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Lust for a Vampire
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| Year: |
1971
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Director: |
Jimmy Sangster
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| Stars: |
Michael Johnson, Yutte Stensgaard, Ralph Bates, Barbara Jefford, Suzanna Leigh, Helen Christie, Pippa Steel, Harvey Hall, Christopher Neame, Mike Raven
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| Genre: |
Horror, Sex |
| Rating: |
  5 (from 4 votes) |
| Review: |
A young lady in this Middle European country village is out one day when a carriage stops near her on the road, and she is invited inside for a journey - but more than that, as she discovers in terror. When a slightly raffish writer (Michael Johnson) arrives in that self-same village, he is sceptical about any tales of the supernatural that may be afflicting the region, but opportunistically takes a position as an English teacher at an exclusive boarding school for young ladies locally, and he is immediately taken with Mircalla (Yutte Stensgaard), one of the students. But the vampiric curse of the Karnsteins is upon her...
Scripted by Tudor Gates, this is the middle one of the the trilogy of Carmilla vampire horrors that Hammer produced in the early seventies to complement their line in Dracula efforts that continued unabated. Up until then, the company had displayed young actresses with bosoms heaving at their bodices to add sex appeal to their films. Now, with the censorship laws in Britain relaxed and a plethora of entertainments aimed at the more prurient end of the market in an attempt to boost interest in their product, they started showing the heaving bosoms without the bodices.
But they failed to find much else new to add, as Lust for a Vampire makes obvious. It's a predictable affair that gives the impression of Hammer going through the motions for want of anything different to say, relying on the sex, and indeed violence, to sustain any interest, as if they did not have much faith in the work they were providing when it could be regarded as a debased variation on what had gone before. Stensgaard takes her clothes off a few times, but doesn't really convince as a melancholy vampire, isn't particularly threatening and is badly dubbed. Still, for many people she is the main reason for watching this with her rather regal air and catlike expressions, though she would give up acting and move Stateside not long after.
It does, however, feature two aspiring horror stars in the same film: Ralph Bates was being groomed to be the next Peter Cushing and Mike Raven the next Christopher Lee. While Bates was a capable actor, he plays a weak villain in this and reportedly thought this was the worst film he ever appeared in (he would be a rebooted Frankenstein for Hammer the same year), and Raven is distinctly unimpressive, spending most of his time lurking in bushes, dubbed with Valentine Dyall's stern tones and even having eyes replaced in closeup stock footage with those of Christopher Lee from a previous Hammer Dracula film. Add to that some of the bloodiest scenes the studio ever presented, and the impression was of desperation rather than savvy. But of such endeavours do trashy diversions spring and its fans do like how naff this is.
There were only a few more years of Hammer films left after this, with a long hiatus whereupon they returned with a fresh run of horrors for the big screen in the twenty-first century, most notably The Woman in Black. The same year their biggest hit would be the movie version of the TV sitcom On the Buses. Oh well. I suppose turning up with a name like Mircalla is the female equivalent of turning up with a name like Count Alucard. Listen for: the song "Strange Love" (sung by Tracy... well, Tracy) which turns up during the love scene and is almost as inappropriate as Yutte's ecstatic eye-crossing routine. Watch for: the camera crew in the vampire coachman bit near the end, an example of how little care was going into the production that they left them in. Funnily enough, though Lust for a Vampire was a step down from The Vampire Lovers, the next film, Twins of Evil, was the best of the trilogy, but not enough to keep Hammer on top, though thanks to regular broadcasts on television they do hold a special place in the hearts of horror fans who saw them late at night, once upon a time.
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| Reviewer: |
Graeme Clark
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