Year Of The Vampire: The Vampire Lovers Brought Sexy Back To Bloodsucker Lore - /Film

begevege.blogspot.com

Ingrid Pitt is not the only bright star among the cast of "The Vampire Lovers," as the film is packed with several heavy hitters from the U.K. including, but not limited to, Peter Cushing. The "Star Wars" legend had altogether appeared in 22 of Hammer's horror pictures over the course of his career, most notably as — alternately — Doctor Frankenstein and Doctor Van Helsing in the Frankenstein and Dracula pictures. Although Cushing's appearance is only at the bookends of this film, he would have a much larger role as a tyrannical witch-hunting Puritan in the third film of Hammer's Karnstein Trilogy, "Twins of Evil."

Another bright light in the cast is Jon Finch in his film debut. The powerful Finch had an auspicious first few years in the business leading Roman Polanski's "Macbeth" and Alfred Hitchcock's "Frenzy" back-to-back before health concerns waylaid his career, including having to abdicate his original role in "Alien" to John Hurt. The presence of established British actors like George Cole ("Cleopatra") and Douglas Wilmer ("Octopussy") lend an air of legitimacy to what could have been pure exploitation, while director Roy Ward Baker gives us the same lush gothic visuals of fog-shrouded forests and cobwebbed castles audiences had come to expect from the earlier, "classier" Hammer films.

Although "The Vampire Lovers" would be Hammer's only pairing with AIP, and their last American-financed film altogether, it proved successful enough to warrant two sequels in the Karnstein cycle, both released in 1971: "Lust for a Vampire" (also available from Scream Factory) and "Twins of Evil." Baker also went on to helm several more horror pictures for Hammer, including "Scars of Dracula" (1970), "Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde" (1971) and "The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires" (1974). There was also no turning back from this film, as henceforth almost all Hammer productions went heavy on the T&A. While the Dracula movies starring Christopher Lee would trudge along for a few more years (themselves becoming equally explicit), the Karnstein Trilogy allowed the studio to produce a new bloodsucker franchise sans Lee, all while propelling Ingrid Pitt who — unlike Lee in the Dracula films — was quite comfortable with the extensive dialogue she was given, and absolutely made a meal of it.

Adblock test (Why?)