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The vampire horror flicks that Hammer Films released during their prime always encompassed an element of sexual energy. Adorable dashing men turned into noble beasts, literally plunging into girls’ necks while the girls heaved “blouse bursting” screams. While some aspects can be attributed as subtext, the literal approach began in the 70s when the powers at be decided to adapt Sheridan Le Fanu’s erotic female vampire story Carmilla into the cinema, but using their unique twist.
The outcome of that was the Karnstein Trilogy, barely connected covers where the bloody, morbid, and blood-thirsty action filled with “implied” lesbianism and bisexuality abundance. Censorship laws were relaxed and so was everything else.
We move forward a few decades where there is a flashback. Baron Hartog is sweaty as he chases a female vampire that feeds on and kills his sister. In this misty flashback, we encounter General Spielsdorf, who is entertaining an exquisite party in celebration of his niece Laura’s birthday. During this gathering, he had a conversation with a Countess who has a breathtaking daughter, Marcella. The Countess asked the General to take care of her daughter to which he enthusiastically agreed by welcoming Marcilla into his household. As this girl and General’s wife bonded ( and by bonded, I mean they seduced the girl), we witness Laura suffering from a nightmarish vision of a giant cat. Her condition does not improve as days pass and she injures herself, slowly weakening and showing two puncture wounds on her breast.
After Laura’s demise, Marcilla vanished shortly after. The Colonel suspected foul play and set off in pursuit of the elusive Baron Hartog to make sense of the tragedy he endured. Carmilla, however, re-emerged as the ever-wondrous Mr. Morton along with his daughter, Emma, and her perfectly elegant governess, Mademoiselle Perrodot. Unlike before, she now fully accepted herself and, in a fit of uncontrollable glee, began twirling in front of the pure-eyed Emma. It was evident she was now determined to suppress Emma’s virile engrossed frame. All the puerility instilled in Emma made it ever so easy for Carmilla to successfully depict herself as a self-claimed predator.
Undoubtedly, Emma begins to have those cat-related nightmares, which seem to sap her strength with time. However, the different males in the movie are gradually putting the pieces together, due to the efforts of a dubious Butler, an astute physician, and the ongoing endeavors of the Colonel. Together with Baron Hartog, they tell Morton that his daughter is in peril. However, Carmilla is not a negligent woman either, and she starts trying to immune herself against these moves by seducing, controlling, or even killing anyone who dares to get in her way and Emma’s way.
For various reasons, The Vampire Lovers is a different experience compared to Hammer’s other projects that featured fanged fingers. This is especially so since their efforts on Dracula (I know, what sense does that make) started to feel a tad repetitive. It inspired pieces of entertainment like the bizarrely unique Vampire Circus and the other Karnstein movies that used the newly relaxed boundaries of censorship to blend vampirism and sexual appeal. The stories surrounding these features began to set a new standard for what’s permissible. Depending on the audience’s perspective, The Vampire Lovers changed the game by depicting Camilla’s bisexualities, attempts to seduce anyone who gazed into her huge pupils, as well as the so-called “conversion” I’m sorry. Let’s rephrase that to “Shifting transition point” to lesbianism. This point is what drives the plot forward.
Some may argue that The Vampire Lovers is a very poor example of LGBTQ+ inclusion in cinema because the narrative largely revolves around the idea of being infected by seductive desires. However, the movie does belong to that specific group of horror films that portray queer sexuality as evil, much in the same way as The Babadook became a queer icon and Freddy Krueger turned out to be a razor-fingered metaphor for queer sex in A Nightmare on Elm Street II. It is clearly not subtle or sophisticated, and at times it predictably drifts off into softcore pornography as both Ingrid Pitt’s Carmilla and Madeline Smith’s Emma exhibit their chests at each other while playing around the bedroom, but contextually, and within the framework of when it was made, it is worthwhile to consider how far the depiction of LGBTQ+ people in films has advanced – and at least in the end Carmilla does seem to care about Emma. On the other hand, it is a bit too harsh to say that Catmilla’s victims are simply “catching gay” so that the menace could be eliminated by a handful of heterosexual, white males, but it is perhaps an oversimplification of the problem.
As a priceless addition to Hammer productions, The Vampire Lovers delivers classic work with gory blood and Peter Cushing glaring intensely. The film leaves the audience wanting more as it sets the stage for the expanding Karnstein legend. The woman who relentlessly attempts to palm off Carnilla to unsuspecting families acting as a mother and an aunt at different points of the story and the evil cackling man that occasionally shows up do not sound appealing, and turn further unpleasant as they get revealed as some amusement-look cousin? It’s even worse knowing there’s a classic Pitt who enjoys the missions of seduce and destroy that have been given to her shocking considering the show pushes forth the wonderful voice and endowment she has. Smith, on the other hand, does her role borderline way too innocent for anyone raised by a cult – which makes the need for Cushing to explain the lore of vampires strange.
With the exception of the plot line shifting as much as George “Arthur Daley” Cole’s quivering lower lip, the movie becomes quite suspenseful as Camilla battles with different forces attempting to suppress her bloodsucking appetite. The scope of her thirst always remains at a higher level.
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