Rollin on with Lips of Blood

For years of being a horror fan, I’d been loosely aware of Jean Rollin and his whole vibe, but I had never ventured in to check it out. Happily, with this blog compelling me to follow my completionist urge to better know my genre of choice, a few years back, I finally took in my first of his films, The Shiver of the Vampires (1971), and I was immediately struck. Weird, artsy, bold, idiosyncratic, surreal, and clearly deeply personal and deeply felt, he was an auteur with a very specific individual imprint. Since that time, I’ve gone on to watch quite a few of his other works, at least from the first half of his career (later films, not having the budget, were shot on video, and I fear it didn’t well serve his aesthetic), many of which I’ve written about here (such as Grapes of Death, Living Dead Girl, and Requiem for a Vampire), and I must say, I’m a fan. I may not always be in the mood for what he has to offer (slow, dreamy, artful), but when I am, it can be a warm, hypnotic pleasure. That said, I think many of his films feel less like horror movies than avant-garde forays into the fantastique (this is certainly true for the film under consideration today), but there are sufficient horror markers (vampires, crumbling castles, blood and death and flesh) and well as rich, haunting atmosphere and an exploration of themes invested in the stuff of horror (need, loss, death, sex, decay, persistence, obsession, madness) to earn his oeuvre a place of honor on this here blog.

Sometimes I want the comforting glee of horny teenagers getting creatively picked off at a summer camp and sometimes I want a wistful exploration of doubted memories at the nexus of Eros-Thanatos life-death drives.

And that’s just what we’ve got today! As always, spoilers abound, but while there is actually, believe it or not, a coherent story here, this film, celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, is not focused primarily on narrative, so it really doesn’t matter. Read on, and then maybe go seek out the singular, beautiful, iconic work that is:

Lips of Blood (1975)

To write about this, I watched the film twice, separated by about two weeks, and I find it interesting that I had quite a different read the second time through. After my first viewing, in my notes, I jotted down, “Dreamy, gorgeous, barely narrative, evocative.” I’d loved it, but I’d also needed a couple of strong cups of coffee to stay focused throughout. But on second viewing, while it was no less dreamy, gorgeous, or evocative, I realized that the story was actually surprisingly clear and straightforward – but the oneiric qualities had simply dominated to such a degree that the narrative felt more dreamlike, situation sliding into situation, context and character in a constant state of flux. It’s kinda striking to watch it again and feel that wasn’t actually entirely true.

In short, the film follows Frédéric, who sees a photograph of a ruined castle in the poster of a perfume advertisement at a party (“scents are like memories – the person evaporates, but the memory remains”) and it unlocks a forgotten memory of his childhood in which he’d met a ghostlike girl at that castle and slept the night within its walls before returning to his mother. Once remembered, the memory haunts him – he doesn’t recall his early years at all, and he feels that something is being kept from him. His mother councils him to let it go – that she gave him the best life she could after they lost his father – he should stop asking about this castle, this girl, and live his life.

But he can’t. A vision of the girl keeps appearing to him, and he is pulled into the night to find her and the ruined chateau of his youth. He finds the photographer of the poster and she promises to tell him the location he seeks, but she’s assassinated before she has a chance. The assassin chases Frédéric to eliminate any witnesses, but he is saved by the bevy of half-naked vampire girls he’d inadvertently freed from their tomb earlier in the night. He’s approached by some woman who claims to be the girl of his memories (all grown up, with a pet frog), but she’s clearly lying – then the vampires eat her. He confronts his mother who has him locked up in an asylum, but it turns out that the nurses are the same vampire girls and they set him free. Finally, the vision of the forgotten girl leads him to a blind postcard seller, from whom he learns the name of the castle and he immediately boards a train.

At the castle, Frédéric’s mother reveals that they used to house a teen girl who was actually a vampire terrorizing the countryside, turning other local girls into bloodsuckers – and she also killed his father. The mother begs him to finish what she couldn’t, behead the vampire, and be done with this all. But the sweet longing is too strong – he lies about killing the girl, sends his mother away, gets bitten, and in the end, Frédéric and the girl climb naked into a casket on the beach and are pulled away by the roaring tide. Like you do.

But like I said, this isn’t about story. It’s much more quiet, more tender than that. While the narrative tracks (clearly the mother has paid people to cover up the past to protect her son from being pulled back into it), this is not a movie where we wait in suspense to find out what is going to happen next. And yet, there is a compelling, if slow, forward momentum. As in a dream, both we and Frédéric feel the urge to move ever steadily forward, to scratch the itch, to satisfy a curiosity (about what, we don’t even know).

Hanging over everything is a mood of the erotic and the romantic, but specifically defined. “Erotic” here, for all that there is plenty of naked flesh, rarely feels particularly “sexual” (that would imply “heat” and everything here is more of a lingering, alluring, magnetic “coolness”), and there is a lot of nudity without feeling very titillating. But there is a quiet, almost private pleasure in the body, and in being-in-an-environment (empty Parisian streets at night, a crumbling chateau, an aquarium after hours). This is typified by an early scene with the photographer. She’s introduced taking pictures of a nude model. The model poses in one way and another, perhaps having trouble settling on a natural state to relax into.

And then, slowly, she begins to touch herself. The photographer doesn’t react at all. The model smiles and relaxes – seemingly having a kind of private moment. Still, the photographer continues to snap photos, neither asking for more of this or guiding the girl back to less explicit material. Finally, the doorbell rings (it’s Frédéric, here to inquire about the picture of the castle), the photographer lets the girl know that they’ve finished, and she gets dressed and leaves. This intimacy was given space to exist, and nothing was pushed. The moment was explicit, and yet so gentle and light. The photographer is warm with Frédéric and before long, she’s disrobed and is embracing him – but that embrace is just that – it doesn’t feel like sex, per se – but it is intimate and warm and longing – as is the whole film.

The other illustrative scene in this vein (ah, vampire movies and unavoidable puns…) is the final one with Frédéric and the girl (who does have a name – I should start using it: Jennifer) – and this brings me to the term “Romantic,” but I use it not in the sense of Valentine’s day, but rather the 19th century artistic movement. There is a transcendent presentation of nature into which the self is subsumed. At the end, after so much silence in the film, when Frédéric has freed Jennifer and there is no concern that any will return to again entomb her, there is a moment when she is on the cliffs by the sea in silence and she shouts out, “Music!” Suddenly the sound of the sea and the wind and the gulls fills the soundtrack in an exuberant burst of chaos. Frédéric and Jennifer embrace, naked as the noise washes everything else out and there is an erasure of ego, a surrender to the natural. In this new nudity, again the sexual is lacking – it feels rather innocent, a kind of undead garden of Eden.

They speak of the idyllic days and years to come – they will be carried in their shared coffin (it matters not how long it takes to get there – they have infinite time) to a small island where they will, together, lure sailors to their doom.

They climb into the casket together, with warm care, Frédéric guides on the lid, and the waves pull it out to sea. For a time we see it crashing in the surf and then the water is peaceful and we see them no longer. Have they been dragged below? Will they reach their destination? These questions don’t seem to matter – reunited, together they have given themselves over to the white noise of the waves, to the immensity of the ocean, to time and water and salt and flesh and decay and the tender static of oblivion.

It’s not a happy ending – but it’s not sad either. There is a sense of completion, gently spiced with a pang of what? Loss? Wistfulness?

For years Jennifer had been lying in her tomb, waiting to be remembered. The perfume ad triggered a sense memory, teasing something long forgotten back into the edge of Frédéric’s mind. Half remembered – misremembered – invented – an uncanny fantastique that cannot be fixed as real or unreal, it fascinates, there is a steady obsession that can’t be turned away from. Something he is compelled to pursue – something without which he could not feel complete, could never be satisfied.

He finds satisfaction, but that also brings a kind of death, a warm oblivion, a loving sadness. I am no expert – I’ve seen like seven of his films, but this bundle of themes just feels so very Jean Rollin. Gorgeous and artful and cheap and shabby (for an auteur filmmaker that returned to the well of vampires time and time again, it feels like the fangs could be bought for 2 dollars in a joke shop and he was never interested in scares or gore), it feels like both an exploitation flick and high art.

And along the way, there are so many other surreal elements and images that feel like symbols – but ones that need not impose a hard meaning. Much of the film takes place in Paris, and it is so often entirely, impossibly empty and monumental – in haunting fashion – a looming dream labyrinth. The other vampires (particularly the twins, Catherine and Marie-Pierre Castle, who are in a number of Rollin’s films), their characteristically diaphanous gowns fluttering in the night wind, feel less like characters than alluring personifications of seductively available femininity and hauntingly attractive death in life – offering an invitation to disappear into something beautiful – dangerous and self-destructive, but nonetheless attractive, soft, yielding, accepting.

Which does bring me to one element of note – this identification of ‘nature’ / ‘death’ / ‘fascination’ with the “feminine” does feel, let’s say thematically dated. It’s hardly a “feminist” project, this male protagonist, an obvious stand-in for the filmmaker, chasing these girlish symbols of the ineffable into the night, giving himself over to them, having them thrust upon him, those figures more symbols than three dimensional characters. And yet, I still find it all rather lovely.

This feels like it comes strongly from one individual artist, who, even if he’s leaning on the kinds of tropes at which one could roll their eyes, in this case, it is so heartfelt, carried out with an earnestness that feels anything but artistically cheap. I could imagine one deriding it as naiveté (which I’m sure occurred in his native France – I understand French critics had little love for Rollin’s obsessions with genre, just as American critics could deride his art-house inclinations), but I can’t imagine being that hard-hearted myself.

Also, on the gender politics of it all, it is interesting to me that this seems to be just about the only work in Rollin’s early filmography with a male protagonist – he almost always focused on women (though that didn’t necessarily make them more characters and less symbols). This is probably a facile reading, but I somehow have the impression that, in doing this, he was rather centering himself for a change.

Apparently, it crushed him that this was such a financial failure – losing so much money that to recoup expenses, the producer forced him to film additional inserts and recut it as a hardcore porn film, Suce-moi vampire (“Suck me, vampire”), with an entirely different story. Fortunately, over time, the film found its audience who have given it no small measure of artistic respect – in that sweet spot between sexploitation, B-movie grindhouse and haute-culture, niche viewership arthouse.

It really is something special, though it won’t be for everyone. Maybe it’s for you though – if you can find it, check it out (as of today, in the States, it’s on Kanopy). Some will be put to sleep. Some will sigh in exasperation. But some will fall in love.

The Lost Boys – eternal youth, actually youthful

I have been a bit indulgent this summer – not publishing nearly as much as I’d ordinarily like, and not exactly challenging myself with particularly heady, analytical projects. Rather, it is summer, and life can be quite hard enough, thank you very much – so I’m just focusing on some comfort food that feels like summer to me. Last time, it was the camp-set and quite camp-y Sleepaway Camp, and this post, as I spent my summer working at an amusement park in a beach town (among doing other things), I’d like to hit the boardwalk for the tawdry glitz and seductive thrill of one of my favorite movies of any genre, Joel Schumacher’s The Lost Boys.

I’m sure spoilers will abound, so I do recommend that if you haven’t seen it before, you go do so now. Reading about most plot details wouldn’t ruin your enjoyment of the flick, but there are at least one or two moments that it would be a shame to spoil. I rented it on Prime and rewatched it on Tubi, so it’s out there. Go watch it as I don’t think I’m even going to summarize the plot (a single mother and her two teen sons relocate to a beach town full of vampires – good times ensue).

The Lost Boys (1987)

There are probably few movies that I’ve watched as many times; this is one of those true comfort food flicks that I can put on in the background while doing some arts and crafts project, or I can play to cheer myself up on a crummy day. But you know, something funny about that is that I haven’t really watched it in quite some time (as I’m often doing something else simultaneously, mouthing my favorite lines or singing along with the soundtrack, one which I spin with great regularity). Thus, it was quite a pleasure to actually sit down and take it in with no other plan than to enjoy it (on subsequent viewings, I might take notes, but the first watch for the blog, I just try to watch a film on its own terms).

I am absolutely biased, but it might just be a perfect movie. It is so tight and tidy without feeling manufactured. The writing is crisp and fun and loveable (for which I understand much of the credit should go to Jeffrey Boam, who reworked the screenplay at Schumacher’s behest, but also to Janice Fischer and James Jeremias, who’d penned the original script). The performances are great across the board. I get pulled into the allure of Michael’s story (sex, blood, and rock n roll) just as I do with Sam’s adventure (help – my brother is a vampire). The relationships feel grounded and real – I buy the sometimes antagonistic love between the brothers; I really sympathize with the single mother trying to start over and hold it all together; I get such a kick out of the ornery old grampa (who gets all of the best lines); the initial attraction between Michael and Star is sexy and exciting (even if we don’t really do much with it after that initial moment); and of course the tense chemistry between Michael and the vampire David is rich as David lures him over to the dark side.

And then there are the vampires – ah the vampires. It is a movie about vampires after all. As I understand it, this was the first presentation of vampires in this young, hip, modern mode. There’s nothing of the gothic – no capes or brooding or old world ennui – no one is tortured by the existential anguish of life without end (and don’t get me wrong – I can eat that stuff up, but this is really refreshing). They are young and punky and having a blast. I watched the movie a third time this summer the other night with some friends and one commented how, with the subtitles on, the lost boys are always “hooting and laughing,” and they are. The tag line of the movie was “Sleep all day. Party all night. Never grow old. Never die. It’s fun to be a vampire.” I guess it is. All abandon and freedom from responsibility, from the weight of growing up, but all while being old enough to do anything you want. Child of Lestat, parent to Spike – the teen vampire is born.

So much of the allure of vampirism is often sold as ‘eternal youth’ and yet, that so rarely seems on offer in filmic presentations. Rather, the vampire is usually a haunted, world weary figure, who has lived too long and seen too much, caught in an eternal struggle against entropy, hanging on to old loves, old lives, icons and detritus of the past. But in this case, the vampires really feel young. They are teenagers, out to raise hell and have a blast. Now, to be fair, as a teen, I don’t think I would have really enjoyed the way they spend their time: riding their motorbikes on the beach, being mouthy to security guards (and bitey), and chomping down on skulls (as mentioned last post, I was the kind of kid who preferred indoor fun) – but regardless, their simple joy in it is really infectious. If you stop and think about it too much, it can get silly, but in the moment, it feels sooo cooool.

And that youth suffuses the film – not necessarily realistically, but nonetheless effectively. Consider the early scene at the concert on the beach where Michael first catches a glimpse of Star. Look at how much fun everyone is having watching the incomparable Tim Capello, muscled and oiled, blowing on his sax. The two in the front head banging at each other behind the blazing barrel. The exuberance of the crowd. The preponderance of balloons for some reason. Capello himself, belting out how he ‘still believes.’ It’s not a realistic presentation of youth culture (Are teens ever really this unguarded and joyful? Do beach punks spend a lot of time riding the Merry Go Round or reading stolen funny comic books?), but it feels true, if not real. And it sets the stage for the immediate chemistry between the two young romantic leads.

Star seems to float through the crowd, flowing against the driving current, and Michael’s stillness pops amongst the throng, so fixed he is on her ethereal sensuality. It works. I don’t think the film does much with them after this point (I mean, they hook up, but I think the film and the viewer get more interested in other elements), but in this scene, there is a spark – it is exciting, and it is sexy – and there is an eternal promise of youth – of a physical attraction that needs no details – the body recognizes what it wants – and is recognized in turn.

Now, this had originally been planned as more of a Goonies style kids movie, with the vampires aged much younger, ala their Peter Pan namesakes, but when Schumacher came on board, he wanted to make it sexier and aged them up to older teens, opening the door to the motorbikes, smoldering looks, sexy times, and the general MTV of it all – a kind of unattainable platonic ideal of teenage wildness. But we still have the kids’ adventure in Sam and the Frog brothers – much easier to identify with both as a kid and an adult – because of course I wasn’t out there in the night causing trouble, hanging off train tracks, and flirting with the night – I was reading comic books, obsessing over the mastery of lore and endless minutia. Sam is enough of an outsider (a proud comic book geek and also quite queer coded), while also being sharp and funny, and loyal, to serve as an appealing audience surrogate for us to ride along with. He is brave enough to accompany the Frog brothers into the depths of the cave to stake a vampire to save his brother (getting coated with surprisingly glittery blood), but he’s not so cool that he won’t constantly be freaking out about the cobwebs and the insects and the gross of it all (just as I would – and I suspect most people would – few of us are as fearless as we might like to think).

With Sam and the Frog brothers, we get one of the essential 80s ‘kids-on-bikes-fighting-monsters’ movies, and I don’t know how a person could resist the thrill of the montage of them riding around town, filling their water guns with holy water, practicing archery, and bashing cloves of garlic in preparation for the coming showdown with the undead. I’m a sucker for that stuff. Again, it could be cheesy, but in its earnestness, it is never embarrassed by its own enthusiasm – it is never too cool for school, and I get to adopt the same posture as a viewer, and unabashedly enjoy myself.

The “hooting and laughing” is perhaps lacking the nuanced specificity of naturalism (Émile Zola, this is not), but it is in earnest. David’s pitch to Michael of never growing old and never dying and keeping the party going forever isn’t sustainable (you can’t just hoot and laugh forever – it would get pretty boring), but it also feels earnest; it feels true as he utters it (and Keifer Sutherland brings real charm to the part, each smirk a provocation and an invitation). Finally, the love among the family (Sam, Michael, Lucy, Grampa, and Nanook the dog) feels solid and lived in. I believe them as brothers – they have an emotional and physical intimacy – loving but also confrontational – irritating each other but still supportive.

I appreciate the sardonic warmth between Lucy and her father (what a lovably cantankerous old coot), just as I love her moving attempts to keep connecting with her sons, even as they grow apart from her. When Michael comes home in the morning, ragged after a night of vampire drama and Dianne Wiest’s Lucy asks if they’re still friends, and if so, if they can act like it, I ache for her. She really is a good mom, doing everything she can, and life is hard, and this distance hurts. Across the board, there are so many elements that could come off as a kind of dated kitsch or 80s excess, and yet, for me, it never does. My heart runneth over with joy, with glee, with love.

The teenage urge to run away into the night and be forever free has a power and a seductive allure, but so does the familial connection, the love that binds, that ties one down; that is not freedom, but it is worth it. I’ve barely published on this blog this summer because I’ve been dealing with my own adult responsibilities, and in that, there is a weight, and sometimes it would feel good to be able to run away from adulthood and duty and ‘the real world,’ but love is a thing. And it ultimately feels better to be able to fulfill those responsibilities than it would to ride around, hooting and laughing. I guess to keep breathing, a person needs at least a taste of both, and this film offers that.

Is this a scary movie? Certainly not. Is it even a horror movie? I guess, maybe? It is definitely a great vampire movie, and vampires are monsters, and monsters are in horror movies, so let’s say sure. Given its mild degrees of violence, sex, and naughty words, I don’t quite know how it earned an R rating back in the day, but that said, it doesn’t feel at all de-fanged – it isn’t a little kids’ vampire movie. It just isn’t that focused on the scares or the gross outs (though there are some cool sequences and ideas – the vamps hanging upside down by their toes like bats, implosions, explosions, the bloody plumbing, death by stereo). But it’s got the vibes, and the laughs, and the good times, and a great soundtrack and an awesome look. And on top of all that, for my money, it’s got the greatest last line in any movie, ever.

So that’s The Lost Boys. This was a shorter post than usual, and perhaps less detailed than I often go, but I hope that’s ok – I’ve been trying to sit down to write it for almost the last two months (I know I’ve mentioned this once or twice, but it really has been a long summer), and in the end, I just felt like praising some of the things I so enjoy in this bit of comfort food entertainment. If you’ve never seen the movie, I doubt this sufficiently described it to you. But if you’ve read the whole thing, maybe you’ll be interested to go check it out. I think you should.

Three Universal Draculas

Is there a character in the horror landscape that looms as large as Dracula? My whole life, from long before I was at all into horror, I’ve known him. Simple plastic Halloween masks, Scooby Doo cartoons, funny characters that reference him (the Count on Sesame Street, Count Floyd on SCTV, Count Chocula on cereal boxes), The Monster Squad – he was everywhere. And he was one of the only characters so omnipresent as to warrant an indefinite article – you might see a little kid on Halloween with a widows peak, a medallion, and a cape, and if you ask who or what they are, there was a good chance they might say “a Dracula” – like being a tiger or a princess – he wasn’t just a particular vampire from a particular story – he was his own thing – on one level, synonymous with “vampire,” but also having totally specific traits and markers – and of course all of those characteristics were based on one and only one portrayal, and it wasn’t Christopher Lee (though he’s great), Gary Oldman (I love his performance, but it hadn’t been filmed yet when I was little), or Udo Kier (no way I would have watched Blood for Dracula as a child – too obscure and not exactly kid appropriate – Kier’s most famous line being “The blood of these whores is killing me” after vomiting blood into a bathtub for what feels like 15 minutes because none of the nubile Italian girls he’s feeding on are virgins); of course it was all Bela Lugosi.

So I thought this week, it would be an interesting project to dip back into the 1931 root of this image, this icon (of course the true origins begin much earlier than that). But first I had to reckon with my own expectations of his eponymous film. The last time I watched it was in the late 90s and at the time, while I could kind of appreciate its historical significance, I don’t think I particularly enjoyed it. I remembered it being slow and stately. I remembered it had been made before scoring talkies became common and that the absence of music made it really drag. I remembered, if anything, that some things looked cool, but that it hadn’t blown me away – at least not like the other Universal monster movies I’d seen from the likes of James Whale (Frankenstein, The Bride of Frankenstein, The Invisible Man, and The Old Dark House – all favorites of mine); other films I’d seen from its director, Tod Browning, such as Freaks (1932) or, more recently, The Unknown (1927); or Murnau’s granddaddy of vampire cinema, Nosferatu (1922).

So, yeah, I didn’t come to it this time particularly as a fan, but I did come with interest. Furthermore, I thought it could add perspective to look at Browning’s film in comparison with a couple of other Draculas with which it shares strong similarities, specifically, George Melford’s Dracula (1931) which was filmed in Spanish for the Latin American market at night, based on the same script, on the same sets, using many of the same shots, and generally with the same costumes as Browning’s, and also John Badham’s Dracula (1979), starring Frank Langella in the titular role. All three films came from the same studio – Universal Pictures, and all three were based on the same source material, by which I don’t mean Bram Stoker’s novel, though of course that’s there, but rather Hamilton Dean and John Balderston’s drawing room thriller theatrical adaptation first produced in England in 1922 (and actually licensed by Stoker’s widow, Florence, unlike Nosferatu), revived on Broadway in 1927 (starring Bela Lugosi), and further revived on Broadway in 1977 (starring Frank Langella).

Far from identical, all three do share much of the same structure, as well as a lot of dialogue and character choices and therefore, I feel looking at them next to each other helps bring their respective qualities into starker contrast. Primarily I will be examining the two films from 1931 as one of them has really left a shadow over the last century of culture and awareness of the other is helpful in understanding why. At the end, I plan to discuss the 1979 film just a bit – it’s fine, and is a historical-cinematic curiosity with some praiseworthy elements, but ultimately, I don’t feel it’s had the same kind of impact.

Night and Day: The Two 1931 Draculas

Given how much they share in common (sets, costumes, props, animals, shots, source text), it is striking how different these movies are, really playing differently, with different pacing, a different style, and ultimately a different lasting effect. Browning filmed during the day with his cast and crew and apparently, Melford got to watch Browning’s dailies, recreating what he liked and adjusting what he felt he could improve on before shooting with his cast at night. This resulted in two films with many of the same strengths as well as many of the same technical limitations, but they really do diverge strikingly – it is fascinating to compare them.

Interestingly, on first viewing, I enjoyed Melford’s film much more. It is more dynamic, more naturalistic, and benefits from greater narrative flow and a lively energy. Nevertheless, it is Browning’s film which has really stayed with since I watched them both last week, and which I expect will continue to linger in my memory. In a way, each excels where the other falters.

This is from Browning’s film, but the castle is the same in both.

In both cases, as was done for the play, the story has been greatly condensed (it was not a short book), and characters, settings, and events have been reduced to bare essentials, mostly playing out on the grounds of Dr. Seward’s Sanatorium where Renfield is a patient, Mina is Seward’s daughter, and the mysterious count has just moved in next door. This is, of course, after a brief first act in which Renfield travels to Transylvania to meet the Count and arrange for his land purchases in England, and it must be said that the production design is uniformly gorgeous. Kicking off Carl Laemmle Jr.’s cycle of gothic horror films for Universal, it is all spooky, decrepit castles, cobwebs, dark shadows, dramatic lighting, and incongruously placed animals (the castle features possums and armadillos, neither of which were native to Transylvania – I’ve read that the possums were used because censors at the time didn’t approve of rats, and it was assumed that most viewers outside the American southwest had never seen an armadillo and that they just look weird enough to live in a vampire’s castle).

Generally, throughout the post, the English version will be on the left and the Spanish on the right.

Off the bat (whoops), there are differences. While there was notable moving cinematography in Browning’s version, Melford utilized a far more mobile camera and found some very striking shots. Still, though it was more static (and this does affect its pacing), Browning filmed every moment as if intentionally creating an icon, resulting in lasting images that really have staying power. He also absolutely benefitted from Lugosi. Carlos Villarias, who played the Count in the Spanish language version is more active, more natural, and somehow therefore sadly more silly. He plays it big, and is fully committed, but somehow doesn’t rise above being a guy in a cape. On the other hand, Lugosi brings a weight and a weirdness that just lands. Every moment he is on screen, he’s magnetic, holding the eye with a kind of fascination. I think there’s a clear difference in the first few times we see both actors: freshly risen for the night from the coffin, as the coach driver, and staring through magnetic eyes. Villarias does his best, but Lugosi is a special effect that never fails to wow.

The coachman

Still, while his Dracula doesn’t bring the same power, Melford found striking ways to film certain moments. Below, on the left, you can see Lugosi’s Dracula staring down Renfield with his hypnotic gaze. The shot is relatively straight on, with Browning highlighting the eyes with focused hard lighting. On the right, you can see how Melford handles the same moment – a tight close up at a sharper angle – it’s a great shot and very effective, but for my money, Lugosi’s performance delivers the scene – we feel his hunger in the moment, his unsettling urgency to have his business matters dealt with before he takes this man for himself.

Which brings us to our two Renfields. Dwight Fry (in English) and Pablo Alvarez Rubio (in Spanish) are both highlights of their respective films, but they play the character in quite different ways, embodying first his cautious fear and, later, his madness quite contrastingly. Again, there is an issue of naturalism, with Rubio bringing a far more manic, unhinged performance that feels more like a gibbering lunatic and Fry delivering something a bit more stagey, more stylized, but no less effective. Fry’s performance feels quite chosen, quite controlled, even mannered, but when he goes mad, it is all the more chilling. Also, while Rubio feels more “realistic,” I think Fry brings a greater degree of nuance to these first interactions with the vampire in question. There is a tautness to their scenes, a sustained tension. Renfield has come such a long way to find such a strange man in such a creepy place, and he constantly seems to cycle between unsettled, temporarily comforted, fascinated by his charming, off-putting host, and totally weirded out by him. Is it terror or possibly attraction? Either way, it’s richer than Rubio’s well played, but less intriguing histrionics.

On the differences between the films, there are a few illustrative moments after Dracula has left Renfield for the night and the vampiric brides come for him. First of all, I think Melford clearly wins the composition here (there’s a benefit in going second). Whereas Browning has the three ethereal ladies simply enter a doorway and come for him, Melford sets up the shot such that we see them first lurking in the doorway in the distance as a terrified Renfield enters the foreground looking for a means of escape, the audience seeing their approach while, oblivious in his fear, he does not. It is a great, creepy moment.

I had trouble catching a still that does justice to Melford’s shot – in this one, you can barely see Renfield in the lower right corner. Trust me, it works when it’s moving.
Here is the Spanish version moving.

But then, Browning delivers a significant moment from the book lacking in the Spanish version. In Melford’s film, we see the brides bend to feast on the poor man, but in Browning’s the Count returns and sends them away, taking Renfield for himself.

As noted on the Shudder docuseries, Queer For Fear, this moment in the novel seems to have been particularly significant to Stoker, and in his original manuscript, he’d repeated the line, “This man is mine!” over and over again. It’s easy and obvious to conflate the vampire’s predation with sexuality – the hunger for another’s body, the ‘taking’ of the victim, and while the Spanish version restricts Dracula’s diet to one of lovely ladies, Browning shows us a figure with a less exclusive thirst. One could approach this with a simple queer reading, but for me it goes deeper – he is more and less than human and beyond such taboos and/or identifications. This kind of pansexual lust for blood and body was present in core texts such as Stoker’s Dracula and Le Fanu’s Carmilla, and it comes down, perhaps through this iconic moment, to later works, such as the novels of Anne Rice or films like The Hunger (1983).

So why does Melford excise the moment? Is it just that he is streamlining the scene and felt having Dracula return, stop the brides in their tracks and feed himself slowed things down? It’s possible – Browning’s scene is certainly slow and silent (both films suffer from the fact that scoring talkies had not yet become standard and there is a lot of silence in both – but it feels more present somehow in Browning’s film). Did he just want to give the brides something more to do? They are cool and mysterious, and it’s a shame we see so little of them. Is it instead a hunch that something that might be read as gay coded wouldn’t play so well in a more machismo oriented market? Who knows? But the absence is notable.

In either case, the next time we see him aboard the Vesta (I have no idea why it was changed from “The Demeter”), Renfield has gone round the bend, respectively with Rubio’s howling, maniacal cackle, or with Dwight Fry’s slow, haunting, vibrato laugh. Again, Rubio feels more like a real crazy person (or what you might expect from the representation of a “real crazy person” in the 30s – mental illness not being well understood yet – as if it is now), but Fry’s laugh is one of the best things in either movie, or any other movie from the decade for that matter. Troubled and troubling, it resonates with an eerie off-ness – suffering and threatening in equal measure. It really is something special.

Also, the image of the dead captain, strapped to the wheel is chilling. Again, this is Browning’s shot, but it repeats in Melford’s film.

And so, Dracula comes to England and high society. This, I think is one of the lasting influences of Bela’s performance, and of the presentation of Dracula spearheaded by the play. In Stoker, Dracula is royal in appearance, but far from handsome:

“His face was a strong, a very strong, aquiline, with high bridge of the thin nose and peculiarly arched nostrils, with lofty domed forehead, and hair growing scantily round the temples but profusely elsewhere. His eyebrows were very massive, almost meeting over the nose, and with bushy hair that seemed to curl in its own profusion. The mouth, so far as I could see it under the heavy moustache, was fixed and rather cruel-looking, with peculiarly sharp white teeth.

These protruded over the lips, whose remarkable ruddiness showed astonishing vitality in a man of his years. For the rest, his ears were pale, and at the tops extremely pointed. The chin was broad and strong, and the cheeks firm though thin. The general effect was one of extraordinary pallor.

Hitherto I had noticed the backs of his hands as they lay on his knees in the firelight, and they had seemed rather white and fine. But seeing them now close to me, I could not but notice that they were rather coarse, broad, with squat fingers. Strange to say, there were hairs in the centre of the palm. The nails were long and fine, and cut to a sharp point. As the Count leaned over me and his hands touched me, I could not repress a shudder. It may have been that his breath was rank, but a horrible feeling of nausea came over me, which, do what I would, I could not conceal.”

Valentino on the left and Schreck on the right.

Rudolph Valentino he was not. Rather, Max Schreck’s rat-like visage in Nosferatu seems a rather faithful representation. Now, Bela Lugosi’s Count, in his impeccably-tailored tailcoat and vest and his elegant cape is an entirely different creature. Stoker’s vampire was not without charisma or even seductive power, but he also elicited a shudder of revulsion. Lugosi brings a movie star charm to the role. He has the exotic accent and he moves with peculiar mannerisms, but he makes the Count attractive, even sexy for the first time, and this is a quality that would stick. These days it is a rarity to see a Dracula who isn’t a charmer. And, at the same time, Lugosi still retained an element of the monstrous. His Dracula is no tragic romantic figure, chasing lost love and doomed to an eternity of isolation – he is always a predator: a rapacious, dignified, bewitching predator. Whether he is padding through the streets of London to prey on a poor girl selling flowers or hypnotizing an usherette at the opera so that he might better make the acquaintance of his new neighbors, this Dracula never ceases to both captivate and unsettle. He is a beast, but he’s never not the most interesting person in the room. It is a terrible shame that Lon Chaney was cut down so early by cancer (he’d been the first choice for the role), but it is a gift to our culture that Bela got the chance to bring to the screen what he had been doing on stage (which he begged to do, drastically undercutting his earnings in the process). By contrast, Villarias’s Count can wear the cape, but he doesn’t exactly fill it out, and at the worst, he can even come off a bit goofy – forecasting the fate of many a “Dracula” costume wearer in the future – unsurprisingly, you can paint on a widow’s peak and still fail to look cool.

Another striking feature of this Dracula (and I believe this comes down to the play as it is featured in all three versions) is how little he seems to care if people know what he is. In modern times, one is accustomed to blood suckers who feel the need to hide their true nature, but he is apparently wholly unconcerned, and that makes him come off as all the more powerful. The first time he meets the main cast (Lucy, Mina, Jonathan Harker, and Dr. Seward) at the opera, he speaks like one who has lived an unnaturally long life, with lines like,”To die – to be really dead, that must be glorious!” or “There are far worse things awaiting man…than death.” Um, ok, nice to meet you, Mr. Dracula, was it? Care to come around for tea?

Browning’s is better lit, but I like how Melford has the unreflected Count kiss her hand farewell.

Or, later, when Van Helsing has discovered his vampiric nature having glimpsed his lack of reflection in a mirror, Dracula responds, “For one who has not lived even a single lifetime, you are a wise man Van Helsing.” In that moment, Dracula knows that he knows, but while irked at being discovered, he ultimately doesn’t care. He apologizes to his host, Dr. Seward, for reacting so violently (either swatting away the mirrored cigarette case in English in a short burst of rage, or explosively lashing out and destroying the case in Spanish), and exits, telling Seward that his friend, Van Helsing, will explain. He then doesn’t try to run away, knowing that they know he’s a blood sucker – instead, he immediately lures Mina outside to drink her blood under his sexy cape. He is really, really not worried.

Lugosi explodes for the briefest of moments before composing himself, but when he does, you can see how much hatred has been tightly wound within. By contrast, Vallarias bugs out his eyes and throws a tantrum.

The other players are the next significant field of difference. The English speaking cast is good, and their performances seem appropriate to the Victorian origins of the text. They are all proper gentlemen and ladies, a bit staid and respectable, their genteel English world invaded by this bold outsider, this royal figure from beyond their understanding of society or reality, undaunted by conventions of propriety – all qualities that make him both appealing and disruptive. They are all also, kind of boring (on one of the commentary tracks, I think, it was said that the role of Renfield was increased because everyone knew what a drag Jonathan Harker was). Browning thus dully plays up Renfield for all he can, allowing him a far creepier moment at one point when the camera cuts away just as he has finished crawling over to a nurse who has fainted – in the Spanish version, we see him snap out of it and laugh/cry away the notion that he might have hurt her – in the English version, her fate is unknown and we can only assume the worst.

On the other hand, the Spanish speaking cast is consistently less tightly bound, and comes across as far stronger emotionally. While the English version may be more fitting to the social conventions of 1897 when Dracula was written, I’ve got to say that the Spanish speaking cast is far more compelling, and I was more engaged with their trials and tribulations as they are targeted and try to fight back against this threat. Helen Chandler’s Mina looks lovely while she turns from her lover knowing that only unlife awaits her, but Lupita Tovar’s Eva sheds real tears and breaks down in a way that can really tug on your heart strings.

The English version has the better still, but the Spanish version has the better scene.

This is one way that the Spanish version excels. In general, it seems a bit more free, and it also seems less burdened by concerns over what the censor might think (I don’t know much about what could be shown in cinemas in Latin America in the early 30s, but it doesn’t seem crazy to expect that the English speaking market of America and Britain would be more prudish). This can be seen in small things like Tovar’s almost see-through night gown vs Chandler’s shiny silver nightdress.

Plus, Tovar’s exuberance is infectious.

It is evident in acting choices like the English language Van Helsing’s easy, reclining power as he holds the cross vs the Spanish Van Helsing’s dramatic bombast.

Or in the bite marks on Lucy’s neck, shown in Spanish, but only talked about in English.

It comes across in significant plot details that are glossed over in the English language version. For example, we see Harker and Van Helsing come out of a cemetery, but we don’t know why – whereas in the Spanish version, Van Helsing talks about how terrible it was to stake Lucy in the heart, but in doing this terrible deed, they have saved her soul (however, in both versions, Lucy dies so suddenly and isn’t much discussed or mourned afterwards – it’s odd…). Furthermore, there is a strong Catholic religiosity in the Spanish version utterly absent in the English. As far as I can tell, this is both an issue of targeting a very Catholic market (Latin America) and avoiding running afoul of censors who might disapprove of anything that could be seen as sacrilegious. To some extent, this is just a matter of local flavor, but in at least one case, it really changes a key moment, resulting in the Spanish version having a much stronger finish.

As the Spanish version is concerned more with the fates of the souls of those under Darcula’s thrall, it contains a meaningful exchange, the absence of which renders the ending of the English version quite wanting. In both versions, there are many scenes of Seward and Van Helsing dealing with Renfield, who constantly vacillates between devotedly serving his dark master, fearing him, pitying himself, mocking the others, and just trying to eat as many bugs as he can. At one point, in Spanish, when the others are discussing Lucy’s sad end and how they may have to do the same for Mina, Renfield plaintively asks Van Helsing if, even though he is a sad lunatic, he would also do this act for him. This comes back significantly in the final reel after Dracula kills Renfield, either causing him to fall down the curved staircase in English, or, more brutally, directly pushing him off the staircase in Spanish.

At the climax, after Van Helsing has hammered a stake (off camera in both versions) into Dracula’s chest and Mina/Eva have sympathetically felt the pain of the wood piercing their own hearts before finally being freed from the vampire’s dark spell,

Jonathan/Juan and Mina/Eva are about to leave and they ask Van Helsing if he’s coming with them. In the English version, he just says, no, he’ll come later. That’s odd? Why not now? Maybe he needs to pee or something? Ah well, the young couple walk up the stairs in a wide shot and leave. Sometimes older movies end quite abruptly and this is one of those. I was quite surprised to suddenly see the spinning Universal globe and the cursive text of “The End.” In the Spanish version, it all makes more sense and ends with more of an emotional punch.

Browning’s ending

As in Browning’s, the young couple asks if Van Helsing will come with them and he says no, but this time, he goes on to explain that he has to keep his promise to Renfield. The next shot is from the top of the stairs, looking down on the romantic leads as they climb into the light of day, into a more hopeful future, the nightmare finally over, but then Melford cuts to a wide shot in which we see them nearing the top of the stairs as we also see Van Helsing approaching poor Renfield’s corpse, ready to mutilate his body that his soul might survive. It lands with a sting and is, by far, the stronger ending. Personally, I’m not a fan of religiosity in my horror, but it is nice when scenes make sense and deliver on the emotion.

Melford’s ending

Across the board, I would say that Melford’s film in Spanish is consistently more engaging – I felt more of a sense of narrative drive, I enjoyed watching it more (sometimes in Browning’s, I got sleepy), I was more invested in the fates of the characters; by many counts, you might call it the better movie (and some do). And yet, and this is weird, I don’t think it actually is.

Melford’s film plays it straighter, it makes more sense, and I had more fun watching it; however, it also feels less substantial, more superficial, more forgettable. On the other hand, while the camera may be static and the performers stagey, every moment, every element, every choice in Browning’s film feels like it is creating a new icon that will last, that should last. I understand Browning had a very successful career as a director of silent movies (though I’ve only seen one of these, I really loved it), and I have heard the opinion that he shot his Dracula more like a silent movie, not entirely comfortable with dialogue. I don’t know if that’s true, but almost any still from his film could be framed and carry a kind of power. Browning’s lead players: Dracula, Mina, Van Helsing, and Renfield, each speak with an unhurried, chosen steadiness that can slow things down, but they all work their way into the memory. There are reasons that this film, these shots, and these performances have persisted into our culture.

Melford’s film is good (and, having been largely forgotten for many years, it is great that it is now readily available, at least if you’re willing to pick up a physical copy). It is engaging, exciting, and entertaining, but the fact that all of that engagement, excitement, and entertainment somewhat pales in comparison to Browning’s work says something about how significant that work is.

Dracula Tends To Return

In 1977, Frank Langella headlined a revival of Dean and Balderston’s play on Broadway, emphasizing more romantic, sensual readings of the character than had heretofore been dominant. This production was such a success that Universal apparently thought it was time to return to the Dracula well for a new film, still based on the theatrical text, but with a new sensibility.

Directed by John Badham (a director with no other horror credits, but who made many films that I loved as a kid, like Short Circuit and War Games), the 1979 film succeeds in many ways but didn’t exactly blow me away and I probably wouldn’t be writing about it were it not in relation to these other two films. Like those two, it is also rooted in the playscript, and in some ways adapts it more faithfully by setting itself entirely in England, beginning with the Demeter running aground, the crew decimated by an unseen, animalistic force.

Soon Dracula is getting to know the Sewards and the Van Helsings (confusingly, the film switches the names of Lucy and Mina, so now Lucy is the main character and the daughter of Dr. Seward, whereas Mina is the first victim and now the daughter of Van Helsing) and striking up a steamy relationship with Lucy. How these characters and the relationships between them are handled is the greatest strength of the film. From the beginning, we get the sense that Jonathan Harker is pretty much a needy, possessive, petulant jerk and when Lucy (who, we must remember, is the character traditionally known as “Mina”) meets this charismatic, dashing, intriguing man from abroad (with an American accent rather than anything Eastern European), she is drawn to him not because of his dark magics, but because she, as an adult woman with agency and sexual desire, finds him hot.

Thus, the film works best in the first half as they circle each other, falling in love and lust. Dracula does not cast her under a spell, but they mutually fall under each other’s. He can still be dominant, but it feels more like he’s performing a role – speaking dominantly to one who finds that sort of thing attractive, rather than controlling her with magic. This finally culminates in a big lovemaking/blood drinking scene at about the halfway point, after which much of the drive falls out of the movie. I was invested in their flirtation, but once she is thus bonded to him and the focus of the film shifts more to those who would oppose him, it was a bit harder to maintain interest.

Also, while Langella plays the Count successfully as a lonely romantic, I didn’t find him to be much of a monster and he just feels less threatening than one might like when squaring away against Harker, Seward, and Van Helsing. Thus in the second half, I felt a bit adrift as an audience member – Dracula is clearly a bad guy and it’s not like I’m rooting for him, but when there’s no more seducing to be done, he’s not that scary so I don’t really cheer for the people trying to kill him.

But the film has other things in its favor. Set in 1913, it is very attractive and well costumed. It brings back into a Dracula film a few elements from the book that hadn’t made it to screen in the 30s, such as the bit where he climbs down the wall like a lizard or seeing what actually happens to Lucy (even though she’s named Mina here – argh – it’s unnecessarily confusing).

Some moments of vampire business rather work, such as a surprising moment of “Bat!” when it seems Van Helsing may have the upper hand, and some comic moments between Dracula and Renfield. Also, the production design is really fun and over the top – seriously, who designed Carfax Abbey to have a giant Hellmouth in the lobby, a giant Bat as a chandelier of sorts, and how did Dracula find the time to light all those candles? I joke, but it really does look quite cool in a gloriously over the top, gothy kind of way.

Finally, I really got a kick out of Donald Pleasence as Dr. Seward, whose dominant character trait seems to be voraciously, unconcernedly eating while the world around him burns. It’s a fun character, in turns oblivious and helpless, offering pretty poor medicine, such as when he explains to his friend, Van Helsing that of course he’d had his friend’s now dead daughter on the morphine, but laughing away the suggestion that he might give something so harmful to his own daughter (probably right before shoving something else in his mouth).  It’s quite a funny performance – choices were made, and I believed in and enjoyed this odd little man. Also, the degree to which her father, and by extension her home, her whole world, is so banal, small minded, and ridiculous probably underscores Dracula’s exotic appeal for Lucy.

Also, it ends satisfyingly – the boring men come and defeat the big bad vampire, but at the finish, Lucy (Mina) sees his cape fluttering away on the wind and can’t hide a secret smile, relieved that he somehow persists and will continue in the world, maybe even returning to her one day. It’s a more satisfying ending to the love story between them than if it were all just wiped away when he dies, and she felt “freed” from his power. I appreciated that.

However, one aspect that I found difficult was the color timing. I guess Badham had wanted to film in black and white and the studio execs had nixed that idea, releasing the film theatrically in vibrant color. He hated how it looked and when it came to releasing the movie on home video, Badham arranged for it to be a “director’s cut” in which he muted all of the colors.

Ah, a nice day lit exterior. It sure is nice to visit dreary, grey British seaside towns.

Honestly, I found its dinginess just oppressive and deadening and found myself craving some degree of saturation (though exactly what I’d expected did occur – in the middle of the film, when Dracula finally drinks from Lucy, there is a hyper-red artsy sequence which pops all the more for being in the midst of so much grey and beige). But for me, it was not enough to justify just how dull the rest of the movie looked.

So that was difficult. As far as I can tell, most versions available on streaming are the desaturated version (it’s what I saw), though if you want to buy a more recent double disc with both versions, that is for sale. Still, having looked at stills from both versions, I can see why the director disliked the theatrical – the full color doesn’t look great either – and the desaturated version is a bummer. Maybe they should have just let him work in black and white as he’d wanted to – it probably would have had some actual contrast and could have been starkly beautiful.

Also, I must say that I went into this viewing with the wrong expectations. I’d always heard that this was the “sexy Dracula” and had expected something lurid and over the top, perhaps like a Ken Russell flick or maybe like the gloriously pulpy extravagance Francis Ford Coppola would go on to craft in 1992 (a film that holds a special place in my heart). That was the wrong way to approach this film, and it kind of did it a disservice – it is better to say that it focuses on the romance between Dracula and Lucy (which, as described above, it does effectively), but otherwise plays as a more “realistic” period drama, and is in no way sensationalistic. So it is worth watching, but don’t go in looking for a superabundance of sensuality, cause you could be disappointed.

Just Three Draculas?

From The Lost Boys

Of course, there haven’t been only three Draculas – Draculas are everywhere! He’s been in hundreds of films, on loads of TV shows, in comic books and cartoons, and transformed into other characters like Blacula or Bunnicula; the Count gets around. There have been other great performances and also plenty of terrible ones. But I don’t think it’s much of a stretch to say that most of them are in some way indebted to Browning’s film and to Lugosi’s performance. Almost every gesture Lugosi made, almost every inflection in his voice, every shot, every utterance became a ‘meme’ long before that word was reduced to meaning simply a funny captioned picture on the internet. Rather, a meme is a viral concept – an idea that circulates throughout a culture, replicating itself, planting itself in new hosts from which it can further spread. In Stoker (and in Murnau’s Nosferatu), Dracula was associated with plague – he was a kind of viral illness, a sickness of the blood, a venereal disease that could infect proper, buttoned up, Victorian England. It is only fitting that Lugosi’s iconic persona and Browning’s film should similarly exist as just such an infectious concept.

I gotta say – I started this post admitting that I hadn’t returned to Browning’s film as a fan, but after spending this last week and a half with it, I think I’ve come around. It is iconic for good reason. RIP, Bela. I’m sorry that after gifting our culture something so, so good, you had such a famously hard time of it in the rest of your career.

Lesbian Vampires 5: Spanish Sexploitation in the 70s

So last week, I had planned to cover four films in my ongoing series on the Lesbian Vampire Subgenre, but I really fell down a rabbit hole on the first two selections (Requiem for a Vampire and Alucarda), wrote my longest post to date, and ran out of steam before I could cover the next two. So this week, we’re just going to plow ahead and get some first impressions out there on my next two entries: Daughter of Dracula (1972) and Vampyres (1974).  For all that I loved last week’s films, they only nominally featured “Lesbian Vampires.” The same cannot be said for today’s entries.

As mentioned last week, if you’re interested in the rest of the series, I invite you to check out Part I (Dracula’s Daughter, Blood and Roses, The Blood Spattered Bride, and Mary, Mary, Bloody Mary), Part II (The Vampire Lovers, Daughters of Darkness, The Shiver of the Vampires, and Vampyros Lesbos), Part III (Nadja, Blood of the Tribades, and Bit), and Part IV (Requiem for a Vampire and Alucarda). Also, perhaps stick around and have a look at some of the other, non-Lesbian Vampire offerings on the site. 🙂

There will most likely be extensive spoilers ahead (also, if you’re in an office or something, there could be a stray nipple if that’s an issue for you), so enter at your own risk…

Daughter of Dracula (1972)

This Jess Franco flick was released one year after his superior Vampyros Lesbos and circles many similar images, themes, and impressions (it was also one of 11 films he directed in 1972 – the man worked). That said, for all that there are elements here worthy of one’s time and discussion, it must be said that this is not the place to start with either Lesbian Vampire movies or Franco’s catalogue. However, I think it does probably encapsulate much of what a Jess Franco picture is like: languid, gorgeous, moody, fleshy, erotic, occasionally absurd or campy, and ultimately utterly unconcerned with clarity, consistency, or even character (alliterate much?). His work is not for everyone – and that is certainly true of this early 70s sexploitation outing.

It is a vampire movie, but I’d be hard pressed to call it horror. The story is hard to follow at best and non-existent at worst. And while it devotes a significant portion of its runtime to the naked female form, during which its nominal “story” screeches to a halt (often a defining trait of ‘exploitation’ work), I’m not even sure that it’s ever particularly “sexy” at least not as conventionally understood.

Franco would reportedly shoot multiple movies at the same time and stitch them together in the editing booth (getting more than one picture on the producer’s dime and only paying actors and crew for one film) and this could result in a disjointed feel – as if the film we’re watching had been assembled out of a couple of different pictures (which sometimes is exactly what he did – it’s one of the ways that he was credited as having directed more than 200 films), and that is certainly the case here – it feels as if the main character is never in the same room as most of the rest of the cast, but is following her own story, separate from the giallo-esque mystery that occupies the rest of the players. And her story is barely even a ‘story,’ so much as it’s just her seductively playing the piano or making love to her beautiful cousin in long sequences which aren’t even always exactly ‘sex’ scenes so much as ‘squirmingly lounging in bed together, naked, slowly flopping about before the fangs come out’ scenes. But hey, they do look like they’re having a good time, which is often more than you get with mainstream sex scenes.

All of this may seem pretty negative out the gate, but I did actually rather like the film, particularly on a second viewing (during the first, I was just too sleepy to put myself in the right headspace to enjoy this kind of movie making). I’ve only seen maybe 5 Franco films so far, but my impression is that to appreciate his talents (and I do believe he was talented and had something artistic to offer the world), you have to watch the films differently than most typical narrative cinema. It’s not the abstract surrealism of Rollin, but it is a step removed from narrative arc, more simply luxuriating in the richness of the seen. While he seemed obsessed with certain themes or images (vampires, Poe, old crumbling castles, the sea, death, the body – particularly women’s), I suspect ‘telling stories’ per se just wasn’t that interesting to him. And it doesn’t need to be. Can’t a film be of value based on a different rubric? Can’t he just make beautifully shot films with gothic themes and loads of nudity because that’s what he loves – and well, there was a market for it?

In this case, the minimal story, such as it is, concerns Luisa Karlstein (Brett Nichols), her name our requisite connection to Carmilla, who comes to her mother’s death bed to be told that the family has long been cursed by vampirism and that the original count can still be found, undead, in the nearby family crypt. Concurrently, there is a police investigation into the many beautiful naked women that are being found with mysterious and fatal neck wounds, seemingly carried out by a perpetrator in a long coat with a wide brimmed hat, face covered with a black scarf, and carrying a cane.

This investigation largely feels like its own separate film and though Luisa is eventually revealed (unsurprisingly as we see her flash her fangs and bite women throughout the film), to be the killer in question, it feels as if she isn’t even in that detective film. Most of her time is spent striking up a sexual/bitey relationship with her cousin, Karine (Anne Libert), a childhood friend with whom she’d always shared an attraction. Also, we occasionally see her eye, in very giallo fashion, through the crack of a door, spying on some unsuspecting woman who’s getting undressed and will soon be bitten.

For all of the issues one could have with this film, no one could say it isn’t a Lesbian Vampire movie (which could be argued about both of last week’s movies). Honestly, on some levels, it is more of one than many much better films that I’ve covered in this series, given how so many of the vampires in question also engage in sexy time with men (Bisexual Vampire erasure is a thing). Luisa, however, is only ever shown to take interest in women, either sexually or as food. But beyond ticking boxes to be thus designated, I do also want to underline the merits of this piece.

First of all, it is simply, beautiful. The on location photography along the coast of Portugal is frequently breathtaking, whether viewing a crumbling castle, seagulls on the beach where a nude corpse will soon be found, or the ornate Quinta da Regaleira in Sintra (which I was excited to spot because I’d been there on vacation a few years back and it really is a very cool, interesting place – it’s always fun to see in person a historical sight used for a Lesbian Vampire movie).

Franco catches light and warmth and texture so evocatively – water sparkles more brilliantly that it does in life, old buildings loom with delicate menace and tired grace, and flesh seems so soft, full of life, yielding, sanguine, and lovely. From the snap zooms and play with focus to the sensuality of night shoots by natural light, everything about the film is just so aesthetically crafted and captured.

Otherwise, there are loads of moments that really click. Some performances are surprisingly effective, such as Alberto Dalbés who plays the inspector with such weary, bemused exasperation, or Daniel White as the current Count Karlstein, who is suspected of the murders, but is really just running around on his wife. And of course, Franco himself plays the cuckolded assistant, obsessed with the looming threat of supernatural danger.

While the narrative is clunky and hard to piece together, there is a unifying theme of attraction-desire-need-betrayal, and the whole piece works as a series of evocative glimpses into these emotional states.

Most striking is the above-mentioned repeated motif of Luisa’s eye in the crack of a door. There are a few extended sequences, obviously targeted at a sexploitation market, of women stripping down in an unhurried, surprisingly non sexual fashion, as they prepare for bed or a bath, before they finally see their assailant and scream as we cut to black. Each time, we jump repeatedly, over the course of multiple minutes, between the image of the nude woman at peace, unsuspectingly going about her business, wholly relaxed, all accompanied by some gentle, easygoing music, to an extreme close up of Luisa’s eye, as open as it can be, appearing shocked (as if she really hadn’t expected what was revealed under various discarded undergarments), along with an intense musical stinger. Then we return to the intimate relaxation of a woman simply taking her time. I find it interesting that the eye does not indicate lust or arousal, but rather being overwhelmed by the immensity of what is seen. This is a film that wants to look, that takes pleasure in looking. And what it sees is often slow and unperturbed (both in terms of sexuality and in the face of imminent death). But if this was being sold to shock and titillate, it tracks that the observing eye would be that image of intensity, of more than what can be expected or contained.

And speaking of ‘more than,’ there are some delightfully campy moments, such as the few appearances of Franco regular, Howard Vernon, as the decrepit, undead progenitor of the family line. Occasionally his coffin lid raises, his eyes pop open, and, if he’s lucky, he manages to sit up, sometimes very suddenly. And that is all he ever does. He never gets out of his coffin. He never has any lines. He never does anything at all. His biggest moment of action is when he just lies there and Luisa drops a topless woman on top of him so he can have something to eat. Then she closes the lid. Can he get up? Is he supposed to be an image of broken age, impotent, but evil, infusing the land with his darkness, but unable to take actions himself? Or did Franco just bring his friend in for a day, slap some fangs in his mouth, film him looking creepy in a coffin a few times and send him home, and this is what he had to show for it? Either way, it is a fun, campy element, which may also carry a touch of something evocatively tragic.

This is certainly a peculiar little film, and I think few would exactly call it “good,” but if you are open to its pleasures, they are there to be had, and I think it’s interesting to take in what might be deemed a ‘lesser feature’ by this intriguing euro-sleaze auteur. But again, don’t watch it yet if you don’t already like Franco. If, however, you do and want to see more, seek it out.

Vampyres (1974)

José Ramón Larraz’s film is a bit of a departure from much of the Lesbian Vampire canon. While it does directly feature women who are clearly lesbians (or at least bisexual) and are also clearly vampires (but maybe ghosts as well?), it strikes a different tone from so many of the other entries on this list. A bit of an early seventies exploitation piece, it is filled with the gratuitous nudity one might expect from the genre, but more than most, it really leans into being a horror film (rather than a moody, somewhat abstract fever dream); and it is a fun one at that. It has ominous, spooky atmosphere, people exploring scary places they shouldn’t, a real sense of threat, and while I feel the audience is situated more on the side of the Sapphic vampires in question, when violence finally strikes, it is brutal and gory, and those pretty ladies are really frighteningly monstrous. It’s all pretty great.

In short, Fran (Marianne Morris) and Miriam (Anulka Dziubinska) rise from their graves every night to go hitchhiking along remote country roads to pick up men, take them back to an abandoned mansion, sometimes bed them (hence the bisexuality), get them wasted on fine (possibly drugged) wine from a ‘remote region near the Carpathian mountains,’ slice them open, and feast on the wet, red stuff within, leaving their naked, bloody bodies in their own crashed cars on the side of the road. Our story centers on one such man, Ted (Murray Brown), whom Fran picks up and decides to keep for a few nights (which makes Miriam nervous), and also a pair of young campers, John and Harriet, who have parked their camper on the grounds of said picturesque abandoned mansion to do some fishing and painting.

We regularly shift perspective between Fran and Miriam, living their best unlives together, seemingly taking great pleasure in their nightly games, and in each other (though they occasionally sleep with these men, it really feels like their only real relationship is with one other – the men are meat); Ted, as he is trapped – sexually, emotionally, and eventually bodily, slowly realizing his own impending doom as his life is sapped away; and the young camping couple, with Harriet as the classic horror movie wife who realizes that scary things are afoot only to be consistently disbelieved and belittled by her husband, or boyfriend as the case may be.

Off the bat (boom, tish), the film really feels like a horror movie. From the double murder in the cold open (more on that later), to Harriet’s immediate discomfort with their campsite, a hand slapping against their window in the night (presumably a victim trying to escape), to Ted’s first morning after sleeping with Fran, waking in an empty bed as she’d disappeared before morning light, feeling weirdly drained and discovering an ugly gash on his forearm.

The music builds tension. There are legitimate jump scares. And there is violent, gory death that, while still sexual in its way, is a far cry from the more artistic offerings in most other Lesbian Vampire pictures. I mean, I don’t want to set expectations too high – this is surely not the scariest movie you’re ever going to see, but it does go for the dread, the terror, and the shock of the body viscerally reduced to flesh and blood.

While I really do like this film, one criticism I can make is that it does drag a bit in the middle, and I think that may be to do with the absence of a clear protagonist to follow, though the shifting perspective does make for a very interesting film. The easiest character to identify with, I suppose, who really feels the most like what we will come to know as a ‘final girl,’ is Harriet (Sally Faulkner). She just wants to have a pleasant holiday with her partner, but creepy things are happening, she notices, and ignored or mocked for her insight, she takes some initiative and investigates. It does not end well for her (understatement), and she has one of the smallest parts in the film.

Then there is Ted. I don’t like Ted. Sorry. I can vicariously get creeped out along with him, going along on his ride into dangerous circumstances, feeling his dread as he senses that all doors are slamming shut around him, but I just don’t feel like rooting for him to live. Interestingly, I’d say this is true of all the men we see taken home and victimized, and he’s just the one we spend the most time with. None of them are shown to be ‘bad guys’ per se – Fran and Miriam are not exclusively preying on rapists or abusers (ala a more recent Lesbian Vampire picture, Bit), but they all feel like people I wouldn’t really choose to hang out with. Entitled, pushy, know-it-all guys, it’s hard not to feel like they all ‘have it coming.’ But then I have to second guess myself – why do I feel that way exactly?

Sure, they meet some beautiful women on the road, give them a lift and it turns out that these lovely ladies want them to come back to their place to drink fine wine and have sex. Nothing is wrong with any of that, right? They aren’t shown to be predators. We aren’t even informed that they are cheating on their wives or anything. And yet, it’s hard to be on their side. While I don’t want to fall into a Reagan-era slasher-esque sex-negative judgmentalism, I just don’t like them and I’m perfectly glad for the girls to drink their fill. Thus, since Ted, our primary male victim, is essentially also our main character, the story loses some drive in the second act due to my ambivalence regarding whether he lives or dies.

Maybe it’s just that the film really does rightly belong to Fran and Miriam, as does the audience’s sympathies (at least mine; I can’t speak for the majority of viewers in 1974). And they are easy to love. Fran has this sardonic, worldly, knowing charm as she lures these men home and it is a pleasure to accompany her in this pursuit. Without being overly arch, her whole character seems to grow out of Dracula’s iconic “I never drink…wine.” In contrast, Miriam just plays everything so genuinely, so sweet. She can really sell her interest in whatever some guy is blathering on about. Light and dark in their respective personas, they make a nice pair. And it is interesting the degree to which they really have no interpersonal drama. No one seems tortured by eternity or the need to kill and feed, and beyond Miriam urging Fran to finish Ted off before he becomes a problem, they seem happy together.

Maybe there is a dramatic flaw in that they don’t seem to especially want anything they don’t have, and they aren’t in any way pressed to change. They like hunting and killing these men – so they do. They like squirming about in bed, naked and bloody, having torn some guy apart and then having sex in the shower. They do that as well. One might expect an element of jealousy to enter the picture – either about Fran’s pet blood cow, Ted, or about one of them seducing Harriet. None of that happens. So while for Ted, there is drama in his capture and torment, and while for Harriet, there is suspense in her investigations, the characters we most enjoy watching (again, I should really only speak for myself) are oddly content.

But, hey – good for them. The movie begins with the two of them making love on a bed before some shadowy male figure barges in and shoots them over and over. At the very end of the film, we hear from an estate agent that this scene had happened many years ago in the house and that the unknown murdered girls had been buried here, such that this old mansion is enticingly haunted. If their inciting event, their bloody, cruel murder, probably by some jealous boyfriend or husband, is what somehow made them into vengeful, misandrist, undead killers, then they deserve a modicum of happiness along the way.

It’s nice that they get to have that with each other. The gentle love and contentment here even sets us up for a shock when we finally see the blood flow – when push comes to shove, they are really and truly scary monsters. This is especially true close to the end, when they dispatch Harriet – not their typical target, but necessary under the circumstances – it is quite a rough scene, especially as it takes on a sexualized component, stripping her as she screams and begs, before slashing her throat.

Whereas the last few entries in this series were simply unconcerned with plot or continuity (and therefore, it felt pointless to pick them apart), this feels more like a conventionally told story and hence plot inconsistencies draw more attention to themselves. Were they actually made vampires when murdered years before? If so, why the implications that they are from Transylvania (the small region near the Carpathian mountains)? If not, were they already vampires when the shadowy figure shot them? Who knows? Why does a hotel clerk recognize Ted from the distant past? It’s almost as if it’s implied that he had been the long ago killer, doomed to return to them – but I don’t think he was; it just feels that way. Why do their victim’s watches all stop at midnight? That’s an intriguing detail that I don’t know from any other vampy content. Maybe that was when they were shot? Also, if every single morning the local police find another dead naked man in a car on the side of the road, someone is gonna get curious. Has this been happening every night for 30 years? Men might stop driving through this region. But all of these questions don’t really interfere with my enjoyment of the picture. Sometimes they offer an enjoyable moment of “hey, what?” But mostly, I’m happy to let them slide right by as the rest of the film is generally so very enjoyable.

All in all, this one comes highly recommended. It really blends much of the atmospheric, sensual pleasure of the Lesbian Vampire genre with an entertainingly sleazy exploitation horror flick, filled with spooky atmosphere, rampant sexuality, fairly rough violence, and solid horror beats.

And there we have two films with a fair amount in common, but which are also strikingly different. More so than some I’ve covered, the element of same sex desire and even love is explicitly present, as is the vampirism. Both come from a Spanish director working in another country and another language. Both have a kind of sexploitation charm – clearly including extended sequences of nudity and sex which are not strictly needed for the story telling, but was being sold in the marketing, and as sexuality makes up a pretty large portion of human existence, it’s a pretty legitimate thing to focus on in its own right. For whatever reason (a subject for a future post), I have a soft spot for that sense of good-old fashioned, honest sleaze – there is something charming in its directness. I recently discovered a new podcast I’m enjoying, Girls, Guts, and Giallo, hosted by Annie Rose Malamet, and I really appreciated in her discussion of Hellraiser, her statement to the effect that she hates misogyny, but she hates prudishness more. I can dig it.

But then again, these movies just feel so very different from each other. Franco’s is this languid, gorgeous, weird, erotic art piece, indulging in a death tinged sexual meditation, whereas Larraz’s is a down and dirty horror movie, ticking all the boxes of Lesbian Vampires and of horror, but maybe not really getting into anything deeper than that – an emotional character piece this is not – but it is fun and satisfying.

That said, maybe we’re good on this genre for a while. There are still others I’d like to write about, but I’ve covered 15 so far, and maybe it’s time for a break. I started last post discussing how these Lesbian Vampire posts bring more readers to this site than anything else I’ve written. Exactly why is an ongoing mystery, but I sure do love them myself. That said, there are so many other things I’m looking forward to delving into. Let’s see where we go next time…