FEMALE VAMPIRES OF 1971: Forbidden Blood & Sapphic Shadows!!

DAUGHTERS OF DARKNESS (1971) d. Harry Kumel (Belgium/France)
VAMPYROS LESBOS (1971) d. Jesus Franco (Spain)
THE VELVET VAMPIRE (1971) d. Stephanie Rothman (USA) 

TWINS OF EVIL (1971) d. John Hough (UK)
LUST FOR A VAMPIRE (1971) d. Jimmy Sangster (UK)
THE SHIVER OF THE VAMPIRES (1971) d. Jean Rollin (France)
THE WEREWOLF VS. THE VAMPIRE WOMAN (1971) d. Leon Klimovsky (Spain)

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1971 was a remarkable year for the female vampire — seductive, dangerous, liberated… and deeply entangled in the contradictions of exploitation cinema. Tonight, we’re exploring a remarkable cycle of films from that year, on both sides of the Atlantic, that transformed these immortal bloodsuckers into figures of erotic power and cultural tension.

VAMPYROS LESBOS (1971) Blu-ray review

Vampyros Lesbos (1971) d. Jess Franco (West Germany/Spain)

Lesbianism in horror films had been teased at as early as Dracula’s Daughter (1936), becoming slightly more overt in the ’60s with Claire Bloom’s bisexual medium Theo in The Haunting before baring it all in 1970 with a flood of Sapphic bloodsuckers led by the box office suck-sess of Hammer’s The Vampire Lovers. Once the luscious Ingrid Pitt had stepped out of the bathtub in her altogether and chased young Madeline Smith around the room, the fanged femmes launched an all-out cinematic assault, with titles such as Daughters of Darkness, The Blood-Spattered Bride, Lemora: A Child’s Tale of the Supernatural, Vampyres, and Jean Rollin’s art-house horror efforts titillating the hearts and wallets of red-blooded hetero men (and a few women, no doubt) with a lethal combo of same-sex flesh and blood.