Sunday 25 November 2012

Vampyros Lesbos

Vampyros Lesbos, 1998

Vampyros Lesbos (Spanish: Las Vampiras) is a 1971 West German-Spanish horror film directed and co-written by Jesús Franco. The film stars Ewa Stroemberg as Linda Westinghouse who is an American who works in a Turkish legal firm. Westinghouse has a series of erotic dreams that involve a mysterious vampire woman who seduces her before feeding on her blood. When she travels to an island to settle an inheritance, Lucy recognizes a woman as the vampire from her dreams.

The film was a popular success in theaters in Europe on its release and was the first film to have a more psychedelic score for a Franco film and the first to have a lesbian theme as a prominent feature of the film. The film's score became popular in the mid-1990s when it was included on the compilation Vampyros Lesbos: Sexadelic Dance Party, an album that became a top ten hit on the British Alternative charts.

On September 29, 1997, a remix album titled The Spirit of Vampyros Lesbos was released. The album was a collection of remixes from various electronic artists including Two Lone Swordsmen, Cristian Vogel and Alec Empire who released their own mixes of the films soundtrack.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vampyros_Lesbos 

Vampyros Lesbos (1970) starred the black-eyed Soledad Miranda as a mysterious countess who lures young women to her castle in Istanbul so that she can gorge on their blood. None of it makes much sense, but Miranda, who died as a result of a car crash before the film was completed, is utterly beguiling.

Jess Franco has a unique way of making movies. He rarely writes a script, and even if he does it's only a couple of hours before shooting. He likes to do everything himself on set, but leaves the completion of the film to somebody else. He considers himself a feminist and claims that he hates porn, but the films look like manifestations of his erotic fantasies. And he'll run over the same themes again and again, but never bother to tell a story. Perhaps this succinct explanation by one of his favourite leading men, French actor Michael Lemaine, is the most satisfactory: "He's a total madman."
Will Hodgkinson
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2000/jun/29/1

A enjoyable and sensual watching with visible fake blood, some exaggerated interpretation and all the kitsch a B movie type can offer.
Different from what you would expect of any vampyre movie, in Vampyros Lesbos most scenes are in a sunny and paradisiac outside and the plot is insteresting, playing with "reality" and imagination.

*Soledad Miranda was terrific beautiful.
Rubia Carolina
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/vampyros_lesbos/

I was very curious to see this film after having heard so many things about it! And indeed, "Vampyros Lesbos" even exceeded my expectations! Loaded with symbolic language, an almost dream-like atmosphere, unusual camera angles, a fantastic score and some Franco typical lesbian soft sex the Spanish director created an absolute masterpiece of Europe´s early 1970s sleazy cinema. Both main actresses Soledad Miranda and Ewa Strömberg are excellent in the lead and maybe one of the hottest lesbian couples ever brought on the screen. Some people may find it boring, cheap and eventless, but "Las Vampiras" is not a film you should watch about story or suspense! It is a brilliant mixture of art and trash, and I was truly surprised what great film it is after having seen so many different works of the director. This gem is a pure trip into surreality: Wonderful! Psychedelic! Watch it and LIVE!
DJ Inferno
http://uk.imdb.com/title/tt0066380/reviews

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