Horror 
Movie
Index

Lesbian
Vampire
Movies

Genre 
Index

Home

The folks at Anchor Bay Entertainment strike another blow against bootleggers with this edition of Joseph Lazzar's imfamous lesbian vampire movie. Long available in a watered-down edition, this film has been a favorite of vendors on the fringes of respectablility for years. Anchor Bay presents it uncut and in its original aspect ratio, transferred from the actual negative, and append both the international and US trailers to the film. Which, like many of Anchor Bay's projects, begs the question: is it worth it? (Note five years later: this edition is now out of print, but Blue Underground's current edition raises the same question)

Well, it depends on your point of view, I guess. It DOES give us the opportunity to examine the film in its pristine state. The film can now stand or fall on its merits, unhindered by grainy film, pan and scan, and scissor-happy censors. Which is something of a mixed blessing, when you come to think of it....

The film opens with two gorgeous women in bed together, making passionate love to one another. A shadowy figure enters the bedchamber and shoots them both. Some time later, a couple on holiday in their trailer passes two women on the road. The women are hitchhiking, but the couple doesn't stop for them. The next motorist, a travelling salesman, DOES stop for them and is taken to the manse where they live, ply him with wine, and seduce him. He passes out. When he awakens, he discovers that his arm has been cut open. He stumbles out into the morning to seek help (he's has apparently lost a lot of blood). The couple who passed the girls have set up their trailer on the grounds and it is to them that the salesman runs for help. They bandage him and he heads back to the mansion to retrieve his things. The hitchhikers return while he is gathering his things and seduce him again. They re-open the wound and begin to drink from it, sharing his blood with each other with french kisses. He passes out again. When he reawakens, he is alone in the mansion, paranoid, and bored with nothing to do. When the girls return, they have another man in tow. They murder him and frame his death as a car accident. This happens again the next night, and the salesman resolves to get out. He flees into the night, but the vampire girls follow him. He seeks refuge with the couple in the trailer, but the husband is killed by the girls and the the wife is captured, taken to the mansion, and slaughtered. The salesman escapes as the girls flee the coming of day.

Purient interest aside, Vampyres has a couple of arresting images (most notably the shots of our Goth girl vampires standing by the side of the road) but it torpedoes itself with inconsistency. The movie doesn't seem to have much of a point, either, which is a serious liability. For instance: the vampire girls are CLEARLY seen moving about in the daylight during most of the movie, but they suddenly become vulnerable to daylight as the movie comes to an end. The identity of the girl's murderer is never disclosed, even though the audience is led to suspect the salesman. The head vampire walks up to the wife as she paints the mansion and marks her forehead as if to claim her; later in the movie, the vampire girls brutally murder her as if this has no significance. It is never explained why the salesman is permitted to live when the girl's other victims all die ghastly deaths. On the whole, the film is lazy, as if the director had cast two bombshell leading ladies who were willing to do fairly explicit nude lesbian scenes and then decided that that was enough to carry the film. Well, arrousing as the sex may be (which is subject to some debate, I would add), this is NOT enough to carry the film. This movie is likely to appeal to gore fans, but anyone else is going to have a hard time of it. It is too violent to be titilating and too plotless to be scary.