All cats are grey in the dark....
I can't remember the author of that quote, but it fits this film well. A classic of latter-day Hammer Horror, The Vampire Lovers is a very good adaption of LeFanu's pre-Dracula vampire story, Carmilla (1870s). The aristocratic and drop-dead hot Ingrid Pitt plays the tortured vampire who not only lusts for blood, but for the love of young women--both forbidden to her, of course.
Peter Cushing adds his usual stoic, stiff-upper-class persona to the proceedings as he marshalls the fathers and male suitors of the victims against the power of the lovely undead. The wide-eyed innocent that falls under Carmilla's sway is played by Madeleine Smith--Mmmmm. Hammer gets the seduction scenes just right, mingling horror and eros with unexpected skill and taste. The sexual tension is high, and the scenes of bosomy women in bodices bearing huge fangs has always been a Hammer staple. I love it, myself.
The Vampire Lovers is competently acted, with a nice turn by Pitt especially, showing how...
The first and best of Hammer's erotic vampire movies
"The Vampire Lovers," directed by Roy Ward Baker in 1970, is the first in the Karnstein trilogy of Hammer films, all based quite loosely on Joseph Sheridan LeFanu's story "Carmilla." The Karnsteins are a clan of vampires, represented in this version by a bunch of scantily clad women. Ingrid Pitt stars as Carmilla, who also goes under the anagram names of Mircalla and Marcilla at various points in the story (yes, there is a story). The last of her clan, Carmilla is trying to rebuild, turning first to Laura (Pippa Steele), the daughter of General Spielsdorf (Peter Cushing) and then Emma (Madeleine Smith), the daughter of Roger Morton (George Cole). Along the way she turns Mademoiselle Perrodon (Kate O'Mara) into a sexual slave. In the great tradition of Dracula and most other vampire films, Laura dies before anyone recognizes the marks of the vampire and then the goal is to save poor Emma from the same fate.
There is a lot in "The Vampire Lovers"...
Additional footage restored
This edition of the movie contains two scenes that have been previously deleted from other releases. The first scene is in the prologue with the decapitation of the vampire woman. The second scene is at the climax with several cuts reinstated between Peter Cushing and the demise of Carmilla. With these scenes finally added and a reproduction at standard play, this video is a must for any serious Hammer horror film fan.
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