There’s a moment in Lust for a Vampire when our dashing, tragically over-invested hero Richard LeStrange stares longingly into the eyes of a comely blonde finishing school student — who is, unbeknownst to him, a reincarnated vampire with a taste for girls in ballet slippers — and I found myself wondering, “Do the curtains match the coffin?”
Welcome to the peculiar world of Lust for a Vampire, a Hammer horror confection so campy it might as well be wearing glittery hotpants and asking you for a light. This is the second installment in Hammer’s Karnstein Trilogy — a franchise loosely adapted from Sheridan Le Fanu’s Carmilla, the granddaddy of lesbian vampire literature and arguably the first YA paranormal romance with bloodletting as foreplay.
If The Vampire Lovers (1970) was daring, sexy, and subversive in the way only a Victorian vampire lesbian movie produced by a room full of British men could be, then Lust for a Vampire is its hot mess little sister — the one who shows up late to the orgy, drunk on claret, with a corset two sizes too small and a script that fell into the fire.
The Plot: “Buffy the Finishing School Girl Slayer”
Set in 1830s Austria — though you wouldn’t know it from the accents, which range from Oxbridge to “Pass me the fondue, guv’nor” — the story opens with yet another satanic resurrection at Castle Karnstein. This time, it’s Mircalla/Carmilla, the very same bloodsucker who had a romp in the previous film before being skewered like a shish kebab. No matter. She’s back, reborn through a ritual that involves two demented aristocrats, a virgin sacrifice, and more fog than a Pink Floyd concert.
Enter Richard LeStrange (Michael Johnson), a novelist who writes about witches and vampires but apparently hasn’t read any of his own books. He’s warned to avoid the castle, so of course, he beelines straight for it like a man trying to speedrun his own death. There he meets a group of shrouded girls who turn out to be students from a local finishing school. Not even five minutes later, he falls in love with Mircalla — or, as I like to call her, Vampire Barbie.
LeStrange’s plan to seduce a mysterious teenager with fangs? Impersonate an English teacher at her school and proceed to leer through every single lesson plan. If this sounds creepy, it’s because it is. And in true Hammer fashion, nobody in authority bats an eye. Miss Simpson, the headmistress, is mostly concerned about her upholstery. The real adults — like Janet Playfair, played with genuine competence by Suzanna Leigh — are ignored because they’re not wearing see-through nightgowns.
The body count rises faster than LeStrange’s libido, culminating in the infamous “love scene” scored by a soft rock ballad called “Strange Love.” Imagine Air Supply doing a soundtrack for a snuff film, and you’ll have the mood. Watching a vampire make love to her stalker while a crooning tenor whines about eternal passion is about as erotic as watching a tax audit in slow motion.
The Cast: Glazed Ham and Virgin Sacrifices
Yutte Stensgaard stars as Mircalla/Carmilla, and while she may not have the enigmatic depth of Ingrid Pitt from the first film, she certainly holds the screen — mostly by not blinking. She walks with the glazed detachment of a Miss World contestant trying to remember if she left the stove on. Still, there’s a charm to her performance: Mircalla doesn’t seduce so much as drift through scenes like a bouffant specter of doom.
Michael Johnson’s LeStrange is a literary man with a face sculpted by regret and a brain pickled in port. He’s not so much a hero as a series of clumsy reactions: “She’s a vampire? Better sleep with her.” “The priest is warning me? Must be Tuesday.” Ralph Bates, who was originally intended to be the film’s lead, is reduced to playing Giles Barton, a headmaster who moonlights as a Renfield-esque creepster. He discovers the truth about Carmilla, pledges himself to her, and dies as all overconfident Hammer side characters must — blood-drained, dignity gone, buried like yesterday’s leftovers.
Barbara Jefford, meanwhile, chews scenery as Countess Herritzen with the self-assurance of someone who’s read everyAnne Rice book and decided none of it was enough. She and Mike Raven (Count Karnstein) add theatrical gravitas, albeit of the pantomime Dracula variety. Raven, for the record, was so unsettling that his voice was dubbed over in post-production. That’s right — even his voice was too much for this film.
The Style: Gothic Porno by Way of Sunday Matinee
Director Jimmy Sangster, better known for his writing, gives the film a glossy sheen but forgets to inject any real urgency. There’s fog, lace, torches, blood, crypts, and one (1) well-placed impalement by ceiling timber — but somehow it all feels like set dressing for a shoot that never really starts. If Twilight was made by horny Victorians on a gin budget, it would look like this.
Cinematographer David Muir does what he can with the limited locations — lots of corridors, candlelight, and ominous curtain billowing — while the editing by Spencer Reeve occasionally gives the impression that entire scenes may have been edited with hedge clippers. And then there’s Harry Robinson’s score, including that notorious “Strange Love” track — a musical misstep so audacious it circles all the way back around to being hilarious. You haven’t truly lived until you’ve watched a vampire sex scene with a soft rock anthem as your narrator.
Legacy: Blood, Breasts, and the Cult of Camp
Lust for a Vampire has been called “overly camp,” which is like saying The Rocky Horror Picture Show is “a bit quirky.” This movie is a glistening tribute to everything Hammer Horror was drifting toward in the early ’70s — eroticism, sensationalism, and a kind of oblivious sincerity that makes even the silliest premise feel like it’s trying.
Does the film succeed as horror? Not really. As erotica? Eh, depends on your fondness for soft-focus cleavage and vaguely Eurotrash vampires. But as camp cinema — as an artifact of an era when horror tried to wear silk robes and make love to the audience — it’s a treasure.
You don’t watch Lust for a Vampire to be scared. You watch it to marvel at how many girls can be drained in slow motion while their headmistress wonders whether to call the police or just have another sherry.
Three stars out of four.
It’s a bad movie, but it’s a good time. And sometimes, that’s enough — especially when it ends with a flaming castle and a vampire impaled by roofing lumber like a gothic kabob.
