Review: The Vampire Lovers

Countess Karnstein (Dawn Addams) leaves her beautiful daughter Marcilla (Ingrid Pitt) in the care of General von Spielsdorf (Peter Cushing) while the Countess attends some urgent business. Marcilla quickly becomes fast friends with the General’s daughter Laura (Pippa Steel). Very close friends indeed. It’s not long before Laura is having nightmares and feeling weaker and sicker every day. Tragedy strikes and Marcilla is nowhere to be found. Some time later a ravishing young woman named Carmilla (Ms. Pitt again) moves in with a new family and bewitches young Emma (Madeleine Smith) and her frankly rather horny governess/tutor (Kate O’Mara). Jon Finch plays a young suitor, Ferdy Mayne is a doctor, Douglas Wilmer is seen early as vampire-hunter Baron Joachim von Hartog, and John Forbes-Robertson is ‘The Man in Black’.

 

The first of Hammer’s ‘Karnstein Trilogy’ of vampire films, this 1970 film from director Roy Ward Baker (“The One That Got Away”, “Scars of Dracula”) is based on J. Sheridan Le Fanu’s story 1872 Carmilla. A co-production with America’s AIP studio, it’s not the most sexually explicit lesbian vampire film out there, but it’s one of the best. Whilst skimping a bit on the sex and T&A, the film certainly doesn’t shy away from violence I must say. Douglas Wilmer decapitates a young female vampire before the opening credits! Wilmer’s very serious, long face and equally serious narration are perfect in the spectacularly foggy, atmospheric opener. He’s a particularly underrated actor and gets us off to a damn good start here. As usual with Hammer, production values look outstanding, making me wonder if Hammer/AIP splashed a bit of cash around on this one. Cinematographer Moray Grant (“Scars of Dracula”, “Vampire Circus”) and composer Harry Robinson (“Lust for a Vampire”, “Twins of Evil”) do their usual sterling work, the film both looks and sounds great. It’s easily one of Hammer’s best-looking films, Grant and director Baker even get all experimental on occasion with the dream/nightmare scenes occasionally employing B&W.

 

In her signature role and performance, Polish-born Ingrid Pitt looks immediately ravishing and gives a wonderfully wicked, very naughty and seductive performance as the insidious female bloodsucker. In a film with not an overly large amount of nudity there’s certainly a lot of heaving bosoms, with Pitt’s in particularly working overtime. Sorry, but it’s that kind of film and demands this kind of review. As one of the innocents being ‘corrupted’, Pippa Steel (who died at just 44) is easy to take, and Madeline Smith is her usual ditzy, bubble-headed self as another victim. She’s good fun, whilst Kate O’Mara makes for one helluva sexy governess. European all-purpose actor Ferdy Mayne, Peter Cushing, and Jon Finch are all solid, though the latter two are a bit underused in my view. I think this film was made around a very unhappy time for Cushing, but he doesn’t show any of that on screen. He does a thoroughly professional job, he’s just not in it all that much. John Forbes-Robertson, later to play Dracula in “The Legend of the 7 Vampires” cuts a creepy-looking figure as ‘The Man in Black’.

 

Some might accuse Hammer of homophobia here, but that’d be a mistake. Carmilla happily seduces both men and women, and the entire Karnstein family are vampires anyway, male and female.

 

One of Hammer Studios 10 best films for sure. This saucy, if not terribly sexually explicit film is gorgeous to look at, and contains a wonderfully seductive performance by Ingrid Pitt in her signature role. Based on the J. Sheridan Le Fanu short story, the screenplay is by Tudor Gates (“Barbarella”, “Lust for a Vampire”), and one-and-done writers Harry Fine and Michael Style (who were the producers of the subsequent Karnstein films, “Lust for a Vampire” and “Twins of Evil”).

 

Rating: B