Lust For a Vampire (1971)

Country of Origin: UK
Year of Production: 1970
Running Times: 91 mins (USA)     95 mins (UK)
Length: 8,573 ft (UK)
Format: Technicolor     35mm
Ratio:
Sound:

PRODUCTION
Production Companies: Hammer Films / EMI
Producers: Harry Fine, Michael Style
Production Manager: Tom Sachs

SCRIPT
Script: Tudor Gates
Characters: J. Sheridan Le Fanu

DIRECTION
Director: Jimmy Sangster
Assistant Director: David Blacknell

PHOTOGRAPHY
Director of Photography: David Muir
Camera Operator: R. Anstiss

EDITING AND POST-PRODUCTION
Editor: Spencer Reeve

MUSIC
Music: Harry Robinson
Musical Supervisor: Philip Martell
Lyrics: Frank Godwin (Strange Love)
Song Performed By: Tracy (Strange Love)

SOUND
Sound Recordist: Ron Barron
Sound Editor: Terry Poulton
Recording Director: Tony Lumkin
Dubbing Mixer: Len Abbott
Sound: RCA Sound System

MAKE UP AND COSTUMES
Make Up Supervisor: George Blackler
Hair Supervisor: Pearl Tipaldi
Wardrobe Mistress: Laura Nightingale

DESIGN AND SET CONSTRUCTION
Art Director: Don Mingaye
Construction Manager: Bill Greene

MISCELLANEOUS
Continuity: Betty Harley
Choreography: Babbie McManus

LOCATIONS
Studio: EMI / MGM Elstree Studios, England, UK

CAST
Barbara Jefford (Countess Herritzen)
Ralph Bates (Giles Barton)
Suzanna Leigh (Janet Playfair)
Yutte Stensgaard (Mircalla / Carmilla)
Michael Johnson (Richard Lestrange)
Helen Christie (Miss Simpson)
Mike Raven (Count Karnstein)
Christopher Cunningham (coachman)
Harvey Hall (Inspector Heinrich)
Michael Brennan (landlord)
Pippa Steel (Susan Pelley)
Judy Matheson (Amanda)
Caryl Little (Isabel)
David Healy (Raymond Pelley)
Jonathan Cecil (Arthur Biggs)
Eric Chitty (Professor Herz)
Jack Melford (Bishop)
Christopher Neame (Hans)
Kirsten Lindholm (peasant girl)
Luan Peters (Trudi)
Nick Brimble (1st villager)
David Richardson (2nd villager)
Vivienne Chandler, Erica Beale, Melinda Churcher, Melita Clarke, Jackie Leapman, Sue Longhurst, Patricia Warner (schoolgirls)

PLOT SUMMARY

Carmilla Karnstein is revived in a black magic ceremony and enrolls in an exclusive girls' school. Novelist Richard LeStrange is visting the area in search of the truth behind the legends surrounding nearby Castle Karnstein and falls in love with Mircalla. He tricks his way into a teaching job at the school to be near her - but the body count soon starts to rise and the head-teacher's strange behaviour arouses suspicion...

Quite apart from the terrible title, which makes it sound like a cheap porno flick, Lust For a Vampire is a ridiculous romp with loud, corny music, a zoom lens that is quite out of control and, of course, the incredible Stensgaard whose sole talent seems to be taking her clothes off and looking stunning. It's all very questionable, what with its barely disguised Puritanism and a dubious fascination with women's virginity. The lurid combination of nudity and soppy love story (which tends to undermine the notion of a dominant powerful female vampire as Mircalla goes all swoony over Le Strange) suggests that Sangster was trying to make a Mills and Boon horror story for adolescent boys. Sangster was never as good a director as he was a writer; Lust For a Vampire is riddled with continuity errors and obvious mistakes (the crypt where Mircalla is reborn is full of crucifixes, but that doesn't seem to bother her much) and lumbered with bottom of the barrel special effects. The series improved somewhat with the last film in the series, Twins of Evil (1971) directed by John Hough.

UK
Theatrical Distributor: Anglo-EMI / MGM-EMI
Video Distributor: Warner

USA
Theatrical Distributor: American Continental Films Inc
Releasing Agency: Levitt-Pickman
Laserdisc Distributor: Image Entertainment Inc

Australia
Rating: R

Finland
Rating: K-16

UK
Rating: X; 18

USA
Rating: R

1970
July
6: UK - principal photography begins

August
18: UK - principal photography ends

November
12: UK - rated X by the BBFC (with cuts, for theatrical release)

1971
January
17: UK - theatrical release

September
Day Unknown: USA - theatrical release

1972
February
4: Finland - theatrical release

Creations of the Devil

Beautiful young girls trained to become BLOOD LUSTING VAMPIRES!

A vampire's lust knows no boundaries...

Love for a Vampire - US title
Mircalla, l'amante immortale - Italian title
Nur Vampire Küssen Blutig - West German title
To Love a Vampire - US television title
Vampyyrin himo - Finnish title

SEQUEL TO
The Vampire Lovers (1970)

SEQUEL
Twins of Evil (1971)

MAGAZINES

Flesh and Blood no.2 pp.21-22 (UK)
review

Halls of Horror no.27 p.24 (UK)
note

Necronomicon no.2 pp.24-25 (UK)
review

Dark Terrors no.3 p.33 (UK)
review

BOOKS

British Film Catalogue 14124
credits

English Gothic pp.174-175
review (by Jonathan Rigby)

The Hammer Story p.142
illustrated article, review (by Marcus Hearn and Alan Barnes)

The Illustrated Vampire Movie Guide p.82
credits, review (by Stephen Jones)

Ten Years of Terror pp.38-40
illustrated credits, reviews (by Tim Greaves, Matthew Conniam)

OTHER SOURCES

screen
credits

KEYWORDS

lesbianism, schoolgirls, sequels, sex, teachers, vampires, writers

Last Updated: 1 January, 2009