By Melissa Antoinette Garza
Though devoted fans of the genre still enjoy THE VAMPIRE LOVES (1970) enough to give it a cult following and critically it often fares better than the similarly themed LUST FOR A VAMPIRE (1971), it doesn’t quite get the respect it deserves.
The movie opens in he 19th century. A man in a graveyard is bitten by a female vampire. Baron Joachim von Hartog (Douglas Wilmer) waits for her to come at him and then decapitating the beauty with his sword. Why must there always be a buzzkill?
Years later, General von Spielsdorf (Peter Cushing) hosts a huge party. Marcilla (Ingrid Pitt), a gorgeous vamp in a red dress, matching tiara and a ruby necklace, stays at the general’s house at the request of her mother. She soon finds a kinship with the general’s niece Laura (Pippa Steel). Marcilla make enticing moves towards the naive and insecure Laura. She comes to her at night in the form of a cat. Everyone believes Laura to be having nightmares and is convinced she will be fine. Instead, she ends up getting sicker. Marcilla gets more brazen in her affection and Laura is completely taken in. Eventually, Laura dies of an unknown illness and Marcilla skips town. Spielsdorf gets suspicious as he mourns over his niece.
Admittedly, I’m 100% team Marcilla in this film, but Peter Cushing will ALWAYS have a soft spot in my heart. As much as I like the bad boys and wicked girls, Cushing has this gentle Mr. Rogers-esque quality that I just adore. When his characters feel badly, I feel bad for them. Here is no exception. Poor Spielsdorf. Still, Marcilla makes being bad look sooooo good and God bless her!
Later, Marcilla’s mother fakes a carriage accident. Roger Morton (George Cole) happens by and offers to take in Marcilla, who is now going under the alias Carmilla. They take him up on her offer, and Carmilla becomes fast friends with Morton’s daughter Emma (Madeline Smith). Carmilla shares dresses with Emma and bathes in front of her. They chase each other around the room naked and needless to say, things get hot and heavy fast!
In one scene, Emma asks Carmilla if she wants a good looking man to come in her life and she answers brilliantly, “no and neither do you, I hope.” Carmilla falls hard for Emma. Emma is no longer just a concubine or a feed, but instead someone that the vamp wants to spend eternity with. It’s a very sexy and romantic watch.
When Carmilla begs Emma to hold her, the love is genuine and real. It’s impossible not to root for them to be together. Later when they make love and Carmilla gently undresses her, their chemistry and heat is palpable.
Emma later awakes from a bad dream and has wounds on her breast from where Carmilla bit her. She shows them to Mademoiselle Perrodot (Kate O’Mara) who is about to question Carmilla, but instead falls under her spell. She becomes a willing accomplice and the two have sex.
Perrodot now playing defense for Carmilla sends all of Emma’s suitors away. I love this dynamic so much. Having one evil temptress at the helm, with another woman being happily manipulated and a third naive sweetheart unable to resist the vamp is rousing in all the right ways. It’s a feminist’s dream.
The men who try to interfere are typically crushed or exploited with ease. Perrodot will do anything for Carmilla and Carmilla will do anything to be with Emma, including kidnap her.
The 1970s understood sexy lesbian vampires. They had gravitas, confidence and prowess. They used seductive language and alluring saunters to entice and tempt. Nowadays, movies throw a few models in Victoria’s Secret, give them zero depth and call it a day. The difference is that the films back then told tales of female empowerment and walking away from masculinity, whereas today the vamp characters are designed from a male p.o.v. Even if a man wrote and directed a film in the 70s, the female characters often had female brains. Now, femininity is dropped. The sensuous and erotic have been replaced with convenience and quantity. A that point, just watch a porn. There is an art to erotica and lesbian vampire films that is just lost on the filmmakers of today.
I like the soft and beautiful profound and unyeilding strength of the 1970’s women. THE VAMPIRE LOVERS is no different.
Here we see on display all different levels of female development, mindset and evolution. Madeline Smith portrays the innocent and young beauty uncertain of her own sexuality. She’s curious and scared.
Kate O’Mara represents the next step in feminism. Perrodot begins still somewhat submissive, but it’s clear that she craves power and control. She seeks it from Carmilla and when in her presence will hold her own against any man.
Ingrid Pitt is breathtakingly fantastic in the lead. She owns every moment she’s on the screen. She makes the absolute control that Carmilla has on all those around her make sense. It isn’t just that she’s divinely attractive. She is, but it’s more than that. It’s the way she carries herself. It’s the sensitivity we see in Carmilla when she talks to Emma. It’s the approach she has when she needs something. Every emotion she conveys, she does so amazingly well.
This is a film that deserves more credit than it gets. I highly suggest it and if you catch it before the copyright cops take it down, it’s on YOUTUBE free.
Scared Stiff Rating: 7/10
