Riccardo Freda (Alexandria, Egypt, 24 February 1909 – Rome, Italy, 20 December 1999) was an Italian film director. He worked in a variety of genres, including sword-and-sandal, horror, giallo and spy films.

Freda began directing I Vampiri in 1956 but left the production midway to have it completed by Mario Bava. The film became the first Italian sound horror film production.

Biography

Riccardo Freda was born in 1909 in Alexandria, Egypt to Italian parents. Freda attended school in Milan where he took art classes at the Centro Sperimantale. After school he took on work as a sculptor and art critic.

Freda first began making working in the film industry in 1937 and directed his first film Don Cesare di Bazan in 1942. Freda's began directing I Vampiri, but eventually left the production allowing Mario Bava to step in to finish directing the film. I Vampiri was the first Italian horror film of the sound era, following the lone silent horror film Il mostro di Frankenstein (1920) Despite being the first, a wave of Italian horror productions did not follow until Mario Bava's film Black Sunday was released internationally.

Freda died on 20 December 1999 in Rome.