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An Exercise In Nonsense

A Masterpiece!

A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

The last of a family of vampires stalks the daughters of the wealthy in romantic era Germany by insinuating herself into their households and seducing the victims with a bit of lesbunism.Gentle horror that plays out OK, but suffers from an undercooked screenplay. The opening sequence is eerie, but there's immediate confusion created by the shroud and a sloppy failure in continuity with an open/closed door.The cast is solid, but struggles with leaden dialogue. The central relationship had a lot of scope for character development, but the writer went for a black & white seduction of innocent but dull virgin, enlivened with some boob flashery. Two characters remain a complete mystery (with a bizarre Scottish accent at one point), which shows poor plotting, and surely the issue of daylight vampires should have been explained.Pace is good, and the music is full on without overwhelming.Overall it's competent if a little confused. With these kind of period pieces I prefer to see tension over the social situation - repression of women, parasitism of the landlords - but this time the story teller failed to sink his fangs into that pulsing vein.

Seductive vampire Carmilla Karnstein (Ingrid Pitt) and her family target the beautiful and the rich a remote area of late 18th century Germany.At only a £165,227 budget, how could they afford to do anything other than hire Peter Cushing and Ingrid Pitt? The answer, of course, is that these horror icons were not earning the huge salaries their counterparts today are. But Pitt and Cushing are not even the biggest deal here. Although not as well known as Cushing or Pitt, Madeline Smith was a Hammer regular and is half of the "vampire lovers" from the title. She had previously appeared in "Taste the Blood of Dracula" (1969) and go on to do "Theatre of Blood" (1972) and "Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell" (1972) before going even more mainstream as a Bond girl.Further, director Roy Ward Baker is perhaps best known for his work with Hammer and Hammer horror, but actually had a long, distinguished career in Hollywood, including directing the Golden Globe-winning "A Night to Remember" (1958) and a young Marilyn Monroe in "Don't Bother to Knock" (1952).This is seen as a "female-driven film" when seen from a feminist perspective, and more generally thought of as a lesbian vampire film. Pitt says this is not a lesbian film and stresses that "vampires are not lesbians", they are just very physical and passionate. Baker says the producers probably wanted to suggest lesbian themes, but that was never his intention -- he wanted a good film, not a sensational one. He further says the lesbian theme is not in the original story, regardless of what others claim.The audio commentary on the MGM disc features director Roy Ward Baker and actress Ingrid Pitt, which is well worth a listen.

Roy Ward Baker directed this film that stars Ingrid Pitt as beautiful(but evil) Carmilla Karnstein, a female vampire who ingratiates herself into the household of General Von Spielsdorf(played by Peter Cushing) whose daughter Laura becomes a target of Carmilla. After finishing with her, Carmilla moves on, but a distraught and enraged General Spielsdorf vows revenge against her, and enlists others to learn her secret history, then track her down to destroy her and end that evil. Good cast of course, but this Hammer studios film is mostly lurid exploitation, though there is a memorable nude bathing scene for Miss Pitt, the film's highlight.(Not much of a coherent plot however...)

With the exception of Interview With the Vampire, it seems like the best vampire movies come out of Europe- Nosferatu and Vampyr from Germany, Let the Right One In from Sweden and the Hammer films from Britain. The Vampire Lovers is a Hammer horror film with a great deal of bite. It deals with the legendary lesbian vampire Carmilla, played in this version by Ingrid Pitt.From the female vampire who is quickly beheaded in the movie's prologue, The Vampire Lovers is filled with beautiful women. Chief among them is Pitt, whose eyes look both seductive and deadly. Carmilla feasts on nubile young virgins Laura and Emma. There's some great nudity, including in the scene where Carmilla is in the bath and Emma tries on a dress. Carmilla puts on a towel, but only around her hips, leaving her breasts still exposed. Gratuitous nudity? Well, the scene with the two half-naked women playfully chasing each other around the bedroom has a point: the lesbian eroticism is unmistakable.Beyond the erotic aspects of the film, The Vampire Lovers has what every vampire movie needs: good atmosphere with good sets and costumes, as well as mostly smooth dialogue and acting. At the same time, they had the good sense not to actually show the giant cat Carmilla morphs into; it probably would have made a terrible special effect. There are still questions, like if Carmilla's family was wiped out, where did the man in black and her "mother" come from? Probably just victims she made into vampires after the opening scene. My main regret is Carmilla dies at the end (gruesomely). Beyond that, I don't understand the problem people have with this film.Happy Halloween.