Review of Lust for a Vampire

LUST FOR A VAMPIRE (Jimmy Sangster, 1971) was an adaptation of the legend of Carmilla the vampire from 1710 (here renamed "Mircalla"), where pagans at an English girls' finishing school must sacrifice a beautiful woman so Mircalla can inhabit her body and feed again. The film is full of gratuitous nudity, plays around with lesbianism, and is often cited as a sign of Hammer Films in decline. I saw this film in a class taught by critic Douglas Brode at Syracuse University, however, and was reminded that what I find great about B filmmaking is that as long as the filmmakers satisfy some mandate - in this case, gratuitous nudity, and the debut of a pop song ("Strange Love," as I recall) - they can make whatever movie they want. It also reminds me that for all of Hammer's greatness, it really was a B movie studio, beholden to the same mandates as every other. What Sangster and company here have done, IMO, is make a well-lit, well shot soft core porn movie that nonetheless has a compelling and interesting story. If you're watching it for the T&A, the cast and the cinematography will oblige you, IMO, but I feel that it will also give you more than the average movie of this type will. I've always felt that Joss Whedon later took this concept - creating works that were, on their surface, simple, lowbrow entertainment, but then writing them well - and made a career out of it, and in my opinion, this was one of the first examples of how that can be done. I evaluate every film based on if I think it will give its intended audience what they want, and if, like Woody Allen, you don't usually like your filth this clean, LUST FOR A VAMPIRE will disappoint. If you're a nerd, however, who is tired of seeing vapid B movies that don't even TRY to tell a compelling story, this movie will impress. Not for everybody, IMO, but honestly my favorite Hammer Horror Film.