DRACULA'S DAUGHTER (1936)

The desperate Countess Zaleska (Gloria Holden).

Following the death of Count Dracula at the end of his 1931 film, his daughter, Countess Marya Zaleska (Gloria Holden), steals and burns his corpse in hope that its destruction will free her from his influence and the curse of vampirism. No such luck, unfortunately, so she resorts to modern psycho therapy for a cure. Falling for her therapist (Otto Kruger), who is himself attempting to clear Professor Van Helsing (Edward Van Sloan) of supposedly murdering Dracula — one cannot "murder" the undead, but try convincing the authorities of that when they are confronted with a fresh corpse with a stake driven through its heart — the Countess resigns herself to her fate and kidnaps her therapist's quasi-girlfriend (Marguerite Churchill) in order to convince him to trade his own life so he'll become the Countess's undead consort.

A lesser effort in the Universal horror cycle, DRACULA'S DAUGHTER is often ignored because it's really a character study of a reluctant monster and her genuinely sad and lonely existence. I didn't dig it when I saw it as a kid because I was too young to relate to the Countess' plight, but once I was older I got what it was going for and now embrace it as a quiet, melancholy look at an outsider's attempt at fixing her inexorable fate and trying to make a futile connection. There's even a lesbian subtext that totally went over my head when I was a child, and though predatory, the Countess' lesbian moves are marked with a desperation born out of her crushing loneliness. 

Not for all tastes, DRACULA'S DAUGHTER offers little by way of shocks but its personal story is a feast of characterization. Give it a shot.

Poster from the original theatrical release.

TWINS OF EVIL (1971)

Sexual repression, misogyny, and "religious" zealotry: A dire formula.

TWINS OF EVIL, the last of Hammer's Karnstein Trilogy and a film I'd heard was not all that, despite it starring a pair of very, very cute twin sisters who were not afraid to get nekkid, was a movie I almost ignored. Well, I'm glad that I put forth the effort because TWINS OF EVIL came from out of nowhere to become my favorite Hammer vampire flick. No disrespect to Christopher Lee's work as Dracula, but this film works solidly for me from start to finish, something I can't say about most of Lee's films.

Taking place in that signature Hammer world that's like some particularly grim fairytale (pun totally intended), TWINS OF EVIL opens on an ominous note as we see a group of witchfinders dragging an innocent woman from her hovel and burning her at the stake. They are the Brotherhood, led by the fanatical Gustav Weil, played by Hammer mainstay Peter Cushing in what may be his most intense performance.

Peter Cushing as the fanatical Gustav Weil.

Basically a pack of sexually frustrated religious fanatics and misogynists who can't deal with the existence of sexy women, The Brotherhood is feared throughout the land for their sadistic activities, but the public can do nothing by way of protest because The Brotherhood has the support of the government. Into this not exactly female-friendly environment come the lovely Gellhorn sisters, Maria and Frieda (played by Mary and Madeleine Collinson, respectively), just in from Venice in the wake of their parents' deaths and now they are entrusted to the care of their uncle, who, unfortunately for them, is Brother Weil.

Frieda (Madeleine Collinson) and Maria (Mary Collinson), the title characters.

Upon seeing their "disrespectful" attire, Gustav's dislike of the girls is instantaneous and he relegates them to their room, where they spend a lot of time hanging out (quite literally, if you get my drift) in their diaphanous nighties. It is there that we get to know the girls' unguarded personalities and they are quite easy to tell apart, thanks to the lusty-eyed Frieda being something of an enthusiastic "bad" girl with an interest in boozing and men, while Maria is sweet, innocent and decidedly virginal, as well as being the never-heeded voice of reason in their sibling dynamic.

Upon their arrival in town, the tasty twins catch the eye of every creature with a Y chromosome and in short order they are informed of the castle across the way from their uncle's house, a textbook example of the kind of place in horror movies where you just know great evil resides. It's the home of the sybaritic Count Karnstein (Damien Thomas), a sleazy and totally evil aristocrat who would be Number One on Brother Weil's hit list if not for his connection to the government, and he's introduced when The Brotherhood goes to burn another innocent woman and finds her about to get her hump on with the Count.

Count Karnstein (Damien Thomas): giving the amoral a bad name.

In the exchange between Brother Weil and the Count during that sequence, we witness the interesting contrast/comparison between the two characters, one being balls-out and unashamedly evil, and the other committing heinous atrocities but deluding himself into believing he's doing God's work, and it sets the two on paths of character development that bears satisfying fruit as the film progresses. Anyway, upon hearing about the forbidden pleasures to be had up at Castle Karnstein, Frieda practically drips like a broken fridge at the prospect of spending some quality time there, while her sister implores her not to consider such pursuits.

Frieda, yearning for corruption.

Meanwhile, the Count earnestly seeks to be even more evil than he already is, openly proclaiming his desire to become an active agent of Satan and going so far as to conduct a black mass in his dining hall, complete with a naked local peasant girl — who is equipped with an impressive briefly-glimpsed '70's bush — as a sacrifice. Dissatisfied with the performance of the so-called professional Satanists brought in by his chief servant (where one found those back in the days before Craig's List is anyone's guess), the Count dismisses them and himself prays to the Devil in what amounts to a job application, and in no time the spirit of his infamous vampiric lesbian ancestor, Countess Mircalla Karnstein (Katya Wyeth), manifests, fucks him senseless and puts the bite on him before returning to her infernal rest, thus transforming him into an undead suckface and he could not be happier.

A Karnstein family reunion: Mircalla (Katya Wyeth) returns from Hell.

Once happily vampirized, the Count embarks on a wanton and unholy killing spree, setting his sights on the clearly interested Frieda as a very personal "fuck you" to her uncle.

The lusty Frieda, as first seen by Count Karnstein. Ah, the subtlety of Hammer's filmmaking...

Quicker than you can say "girls gone wild," Frieda sneaks out of her uncle's house and hightails it to Castle Karnstein, where the Count turns her into a vampire and offers her his understandably horrified girlfriend as her first kill.

Frieda, fully vamped-out.

From that point on, Frieda becomes a full-blown force in direct opposition to common decency and starts feasting her way through the immediate populace, all while innocent Maria realizes something is quite wrong and the hunky boar-hunting choirmaster at the girls' needlepoint school (who coincidentally happens to be an expert on the occult in general and vampires in particular) begins fancying Maria, a sentiment that is definitely mutual. Needless to say, these plotlines eventually collide with apocalyptic results, and no one comes out of it unscathed.

The twins in their room: guess which one's the newly-minted undead suckface?

Following THE VAMPIRE LOVERS (1970) and LUST FOR A VAMPIRE (1971) as the final installment of the trilogy, TWINS OF EVIL kicks the shamelessly exploitative lesbian angle to the curb, presumably in favor of the titillating twin thing, but the two do not spend even one second face-deep in each others' humid and furry recesses, which is surprising since the Collinsons reportedly did exactly that three years earlier in SOME LIKE IT SEXY, one of the innumerable European softcore flicks, a film shot when they were seventeen (!!!). Hailing from Malta, the mirror-image beauties came to the attention of the American public when they became PLAYBOY's first twin centerfold models in the landmark skin-mag's October 1970 issue.

Needless to say, many an imagination was put into carnal overdrive at the mere thought of the geometric configurations possible with this pair of stunners, and their centerfold has since understandably become the stuff of legend.

Mary and Madeleine Collinson, PLAYBOY's first twin centerfold models. Jumpin' Jesus in a basket of honey-glazed chicken...

Sadly, TWINS OF EVIL proved to be the last acting work of the Collinsons but their legacy lives on in the hearts of vampire fans and Hammer devotees. What I would not give for their autographs on this behind-the-scenes shot...

This is only a third of the shot in question; the rest can be seen in author and Hammer expert Wayne Kinsey's excellent book HAMMER FILMS: A LIFE IN PICTURES (2008).

Along with the indelible presence of the Collinson sisters, TWINS OF EVIL offers a plot that's sure to keep vampire fans glued to their seats and is a firm reminder of the time before Anne Rice ruined vampires by making them into unscary fops, a cultural blight that opened the door for the even more odious pussification found in the TWILIGHT series (aka "Transylvania 90210"). Hammer's trademark Gothic sensibility is in full effect here, aided and abetted by Peter Cushing's fantastic performance as Brother Weil, and the expected amount of gore and boobs that put the company on the map. Though quite tame by today's standards, the "adult" content found here was the good stuff back in the days and it still serves its purpose, yet its excesses are nothing that I would not allow my nieces and nephews to see.

Madeleine Collinson's "rightie": not a threat to western civilization. Quite the opposite, actually.

The sexy bits are handled with considerable good taste and would mostly go right over the heads of the under-tens — a naked boob here and there notwithstanding — and the gore, while shocking, is of the bogus but fun red paint variety familiar to anyone who's seen even one post-1966 Hammer flick. For example:

And this:

The film also contains what may be the best Hammer beheading on record, but I'll let you see that one for yourself when you check out the movie.

TWINS OF EVIL definitely doesn't deserve its rep as a feeble late entry in Hammer's vampire cycle, and I'm guessing it wears that ignominious mantle due to audiences who'd enjoyed the Sapphic elements in the two previous Karnstein movies being irked at the loss of the girl-on-girl action. Whatever the reason for that assessment, it is an unfair cross that the movie bears, but now the film can be re-evaluated on DVD by those who did not get to see it thanks to it being infrequently run on TV or any of the numerous cable movie channels (although I hear it has run fairly recently in uncut form on Turner Classic Movies). If submitted as is to the MPAA nowadays for a rating, TWINS OF EVIL would most likely garner an R for the very brief nudity, but it's really a hard PG-13 if you ask me, so TRUST YER BUNCHE and add it to your Netflix queue.

Poster from the original theatrical release.

THE VAMPIRE LOVERS (1970)

Old school vampire lore + boobs = Hammer film.

This first in Hammer Films’ “Karnstein trilogy” — comprised of THE VAMPIRE LOVERS, LUST FOR A VAMPIRE (1971) and TWINS OF EVIL (1972) — is far and away the best of the lot and deservedly made a horror star out of Polish-born Ingrid Pitt. Though rather tame by current standards, THE VAMPIRE LOVERS was just the hit that the ailing Hammer studio needed, fueled by a letter perfect combination of the usual Hammer tone and the then-new explicit rather than implicit lesbian angle allowable thanks to British censors shifting the “X” certificate from age sixteen and over for admission to eighteen and over (essentially equivalent to the MPAA’s “R” rating and allowing for nudity, simulated sex and gore, but not gynecologically detailed or pornographic content).

The haunting Ingrid Pitt as Mircalla/Marcilla/Carmilla Karnstein.

Based on Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu’s novella CARMILLA (1875), THE VAMPIRE LOVERS lays out the eerie events set in motion in the early 1800’s (I think) when a beautiful and mysterious woman (Ingrid Pitt) arrives in the Duchy of Stiri and works her way through the populace, killing off members of the local populace with her vampiric feeding. Her M.O. is to insinuate herself into the house of an aristocratic family and feed on that family’s virginal young daughter (who is invariably cute as hell) until the girl wastes away, presumably because of anemia, and then the sultry vampiress moves on to her next victim. The vampire in question is Mircalla Karnstein, the last of a line of undead suckfaces who were believed wiped out years earlier, and she operates under the anagrammatically rearranged monikers of “Marcilla” and “Carmilla,” as the possibly unwilling thrall of a mysterious horseback-mounted man in black (John Forbes-Robertson) who’s obviously a master vampire. First working her baleful magic upon the niece of General Spielsdorf (Hammer mainstay Peter Cushing, in a role that amounts to slightly more than a cameo), the vampiress soon moves on to the doll-like and smokin’ hot Emma Morton (the adorable ginger-tressed Madeline Smith, who sports a pair of alabaster Brit-breasts that you just want to latch onto with eager lips and tongue), and it’s that literally unnatural relationship that drives the movie.

Carmilla and Emma share a tender moment.

As the vampiress slowly drains away the poor girl’s life, members of the household gradually twig to what’s up, so it’s only a matter of time until Emma lies dead or Mircalla is thwarted. Let us not forget that Peter Cushing, cinema’s most notable and formidable Van Helsing, is in this flick, so it’s a no-brainer as to how things simply must turn out; following the miserable demise of his niece, Cushing’s General seeks the aid and advice of Baron Hartog (Douglas Wilmer), who some years earlier avenged the death of his own daughter by taking out what was presumed to be the last of the vile Karnstein clan, and from there it’s time to kick some fanged ass.

Though set in various identifiable European locales and sometimes foreign lands such as Egypt, the Hammer horror world may as well all take place in the same stylized realm, so instantly recognizable is their atmospheric style. Replete with isolated country back-roads, misty graveyards, busty peasant women in dairy-showcasing bodices — one of the things that got me into these films during my formative years — and lavish period sets and costumes that drive home the fantasy and bring to mind MASTERPIECE THEATER as filtered through a Dan Curtis sensibility, the Hammer efforts are as unique and fun as the Universal Studios that preceded them. The Universal influence comes as zero surprise since Hammer’s horror films launched from a template established by their Yank antecedents, starting in the 1950’s with gored-up re-interpretations of Dracula, Frankenstein and the Mummy, followed later by their take on the Wolf Man, and those films were always worth a look. Filled with terrific eerie visuals, including a great bit with an earlier Karnstein lady searching the graveyard for her burial shroud (without which she cannot return to her tomb) and two shocking beheadings by sword. THE VAMPIRE LOVERS has much to savor from both the visual and narrative standpoints, and its interest has only increased with each passing year.

Perhaps most renowned for its lesbian content, the film is nowhere near as shocking in that respect as it was some forty years ago, and when looked at today it reveals layers far more rich than its initial prurient value. Mircalla does not appear to enjoy her state as one of the undead and seems to commit her evil acts either as a result of being compelled to do so by the mysterious (and unexplained) man in black, the occasional basic need for sanguinary sustenance or simply out of a need to defend herself against those who have figured out what she is. When it comes to her relationship with Emma, what at first may seem predatory or a symbolic mission to destroy innocence in the face of the girl’s obvious and untried womanhood is revealed to be a genuine affection, and Mircalla prolongs the inevitable by feeding on a couple of unfortunate locals so she can enjoy as much time with her inamorata as possible. The scenes of sexual intimacy between “Carmilla” and Emma are tastefully handled and have an almost childlike innocence in their emotional content, at least until the vampiress kisses her way south — if you know what I mean and I think you do — as the camera remains focused on the wide-eyed and ecstatic face of Emma.

Which brings me to Ingrid Pitt. One of the short list of indelible female figures in pre-1980’s horror cinema, Pitt simply owns THE VAMPIRE LOVERS in much the same way as THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK was Darth Vader’s movie and I simply cannot picture anyone else in the role of Mircalla (unless the film was remade with Monica Bellucci). Pitt’s vampire is graceful, somewhat terse unless interacting with the object of her desire, and wears an expression that’s a curious mix of indifference and resignation to her lot in un-life. Mircalla is definitely creepy, but there is some indefinable something about her that evokes sadness to such a degree that one almost cannot help but pity her despite the trail of carnage she leaves in her wake. Pitt is also extremely easy on the eyes and has an air of commanding elegance that is evident even when she’s sponging her nekkid self in a bathtub or frolicking topless with Emma during a preamble to their first Sapphic encounter.

As I stated previously, the film’s naughty content is tame by modern standards, and I sat there for roughly the first half hour wondering why the film received an “R” rating form its U.S. release after witnessing only the most minor display of blood and one bare tit from the general’s niece during a brief post-mortem medical going-over, but then the bathtub scene where “Carmilla” engages in initially innocent girl time with Emma came on and all was right in the world…

THE VAMPIRE LOVERS is one of the last times when the horror engine that was Hammer fired on all cylinders, and it is very much recommended to horror fans and followers of the whole lesbian vampire sub-genre. Available on one of those reasonably priced MGM-released Midnite Movies DVDs in a double feature with the vastly inferior COUNTESS DRACULA, THE VAMPIRE LOVERS is a very welcome must-have for aficionados and those looking to remember the days before vampires were ruined by Anne Rice’s pussification and that fucking TWILIGHT bullshit.

The marvelously cheesy poster from the American release. None of the stuff seen on this poster happens in the movie.