Vampyros Lesbos (A.K.A. ,”Lesbian Vampires”, etc.) 1971. Director: Jess Franco. Lead actress: Soledad Miranda. German w/English subtitles. Unrated(NC-17? R? Nudity, soft-core sex, violence, fake orange blood)

Here’s another eerie and strange Jess Franco film(I read somewhere that The Vatican once condemned him as one of the most dangerous filmmakers in the world, so he changed his name from Jesus to Jess.)
Definitely nighttime viewing, better to watch when relaxed, in an altered state. More nudity(the first scene after the intro is an odd “strip show”!) than in She Killed in Ecstasy.
It was filmed in Istanbul, Turkey and an offshore island. I linger on the menu title track like 5 times because the music, which repeats in a second strip show scene later in the film, is so cool!!
The opening strip show is very bizarre. You have to be in the mood for it(smoke some sweet leaf)– but who isn’t always in the mood to see two naked women!! Sexier than hell ambience. Black lingerie….Soledad Miranda was a great actress!!
The film is in German, which adds a Gothic hardness.
A party cult fad ,using the soundtrack, formed in Germany and the USA in the late 90’s.
The plot roughly follows the classic Dracula story, except it’s a sunny and Mediterranean location.
It’s a very unusual film, spooky and creepy: you don’t know what to expect, lots of symbolism(like scorpions). Myriad hidden delights, so be patient and be hypnotized by the visuals and eroticism and music! I’ve watched this several times and it always puts me in an altered state immediately.

photo courtesy soledadmiranda.com

What's it about?

A severely beautiful vampiress , Countess Nadine(Soledad Miranda), lures blond, big-blue-eyed Linda into a lesbian encounter when the latter arrives at her seaside home to settle legal matters concerning the Countess' inheritance from Dracula. It's a battle of obsession and sexual/spiritual domination...

Weekend Guru's experience of the film :

I was going to buy this online, but having seen She Killed in Ecstasy Sie Tötete in Ekstaze, and being a new fan of Susann Korda(Miss Miranda)I eagerly decided to pick it up at a nearby Tower Records one full-moon night.

I really loved the music in the other film(which is by the same artists and features many of the same passages)and the early 70's atmosphere and wanted more, especially to see this fine actress, who reminds me of so many Spanish and European women I had met while abroad.

So, got a large glass of white wine ( I suppose it should have been red!) and put on the dvd. The loud distorted rock music with gruff howling and pounding drums startled me when the menu track came on.

Then the intro and credits, which in some ways reminded me of the opening of Midnight Express .

The red chiffon scarf blowing with the long dark tresses of Soledad instantly signaled a film of obscure aesthetic pleasure.

(General comment: It was interesting to see that Istanbul in 1971 looked essentially the same as it did when I was there in 1992! I even saw an old, teetering wooden-house neighborhood similar to the one where I lived[Arnavutkoy], right on the Bosphorus Strait.)

Then the abrupt transition from the daytime minarets of a mosque to the dark theater where Miranda does her intoxicating strip show! The slow, mournful organ music drew me in as she pranced in black lingerie, holding a candelabra, to a large, ornate mirror: while on another part of the stage stands a stationary, completely naked woman, posed like a mannequin.

photo courtesy soledadmiranda.com

....(their is an attempt by singers on the soundtrack to imitate the muezzin call to prayer, which comes off OK, and the sitar phrases throughout the film add to the general freakiness; however, I think that if they had used authentic Turkish oud[a type of lute commonly used in that country]music, it would have been even better).....

Eerily, in a trance, like a creature possessed, Countess Nadine undulates with her back to the "mannequin".

Perhaps the most erotic moment in any film I've ever seen is when she slowly undoes her string bikini(to later put on the nude supermodel)!

The wine and the Countess had entered my bloodstream.

Other moments of note: the kite, the blood dripping on the window, the scorpion, the patio on the sea, the run along the Turkish beach in the morning sun powered by groovy sixties rock that contrasted with the serious scene when Linda meets the Countess for the first time, Miss Miranda with thin silver chain around her snaky pelvis as she takes off her bikini top while Linda and she are lying on the beach, the measured arrogance of Susann Korda at the dinner table- was she 25 years old or 300? (the German overdub of that scene is excellent- very harsh , severe voice for Countess Nadine that perfectly matched her facial expression)

Various scenes of Istanbul brought back a familiar yet distant warmth. I'd lived there for a year and knew the Golden Horn, Aya Sophia, Topkapi and Yeni Camii areas, Blue Mosque, Galata Bridge, Galata Kulesi(Galata Tower), etc. It had been 13 years since I had resided there. Once again, the big ferries I used to take that transport across the Bosphorus Strait on to the Sea of Marmara and the islands and resorts further on, to the Asian side-Uskudar, the European side, the little suburbs further toward the Black Sea from the suspension bridge at Ortakoy....the whole view of the rising 7 hills of the ancient metropolis, the mystery and beauty of that city...had I really been there? Seems like a lifetime ago.

OK, another Dracula movie, but this one is different. It's not really the "plot", or the story; it's the atmosphere created by the music, voice(I'd also like to see this film in Spanish, with Soledad speaking in her native tongue) and visuals that are outstanding.

With Soledad Miranda in this film, the willing suspension of disbelief is facile. She is so much the character that it is hard to separate the Sevilla girl from the parallel reality of Countess Nadine.

photo courtesy soledadmiranda.com

Weekend Guru, Author and Musician

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