Carmilla: Archetype of the Lesbian Vampire, Pt. 2

(cont'd. from yesterday's post)

Crypt of the Vampire (aka Terror in the Crypt) (1964)

 

The weakest of the Carmilla adaptations is the Italian oddity, Crypt of the Vampire, which I found on DVD named Terror in the Crypt.  It borrows largely from the source material; however, vampires not being enough for this story, it also throws in witchcraft and Satanism.  There are Karnsteins galore, but none named Carmilla.

Laura Karnstein (Audry Amber) is tormented by nightmares and is actually suspected of killing members of the family.  Her father (Christopher Lee) believes she's possessed by Scirra of Karnstein, a witch who cursed the family centuries ago.  While investigating Scirra's history, a carriage breaks down in front of the castle and Lyuba (Ursula Davis) becomes a guest.  Guess what?  When a portrait of Scirra is discovered, it resembles Lyuba.

The relationship between Laura and Lyuba is similar to that in the original story, although it's the most squeaky-clean version of any of the adaptations.  Minus the subplot of the housekeeper using the hand of one of the victims to worship the devil, we end up in the same place: the Karnstein tomb.  When it is opened, Lyuba lies in it and is destroyed.

The film transfer on the Terror in the Crypt DVD is grainy and jumpy.  But I don't think we can blame that entirely for the movie's low production values.  It plays like a foreign TV movie discovered in a vault deeper than Carmilla's, but with little effort made to restore it.  When you say that about a movie starring Christopher Lee, there's a real problem somewhere.

Hammer's "Karnstein Trilogy"

In 1970, Hammer Films released the most faithful version of Carmilla that I've seen.  The Vampire Lovers takes the plot points of the original story and puts them in chronological order.  So we first see Baron Hartog (aka Baron Vordenburg) destroy a vampire, we then see a woman years later leave her daughter Carmilla (Ingrid Pitt) with General von Spielsdorf and his daughter, Laura (Pippa Steel), and we then see the bulk of the story unfold at the household of Mr. Morton with his daughter, Emma (Madeline Smith).  Even though some of the names have changed, we end up in the same place: Carmilla's grave, where she is destroyed.

Following the success of The Vampire Lovers, Hammer quickly produced two other movies loosely based on Carmilla: Lust for a Vampire (1971) and Twins of Evil (1971).  The subsequent movies are not sequels; they merely use the story of the Karnstein vampires as a springboard for exploring (and exploiting) the explicit lesbian themes of the novella.

Many horror fans adore The Vampire Lovers and many Hammer fans claim it as their favorite Hammer film.  But I find it to be the weakest of the trilogy.  Ingrid Pitt makes a handsome vampire, and The Vampire Lovers catapulted her to fame, but she's not even my favorite lesbian vampire in the series.

That would be Yutte Stensgaard in the second film, Lust for a Vampire.  She plays Mircalla, resurrected in 1830 by her parents, Count and Countess Karnstein.  When she checks into a local boarding school, the movie threatens to become the most lesbian-explicit version yet.  Instead, the beautiful vampire becomes the obsession of two men: the headmaster (Ralph Bates) and a visiting author (Michael Johnson), the latter perhaps a nod to earlier Carmilla adaptation, Vampyr.

For me, the true revelation in the Karnstein trilogy is its final movie, Twins of Evil.  Furthest from the original story, it's sometimes considered an unofficial prequel.  When identical twins (Playboy models Mary and Madeleine Collinson) arrive to stay with their puritanical uncle (Peter Cushing), one is tempted by the evil Count Karnstein (Damien Thomas), who has just become a vampire by raising Countess Mircalla Karnstein from her grave.  Following the standard beheading of the lesbian vampire in her crypt, Twins of Evil offers an exciting epilogue in which Cushing battles Thomas on the staircase of a castle.

Oddly, as Hammer's reputation descended in the early 70s with its increasing focus on sex, each entry in the Karnstein Trilogy becomes decreasingly sexy, focusing less on the lesbian themes.  The Vampire Lovers seems the most exploitative to me, with more unnecessary scenes of scantily-clad women than the others, and is therefore my least favorite.  (Plus, the story is often repetitive.  I wish I had a nickel for every time characters discussed removing garlic from the room of vampire victim Emma!)

Twins of Evil, though, may actually become my favorite Hammer film.  Peter Cushing, who dropped out of Lust for a Vampire due to his wife's illness, returns in Twins of Evil following her death.  Whether he's still grieving for her or simply performing an acting tour de force, he is nothing short of amazing.  Director John Hough, who would go on to helm some of my 70s favorites (The Legend of Hell House and Escape to Witch Mountain among them) has a distinct style and the score is surprisingly lush.  Just released on Blu-ray, Twins of Evil deserves a more complete review, which I hope to soon provide.

The Blood Spattered Bride (1972)

My second favorite movie adaptation of Carmilla is the Spanish version entitled The Blood Spattered Bride.  When a descendant (Simon Andreu) of Mircalla Karnstein arrives at his childhood home with his new bride Susan (Maribel Martin), Susan begins having nightmares and is haunted by the image of a beautiful woman.  The husband discovers a naked woman named Carmilla buried in the sand who, you guessed it, is really Mircalla, as well as the woman of the wife's dreams.

The two women engage in an intense affair where Susan becomes a vicious murderer.  But The Blood Spattered Bride is almost more a thriller than it is horror; dealing more with a mysterious dagger than a vampire's fangs, even though both women are discovered in coffins at the end.  The lesbian themes are stronger here than in any of the movies I've discussed.  It is also the most atmospheric and mysterious, with nifty psychological twist at the end.

After watching all these movies, a question comes to mind: Why do none of these Carmilla adaptations come from the United States?  The movies in this article were made in Germany, France, Italy, England and Spain.  Are we still so puritanical that the lesbian themes are taboo?   Maybe the story is structurally difficult to film.  That would certainly explain the vast differences in the versions that do exist.  More likely, it isn't considered "commercial".  But for a good part of Europe, the novella Carmilla has inspired movies for nearly 80 years now.  I'd like to see us take a crack at it on this side of the pond.