Vampire Lovers
Roy Ward Baker, director.
UK, 1970, 35mm, 91 min.

Never heard of the schlocky Hammer Films' "lesbian vampire Karnstein trilogy" (1970-1971)? Hey, are you missing out! The first and most important of these is Vampire Lovers.

Directed by Roy Ward Baker, the film was a groundbreaking and daring attempt to breathe new life into the horror genre and ushered in a new era of erotic horror, being one of the first genre films in the U.S. to get the R rating. When released in North America, Vampire Lovers was trimmed of some vital sex and violence. These much-talked about scenes have rarely been witnessed, but MGM has taken the time and effort to restore them.

Drawing on the long tradition of lascivious she-devil melodramas from Dracula's Daughter through Vampyres and the collected works of Jean Rollin, the film is a sexy but faithful redo of J. Sheridan Le Fanu's "Carmilla." The voluptuous Ingrid Pitt stars as a lesbian vampire running amok as a gaggle of late-18th-century male experts (including, but of course!, Peter Cushing) investigate and, eventually, restore order to heterosexual society.

But not before Pitt's Marcilla/Mircalla/Carmilla, a husky-voiced Eastern European dame with a refreshingly modern view of humanity, has her way with a succession of squealing, wide-eyed maidens in low-cut gowns. Don't miss the scene when she entices the innocent Emma (Madeleine Smith) from the arms of her male lover and into her cloying embrace.

Part costume drama, part softcore soaper, part Seventies "dykesploitation", Vampire Lovers is a funny, phobia-filled male fantasy that's got everything you expect from the genre: a fog-shrouded castle, moldy crypts and attractive, nubile young women who spend much of the time in diaphanous nightgowns...only this time, they actually doff them on screen!

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