Let’s just start with the obvious: Female Vampire is not scary. It’s not erotic. It’s not even coherent. What it is, is a long, slow, surreal march into the mind of Jess Franco — a man who once looked at Dracula and thought, “What if he didn’t talk, sucked people to death sexually, and wore thigh-high boots?” The result is 100 minutes of awkward nudity, endless zooms, and a plot so thin it makes tissue paper look like Tolstoy.
Directed by Franco under the alias J.P. Johnson — because even Jess didn’t want this stinking corpse attached to his name — Female Vampire (also released under titles like Erotikill and The Bare-Breasted Countess) stars Lina Romay, Franco’s eternal muse, as Countess Irina von Karlstein: a mute vampire who drains her victims not with fangs… but with oral sex. Yes. That’s the hook. That’s the whole movie. And no, it doesn’t get better from there.
Romay floats through the film like a horny ghost in a fog bank, naked in 92% of her scenes, slathered in baby oil, and wearing a look that says, “I know this is garbage, but Franco is paying me in Euros and cigarettes.” She doesn’t speak. Not because she’s mysterious, but because Franco forgot to write her lines. Or maybe because she had too much dignity to say them out loud.
The “story”—and I am straining the very definition of that word—revolves around Countess Irina drifting through a sleepy European resort town, seducing lonely men and women, and then “feeding” on them by going down on them to death. Literally. Her victims climax… and then die. Usually with wide-eyed stares of confusion and dubbed moans that sound like someone trying to open a stuck jar of pickles.
There’s a doctor character—Dr. Roberts—who tries to understand what’s happening, but he contributes less than a paperweight at a hurricane. He mostly drinks brandy and explains Irina’s condition like he’s giving a book report on a subject he just Googled. His theories include reincarnation, vampirism, sex addiction, and something about “erotic fatalism,” which sounds like a cool band name but means absolutely nothing in this context.
Oh, and let’s not forget the “poet,” a brooding, bearded man who wanders the film like a lost philosophy major. He’s in love with Irina, even though they’ve exchanged zero words and most of their interactions involve silent, expressionless sex in front of curtains. He delivers lines like “She devours love… and dies a little each time,” while staring at her with all the passion of a guy reading the back of a cereal box.
Now, if this sounds remotely titillating, trust me—it’s not. The sex scenes go on forever. They’re not erotic so much as exhausting. They’re filmed with all the urgency of a mattress commercial. Franco’s camera leers like a drunk uncle at a strip club, endlessly zooming in and out of body parts, pausing only to focus on faces that look like they’re trying to remember if they left the stove on.
And did I mention the pacing? Calling it glacial is an insult to glaciers. Entire scenes involve Lina Romay walking down a hallway, walking back down the same hallway, then standing in a doorway breathing heavily while organ music wails like a haunted cat. You will beg for something—anything—to happen. Spoiler: it won’t. The only thing that builds is your sense of existential dread.
The production design is pure Franco-on-a-budget. One castle. One fog machine. One red curtain. Recycled nightgowns. Half the movie seems to take place in a single musty bedroom where even the furniture looks embarrassed. The lighting varies between “1970s porn clinic” and “we forgot to plug in the lamp.” The editing is so choppy it could’ve been done with garden shears.
Dialogue? Minimal. Coherent dialogue? Forget it. Franco lets most scenes play out in near silence, broken only by dubbed breathing, wet lip-smacking, and a musical score that sounds like it was composed by someone furiously mashing an organ with their elbows. The music loops endlessly—slow jazz, then horror stings, then moaning synth lines that feel like they’re judging you for watching this.
To call Female Vampire repetitive is like saying the Titanic had a leak. Every scene is the same: Irina walks slowly. Irina seduces someone. Irina gives them the kind of attention usually reserved for very trusting lovers. Victim moans. Victim dies. Cut to Irina, nude and brooding in the fog. Repeat until your soul exits your body in protest.
It tries—tries—to inject some mythology. There’s a police inspector who suspects “vampiric activity” and a professor who reads ancient texts about female demons and “oral vampirism” like he’s auditioning for a low-budget History Channel special. But none of it connects. It’s just Franco throwing buzzwords at the wall to justify another five-minute montage of Lina Romay rolling around naked in graveyard fog.
And the ending? Oh, you sweet, naive soul. You think this film ends? No, it just stops. Irina dies—or maybe fakes her death—or maybe becomes a poem. The screen fades to black as the music wheezes its final note like an accordion giving up on life. You’ll sit there, blinking, unsure of what just happened, and wondering if you accidentally blacked out during the one interesting part. You didn’t.
Final Verdict: 1 out of 5 sexy fog banks
Female Vampire is a softcore slog through Franco’s most indulgent tendencies: endless nudity, zero dialogue, sluggish pacing, and absolutely no payoff. It’s a film that wants to be erotic but ends up about as sexy as a DMV appointment. Watch it only if you’re trapped under something heavy, can’t reach the remote, and want to experience what it feels like to have your soul licked slowly to death by jazz sax and tedium.
Avoid unless you’re a Jess Franco completist, a Lina Romay loyalist, or a vampire fetishist with a fetish for disappointment.
