Lust for a Vampire (1971) - film review

For forty years, the country of Styria  has been rid of the scourge of vampirism.  But then it returns, suddenly and unexpectedly, when Carmilla Karnstein is resurrected in a blood sacrifice.  At this time, the writer Richard Lestrange arrives in the area, looking for material for his next novel.  He laughs off rumours of vampirism as mere superstition but is nonetheless fascinated by what he hears, tales of seductively beautiful women vampires who lure men and girls to their doom.   Visiting the ruined Karnstein castle, Lestrange meets Giles Barton, the co-proprietor of a nearby girls’ school who is also interested in the vampire legends.  Attracted to one of Barton’s pupils, Mircalla Herritzen, Lestrange contrives to get a place as a teacher at the school.  A short while later, one of the girls mysteriously disappears.  Barton discovers her body and finds she is the victim of a vampire.  He deduces that Mircalla is in truth Carmilla Karnstein and offers himself as her willing slave.  Naturally, she kills him too.  Will Lestrange suffer the same fate?

Hammer followed up its highly successful The Vampire Lovers with this much less inspired attempt at an erotic horror film, which is widely considered the weakest of the company’s Gothic horror offerings.  The film has many shortcomings, but these might have been bearable if Hammer had taken the trouble to put together a decent cast.  Peter Cushing and Ingrid Pitt were both approached to appear in the film, but both declined.  So, instead, we have to make do with a cast of virtual unknowns, including DJ Mike Raven (inexplicably dubbed by Valentine Dyall) and Danish model Yutte Stensgaard, whose range of accomplishments evidently did not extend to acting.  

Hammer’s regular writer Jimmy Sangster had made a reasonable job of directing The Horror of Frankenstein (1970) but appears completely flummoxed by the lesbian vampire fest that is Lust for a Vampire.  The failings of a mediocre script are amplified by Sangster’s bloodless direction and wooden performances from just about the entire cast.  The nude scenes are embarrassing to watch, so badly shot that you get the impression that neither the director nor his camera crew could bear to look at what they were filming (and who can blame them). 

Just when you think that the film could not possibly get any worse, it does, with a toe-curling montage of shots shown through various coloured filters accompanied by what is probably the worst pop song in history, Strange Love.  There are one or two scenes that work quite well (the opening sequence in particular), but overall Lust for a Vampire is a tedious and gutless plod-a-thon, probably the dullest thing Hammer ever made.

© Alex Sullivan 2010

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