Vampyros lesbos
(1971) dir. Jesus Franco
viewed: 08/16/08
You know, it’s funny, but I’d never seen a Jesus Franco film before. He’s one of these living legends of cult/horror/exploitation/weirdness. Still kickin’. My interest in this film (yeah, I know the title suggests a lot), stemmed from my childhood, from a book I had on zombie films, featuring stills and movie posters. The titilating title stayed with me and finally, the time had come.
Vampyros lesbos is exploitation. The unbelievably beautiful Susann Korda is the female victim/inheritor of Dracula’s legend. The film is a mod and odd take on the traditional Bram Stoker tale, playing the characters with sexual obsession, love, repression, and pop psychology.
It’s both arty and trashy, which is probably what appeals about Franco’s work. It’s only arty enough, really, to recognize its artiness. It’s only trashy enough to stoke some tantalizing images of lesbian vampire love and lots of comfortable nudity in the days before plastic surgery.
While it doesn’t quite reach the sublime pleasures of Doris Wishman’s Bad Girls Go to Hell (1965), it does reckon of other European horror films from the period of exploration and exploitation, Daughters of Darkness (1971) also comes to mind. It’s not horrid, no. It’s strange, semi-pretentious, mucho-camp art trash.
Is that not a form of beauty somewhere?
And it has this crazy-ass groovin’ soundtrack. Weirdness.
