grand, who is trying to find the secret to eternal youth.

On the final day of shooting, Freda left the set which led to the cinematographer Mario Bava to direct the rest of the film, which changed various plot points and added the inclusion of stock footage.

Joseph arrives at the clinic of Professor Julien Du Grand and demands money to leave town or he will report what is happening to the police.

As the police try and track down Lorette's kidnappers, Lantin is reassigned from following the Vampire story and is set to cover a ball at the castle of Du Grand.

Gisele turns him down as her face begins to grow old before his eyes and she reveals that each person killed restores her youth for a short time.

Gisele meets Pierre the next day when she is picking up a painting where he spots odd behavior in her such as writing with the wrong hand, which leads him to return to her castle to investigate further.

Gisele begins growing ill from her previous experiment and calls upon Professor Du Grand to aid her.

Pierre takes Joseph to the police station where he reveals he was the kidnapper of the young women, but the people in the castle are the real murderers.

Lorette is sent home and Inspector Chantal reveals that Giselle confessed to the crimes and died shortly after.\ Around the time I Vampiri was in development, Italian film productions had grown exponentially.

[3][8] I Vampiri was a low-budget production with Donati and Capentieri of Athena and Lombardo's Titanus investing 32 million lire each initially into the film.

[9] The initial budget was 97,000,000 Italian lire which increased to 142,000,000 for its post-production and release after the film's format was switched to panoramic CinemaScope.

This includes the crimes committed by Gianna Maria Canale's character Giselle Du Grand, which are based upon the legend of Elizabeth Bathory who bathed in the blood of virgins to stay young.

[12][13][14] Another influence that Freda acknowledged was Edgar Allan Poe's short story "The Fall of the House of Usher", with its suggested parallel between decaying, dissipated interiors and the Canale's vampire-like character.

[16] On their return to Italy, Canale would have the female lead role in nearly all his films including The Iron Swordsman, Sins of Rome and Theodora, Slave Empress.

[15] After an argument with the producers,[8] Freda left the production allowing Mario Bava to step in to finish the film in the next two days.

[10] Mario Bava biographer Tim Lucas wrote in 1992 that another version of the film, also titled Lust of the Vampire, was assembled in the U.S., which incorporated scenes of nudity.

[23] I Vampiri's photonovel was titled Quella che voleva amare (English: The One Who Wanted to Be Loved), which appeared in I Vostri Film in August 1958.

[22][24][25] IGN gave a positive review of the DVD, referring to the image quality as "stunning" and that the film was the original cut, "not the butchered Devil's Commandment version aired on late night television over the years.

"[29] The review praised the special effects involving a transition between a young to aged woman and back again, and concluded that "if only story, treatment and performance ... had been comparable, the film might have been really high in its class.

[31] In their retrospective review, Craig Butler of AllMovie wrote "While I Vampiri is more important for its place in history than for it ultimate effectiveness as a film, it is nevertheless an entertaining horror flick.

[26] Martyn Conterio, in his book on Black Sunday stated that it would be "pushing it to declare I Vampiri as a neglected masterpiece, but it is a hugely underrated work and very cleverly sets out what a horror film with a modern edge and sensibility could achieve.

He also opined that the film spends too much time with Dario Michaelis character, and the "mind-numbingly dull and endless police procedural scenes"[35] Freda felt that I Vampiri did not succeed financially in Italy due to the country's audience reluctance to an Italian interpretation of the horror genre.

[41] Italian screenwriter Ernesto Gastaldi suggested that it was when Terence Fisher's film Dracula (1958) was released in Italy that a "hailstorm of vampire movies flooded the screens".