Lust for a Vampire (1971) and Vampyres (1974): Lesbian Vampire Double Feature

Last October I enjoyed the lovely and lusty lesbian vampire flick The Vampire Lovers (1970). This year I decided to follow up with the next movie in Hammer Film's loosely connected "Karnstein trilogy" (The Vampire Lovers, Lust for a Vampire, and Twins of Evil), alongside a more lurid low-budget lesbian vamp flick from England in the same period.

Lust for a Vampire (1971)

Not as fun, sexy, or gay as its predecessor The Vampire Lovers. The premise sounded promising, with resurrected lesbian vampire Mircalla/Carmilla (this time played by Yutte Stensgaard) let loose in a girls' school. Unfortunately, it focuses too much of its runtime on male protagonist Richard LeStrange (Michael Johnson).

LeSimp, I mean LeStrange, becomes obsessed with Mircalla and schemes his way into the girls' school to get close to her. Mircalla's lesbian activities are limited to a very brief affair with another student before she kills her. Without the solid basis of the Carmilla story that The Vampire Lovers stuck to, this one seems to flounder about. It still looks good and has some fun spooky or sexy scenes, but LeStrange is not a compelling lead character, and I was disappointed that he escapes the movie completely unscathed and unpunished.

Stensgaard is beautiful but lacks the exotic allure of Ingrid Pitt in The Vampire Lovers. She is not helped by a script that gives her less to do and far less screentime to do it in. Being a Hammer film, the other actresses are mostly beautiful women with heaving bosoms but even less characterization than Mircalla. None of them stood out to me like wide-eyed redhead Madeline Smith, who I developed an immediate crush on while watching The Vampire Lovers.

Vampyres (1974)

Heavy on mood, light on plot. Vampire ladies pick up men on the roadside, take them to a spooky mansion to fuck and feed on them, then leave them dead back on the roadside. One of the men is allowed to live with a nasty arm wound, but thanks to dreamlike logic and the allure of wine and boobs he never makes it off the property despite growing concerns over his situation. Also on the property are a couple staying in a camper, consisting of the world's nosiest woman and least curious man. Intimations are made of some connection between her and the vampires (vampyres?), but nothing comes of it. I thought the contemporary setting might change things up, but you could replace the cars with carriages and the story would play out the same. The only noticeably 70s thing is everyone chain-smoking constantly.

How do you know they are lesbian vampires? They don't suck, they lick. I kid, actually they are bisexual vampires who generally seem more interested in the men outside of the occasional bloody make out session. I keep watching movies with the "lesbian vampire" trope only to find the lesbian aspect lacking. So far, The Vampire Lovers is the only one I have seen that spends most of its time on the lesbian seduction/relationship and doesn't frequently default to a male lead.

Did people in the 1970s not know how to make out? Frequent sex scenes deliver plenty of titillating nudity from the attractive actresses, but awkward kissing prevented it from ever becoming erotic. It was like watching a couple of horny homeschooled kids at Bible camp trying (and failing) to figure out the mechanics of their mouths. The sex and violence pushed limits at the time, there is a fair amount of blood but no gore.