The Vampire Lovers

This is a personal favorite of mine. Not only are there some lovely scenes involving Ingrid Pitt and Madeline Smith but it also has that classic Hammer atmosphere and production quality. This is one of those films you welcome on a hung-over Sunday morning with an oversized cup of coffee. Far from being an edge-of-your-seat roller-coaster ride of gore and mayhem (it feels more like a serialized drama) it is nevertheless a cool flick that you can chill to. It puts the "class" in Classic Horror. Unfortunately it is currently out of print so you'll have to come over to my place to see it (and my copy is a DVD transfer I made from my original VHS cassette.) Either that or pay for a copy on the resale market (they're out there, of course.)

Technically, this film rates low using the Jeff method of film rating (although it gets 1 whole point for boobage.) It's not scary unless you're afraid of lesbians. It gets some unintentional laughs ("A big cat!") and from what I've read the eroticism in this film was something new for Hammer at the time. That gets us up to 2 points. I'm awarding it another point for being such a classy production with a cool little vampire mythos of its own. This is actually part one of what is called the "Karnstein Trilogy." Part Two ("Lust for a Vampire") can be found new for about $10. Part Three ("Twins of Evil") is a bit more pricey. If you can hang with Region 2 PAL, grab the $20.00 copy from Xploited Cinema. While you're there, check out the gazillion other cool titles they stock.

Oh, and another cool thing about this flick is that you can show it to your wife even if she's not a big horror fan. Luckily mine is and she dug it as much as I did. Perhaps Maude will post her take on it.