The Vampire Lovers

The Vampire Lovers (1970)

[Meh]
Extremely Trashy

Run of the mill Hammer vampire film with extra smut. About a beautiful vampire (Ingrid Pitt) who goes around seducing young women (Madeline Smith, Kate O'Mara, Pippa Steele). Eventually people cotton on to what is going down and the nearest vampire expert (Douglas Wilmer - for once not Peter Cushing) is sent in.

And then there's this guy who only shows up once or twice in the movie - he kind of rides around on horseback and hangs out on top of hills and watches what's going on and laughs. I honestly have no fucking idea what the point of that was.

The film was actually really strangely paced, at least for a while. I assumed it was the sequel to something seeing as there are two (almost identical) scenes recapping previous events - one at the beginning and one towards the end - but according to imdb, this is the first film in a series of three.

Which is weird to me. This movie really felt like a sequel. I think it would have been way better if not for the weird recap at the beginning. I didn't understand the point of that, especially since (as I already mentioned) they pretty much showed it again when Douglas Wilmer showed up.

Whatever. Backstory. Moving on, the film was of course nice to look at - the sets, the costumes, the babes, all that Hammer stuff - and Ingrid Pitt spends about forty percent of the movie naked, and seduces basically every other character because obviously she's a slut ("Hey, she's taking her kit off again" - "Are you guys watching a horror movie or a porn movie?" - "It's porror").

So, yeah, lots of sexy time - Carmilla gets way more action than Dracula which is a win for her I guess. I haven't read the source material but I know it's predates Dracula by about twenty years, so I don't know how raunchy it is. Maybe lots. Dracula is kinda raunchy, for the time.

Yeah, apart from the weird pacing, this movie is alright. Not great, not terrible.

END

Directed by: Roy Ward Baker. Written by: Tudor Gates, based on the story Carmilla by Sheridan Le Fanu. Starring: Ingrid Pitt, Madeline Smith, Kate O'Mara, George Cole, Ferdy Mayne, Douglas Wilmer, Harvey Hall, Jon Finch, Peter Cushing, Pippa Steele.