The Cult of the Fallen Woman
An epicurean guide to blood, bondage, and lesbian vampires.
Violet Blue (originally published on Gothic.net April 1999 — and old article of mine, but I thought it would be fun to republish it here)
The compulsion for Gothic erotic horror cinema is more than what you’d call an acquired taste. For those who would be considered mainstream moviegoers in our day to day lives, these movies are readily passed over for more accessible, pre-masticated mass-produced drek. Yet for certain others, born under the greedy eyes of a different moon, such drek produces in us the most unbearable discomfort and seeds an infinite longing for the cinematic conflict between moralism and perversion.
The more refined viewer of gothic erotic horror cinema does not delight in the formulaic standards of terrified women running from predictable monsters, presumably created as a result of their sexual nature. Instead, this viewer delights in the idea that autonomous female desire itself is monstrous, and can easily consume the moralistic banality touted by mainstream horror cinema. In these films, feminine evil gives moralistic good what it rightfully deserves, and does it with the irrepressible sexuality normally attributed to the pathetic victim.
We, as this other type of viewer, seek out these movies as intelligent, thoughtfully made vehicles to satisfy our cravings for entertainment that meets our cultivated erotic standards. In essence, our hunger is only appeased by movies which contain a mixture of lip-licking sexual perversities, delightfully taboo desires, warm and familiar occult influences, a dose of ritualistic sadomasochism whenever possible, powerful and wicked naked girls, and the satisfaction of knowing that being evil is way more fun than being good any day of the week.
The movies The Hunger, Gothic, Vampyros Lesbos, Suspirira, Lair of the White Worm, all excellent films we’ve already seen and enough to whet the appetite, but ultimately we grow hungry again and need more. How to feed the need to sink deeper into the depravity these movies tease us with while still retaining our standards becomes the question, and where to begin the search in a genre filled with thousands of possibilities is the next. Where to go from here? What follows here is a small list, culled from many tasty treats, and a brief description of the atmosphere and people that produced these immoral delights. Feast and enjoy, kindred spirits…
Maternally Descended From the Karnsteins
The Golden Age of Hammer Horror
Hammer Studios grew from a chain of bicycle shops and hair salons into a film production company to begin making films in the early 1930’s, however, for our wayward purposes things didn’t really get rolling until the 1960’s. In 1961, The Brides of Dracula was unleashed onto a viewing audience ripe and ready for what was to become the studio’s trademark cocktail of bloodthirsty fangs and sinful women. At this point in time, Hammer had made quite a name for itself and inspired every Euro horror filmmaker with their unique style of well made shock schlock and would continue to do so for generations to come. The studio gave unknown notables such as Ray Ward Baker and Terence Fisher room to make excellent films, and one hardly needs to mention the dark masters who did some of their best work there, i.e. Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, Ingrid Pitt, and many others. Even still, it is hard to miss with a Hammer film. But for the more discriminating erotic palate, here are some juicy suggestions.
Countess Dracula
Made in 1970 and starring stacked siren Ingrid Pitt, this movie is enticingly hailed as “the most erotic Hammer film”, presumably because it has more various states of undress than any other made at that time. In it, Pitt plays the role of Countess Ersebet Bathory, “The Blood Countess” to its delicious and oversexed hilt. It seems that our poor little rich countess needs to bathe in the blood of unsuspecting virgins in order to retain her supple, uh, youth. Set in the colorful middle ages in perfectly gloomy castles and with those easy to remove period costumes a la Hammer Horror, it’ll make you want to say “clean the tub tonight dear, we’re having guests…”
Lust for a Vampire
This mouth watering gem takes place, to our delight, in a school for young ladies who thoughtfully are required to wear uniforms which are quite sheer… It is actually about a scrumptious new pupil whose preferred extra curricular activity is lesbian sexual vampirism of the other nubile alumnus. Add to this their erotically challenged professor, who does everything possible not to hump the resurrected vampiress’ leg while maintaining a sense of propriety when the questions start getting asked about the sudden drop in enrollment. Feel free to take a drink whenever the girls giggle.
Vampire Lovers
An all star line up dishes out this rapacious tale of tasty lesbian obsession and savory graphic eroticism. Excellently directed by Roy Ward Baker, starring an austere Peter Cushing and succulent succubus Ingrid Pitt, the story is based on the novel Carmilla. Our man Cushing plays the father of young, inexperienced Pippa, whose health only seems to fail as a beautiful and experienced countess is called in to care for her. It all becomes enough to make the maid wring out her panties with frustration and homicidally mad with jealousy. A real winner.
The Birth of Les Liasons Diaboliques
Mario Bava and the Legacy of Italian Horror Cinema
Born during the heat of the summer July 31, 1914 in San Remo, Italy, Mario Bava was the son of film special effects/cinematographer Eugenio Bava. Mario grew up in the awakening of Italy’s film industry, and was said to have spent his youth close to his father in the world of moviemaking. He aspired to be a great Italian painter, yet gave up this dream to follow in his father’s footsteps. Rapidly, he became one of Italy’s top techs and special effects experts, due in credit to his innovative lighting techniques, skills which undoubtedly came easily to his painter’s eye. In 1956, while working on the first Italian horror film of the sound era, called I Vampiri, the director was said to have gotten into a heated argument with the producer and stormed off the set. Mario was asked to fill the director’s shoes, which he did effortlessly and finished the film in an astounding two days. This was the passionate, bloody birth of Italian Horror Cinema.
Regarded by many today as one of the most perfect horror films ever made, Black Sunday (1960) is the film that is hailed as Mario Bava’s seminal masterpiece. Starring early horror’s most mesmeric British cult idol Barbara Steele, this visually poetic black and white film brought images of sadism and corrupted erotic impulses to an audience that had never seen anything like it. Bava said in regards to Black Sunday, that he became inspired by Terence Fisher’s Hammer Studios Dracula, 1958, and made the film as a result. To understand the heart of Italian horror is to see this film, and one must also bask in the pale splendor of Barbara Steele’s irresistibly macabre sexuality as portrayed in her deliciously vengeful role of the witch wronged and resurrected.
Today, MGM has acquired the rights to Black Sunday, a.k.a. Mask of Satan, however it is not known what will come of this. Mario Bava died in April 1980, from a heart attack, but not before inspiring many of our other favorite diabolical directors, and also being credited for inventing the peculiar form of Italian crime thriller called giallo. The word giallo is Italian for yellow, referring to the yellow covers on Italian crime novels, and it is important to note giallo here in this stage of our sublime quest, gentle reader. You see, although these are crime thrillers, they as a rule always focus on violent death rather than police procedure, and seem to be chock full of naked bodies and their parts.
However, most of these are very badly made, and disappointingly lack the appeal of a powerful female character as well as lacking the occult underpinnings we desire. Yet, a handful of giallo films were made by some of the more talented directors, such as Dario Argento, Jess Franco and Lucio Fulci during the giallo heyday in the late 1960’s which contain the aforementioned lacking essential elements. But before seeking out giallo films, and after you see Black Sunday, treat your tastebuds to this deviant menu of recommendations.
What! a.k.a. The Whip and the Body
Directed by Mario Bava in 1963, starring the intimidable Christopher Lee and the voluptuous madness of Dahlia Levi. This is a top-notch gothic horror film; visual pleasure combined with s/m process and great storyline to create an amour fou par excellance. Set in a cheery nineteenth century castle, Christopher Lee plays a darkly erotic, sadistic nobleman who happily horsewhips his sexy brother’s wife (Levi). He is soon found dead, and a ghost begins to haunt the castle, signaling each bizarre visitation with whipcracks. Erotically tense, the story gets stranger and twists unpredictably to give a satisfyingly wicked surprise ending.
Curse of the Crimson Altar
A neat little package of a horror film with the comfortable texturing of a Hammer flick. Not as erotic as we’d like it, of course, but another notable Barbara Steele vehicle in which we get to salivate over her half naked and painted green… Directed by the talented Vernon Sewell in 1968, starring Barbara Steele, Boris Karloff, and Christopher Lee. In it, Robert Manning traces his vanished brother to enticingly named Craxed Lodge in picturesque Greymarsh. Unfortunately for him, but fortunately for us, the owner (Lee) is right in the middle of avenging an ancestors’ death on everybody. Oh, and she’s a witch who’s real mad and sexy as hell.
Reincarnation of Isabel
Directed by Italian Renato Poselli in 1972, here is a nicely textured, weirdly colorful, unintentionally campy gothic b-movie masterpiece. Involving a satanic cult, sadistic couplings, whippings, impailings, torture, many, many naked breasts and really cool matching red robes, this “knee trembler” is one of the most perfect examples of the genre. We wish they could all be like this. (sigh)
Full Moon of the Virgins, a.k.a. The Devil’s Wedding Night
Another fine example of those Hammer-flavored nudie Italian vampire movies. This great little 1973 epic stars the lickable Rosalba Neri, who was Italy’s erotically explicit answer to Barbara Steele. Mark Damon plays twin roles, one on a quest to find Dracula’s ring of power, while his playboy twin brother races to beat him to it—only to discover that sexually predatory Countess Dracula uses it to lure virgins to her tomb by the light of the full moon. This exceptional film boasts a gothic nineteenth century setting, intelligent storyline, great costuming, believable acting, and a screen melting vampiress. Leeringly adult yet juvenile, just like you, gentile reader.
Female Sadism and its Excesses
Cinema of Sadistic Satisfaction
Until the 1960’s, European cinema was a ticking time bomb of moral restraint. As a result of many social and political changes, this bomb exploded and liberally doused anyone watching these films with every transgressive act imaginable. While we in America were being spoon fed carefully censored Hollywood films and awaiting the “shock” of 1972’s Devil in Miss Jones, directors across the Atlantic were churning out hundreds of grown-up, sexy horror films.
Happily for us, the main theme these films tended to center on was to define itself as the classic lesbian vampire romp. Lesbian vampire cinema became a lens with which various directors viewed intellectualized female sadism and its excesses, and each interpretation had its own individual mood, style, and textures A veritable buffet of directors and their films to choose among come from this period of cultivated sleaze. Unfortunately, the majority of video copies that are available at present in the U.S. are mostly poor PAL transfers. One has to assume that no overt move has been made towards this type of cinematic preservation on account of the artfully deviant content of these fine, fine films and the fact that these films still transgress taboo territory, at least in the naive minds of modern cinema’s moral guardians. Despite our quality concerns, there are many gems to be discovered and consumed by your vile viewing appetite. Feed until you are full.
The Bare Breasted Countess
Jess Franco, a man with a reputation for many excesses himself, came from Spain to direct literally hundreds of films. The manner of production and perhaps also the sheer volume of projects have branded him as Europe’s Ed Wood, with campy hit and miss movies that are mostly miss and whose weaknesses lie sadly in production values. But when Franco is on, you are captive to nothing short of brilliant filmmaking and feel as though someone is passionately trying to tell you something. Such is the case with The Bare Breasted Countess, made in 1973 and starring Franco’s fetish-actress Lina Romay. This X-rated confection centers on the delectable Romay as the mute and mysterious Countess Irena Karnstein taking a bloody little (then present-day) holiday in Portugal. Apparently for our vamp, her sustenance is only satisfying when orally extracted from trouser snakes and sweaty little crevasses, a display of nature at its best. Romay’s portrayal of unconscious animal eroticism is flawless, the story ends rather nicely, and the entire film is a pleasure to consume. Urp!
Venus in Furs
“Man, it was a wild scene!” Yeah, baby, this is a far out sadiserotic Franco film whose idea was told to him by jazz musician Chet Baker. Made in 1968, this is a distorted and haunting story about a jazz musician’s surreal experiences trying to piece together his present role in a series of murders after witnessing mouth watering Maria Rohm murdered at a party during a wickedly hot S/M scene with Klaus Kinski. It is said about this film that it makes little narrative sense but makes perfect emotional sense, an idea which conveys accurately the way each scene feels as though it is one intense feeling linked to another. But it does make narrative sense as it verges on giallo, and combines fetishistic images, an aesthetic verging on campy, a hip ‘n happenin’ sexy sixties jazz scene, and cool as a cucumber soundtrack by Manfred Mann to create an eerie erotic film.
Necronomicon a.k.a. Succubus
This blood soaked caper was hailed as one of Franco’s most successful films, but it is up to you, the discriminating viewer, to decide. Made in 1967, it shares with Venus in Furs the (then) present-day time frame of the campy goth sixties atmosphere. In Necronomicon, staged sadism thankfully becomes reality as the “stage performances” of the sexually compulsive main character Lorna begin to blur the line of fantasy under the influences of a mysterious stranger. Lorna’s character becomes increasingly bizarre as the film progresses, and this is quite entertaining, as our performance artist is a few sandwiches shy of a picnic basket and runs around in skimpy costumes. Whippings, murders, interpretive dance, what more can we ask for?
La Vampire Nue (The Nude Vampire)
Directed in 1969 by Jean Rollin, a Frenchman who filmed exquisite sixties gothic eye candy brought us lesbian vampires who poetically conveyed no distinction between right and wrong. Slower pacing and minimal storyline dog most of his films, however the opiatic mood and dream like images will inspire you to slither naked into your own satin lined coffin. His films nearly always had a pair of twins, pornographically child like, decidedly French looking lovelies in the center of his narrative, and they always were dressed up in strange carnivalesque costume, which creepily added to the eerie cemetery and gothic mansion backgrounds. It is obvious in these films that Rollin was a painter, and his imagery is a breathtaking mixer of color and shadow, shape and landscape, erotic desire and death. The story of La Vampire Nue involves a bizarre suicide cult, whose members are among a wealthy and powerful elite, and like to continually have scantily clad girls around dancing or performing various chores. Accidentally, one of the member’s sons is included in their rituals and then the story careens down a gleefully psychotic and deliriously sexual path, which must be seen to be believed. Without the confusing final scene on the beach, this would be a perfect film. But, oh, those yummy twins…
Vampyres
Directed by Spanish Jose Larraz in 1974 and starring Marianne Morris and Anulka, this enjoyable film is hailed as one of the rare treatments of vampirism as an explicitly male fantasy in which women are simultaneously objects of terror and desire. Two malevolently sexy female vampires live in a lovely decaying old mansion and casually lure passerby’s into their lair for lunch. Their lunch, that is. One of the victims sports a woody for one of the vampires, and decides to stay, aware of the fact that he’s just her favorite snack, all the while becoming weaker and weaker… Chock full of that good old amour fou, this film lives up to being labeled with hallucinatory eroticism and delivers an artfully claustrophobic, sexually explicit tale difficult to forget.
Daughters of Darkness
To our delight, vampirism excels at its portrayal of woman as the ultimate predatory beast, a point so eloquently illustrated in this 1971 classic from Belgian director Harry Kumel. With the hypnotic stare of a snake, the paws of a cat, lethally protuberant breasts, the vampire domina in Daughters of Darkness portrays the masochistic male fantasy of the ultimate dominatrix, the goddess of erotic extremism. This heavily stylized, excellent vampire film centers around a honeymooning couple who meet up with our vampire domina at a strange hotel-by-the-sea. The entire mood of the hotel is evocative of the hotel in the Shining, the color scheme and hard-edged lighting chosen specifically to achieve a dry, haunted look. And we all know what a lesbian vampire will go through to get what she wants…
Doctor Jekyll and His Women a.k.a. The Bloodbath of Dr. Jekyll
The Polish born Walerian Borowczyk, whose meticulous and stunningly beautiful creations had already labeled him as an internationally known pornographer, made this amazing film in 1980. Much like a dark, sexual screen version of an Edward Gorey cartoon come to life, Borowczyk sets his version of the famous Stevenson story in a house where none of the cultured, upper crust guests seem to be able to leave. In an atmosphere of mounting tension and hysteria, the sexually sadistic Mr. Hyde finds guests alone, one at a time, and gleefully performs an inspiring variety of ‘hideous’ sexual acts on them. There is an undercurrent of black humor as the nobility struggle to maintain their formal facades while chasing each other in and out of numerous doors, their ridiculousness showcasing the abilities of the actors. Indeed, every ‘member’ is displayed for our enjoyment in each visually compelling encounter, all conspiring to bring us to the film’s surprise climax, and ending. You will need a cigarette afterward.
Modern Fantasies of Feminine Evil
Discovering New Outlets for Self Abuse
Is there, one wonders, a future for our deplorable cinematic deviations? Or shall we ever linger in the shadows of the softcore past, continually searching for bare breasted versions of Lady Dracula’s unmentionable doings… Not a bad vocation. However, while most of mainstream America gurgles contentedly onto its bib watching still-censored Hollywood ‘horror’, there has subversively emerged a small generation of directors who intelligently and expertly convey our adult sensibilities. Some of the directors already mentioned, such as Jess Franco, are still producing movies, and now matured in their fields they will be especially interesting to watch. For the time being there are just a few well made movies to choose among to get us started down the dark path of the future, but it must be noted that there are thousands of films already made and yet to be explored. We can only hope that the future holds the camp, costuming, sadiserotic obsessions, intelligence and humor of the raunchy past.
Dust Devil
Directed by Richard Stanley in 1992, Dust Devil is an eerie, well made flick about an omnipotent shape shifting serial killer who seeks out and sexually consumes his prey against the backdrop of the Namibian Desert. Dust continually and hypnotically fills the frame of every painterly shot amidst the vast expanse of the wasteland. The entire movie is pocketed with dead, dying and abandoned dwellings, which become metaphors for the souls of the characters on which the metaphysical vampire feeds, in sex, blood and violent death. Poetic, bleak, and macabre, the issues here center around succumbing to the call of the flesh, an issue dear to our dark little hearts.
Nadja
Produced in 1994 by David Lynch and directed by Michael Almereyda, who brought us the quirky Crispin Glover vehicle Twister in 1989, is this modern tale of vampiric existential angst. Sex kitten Elina Lowensohn portrays Nadja, daughter of Count Dracula, who self-absorbedly prowls the club scene in Manhattan’s Lower East Village seemingly in search of a deeper meaning to her indiscriminately lusty feedings. Peter Fonda appears as Van Helsing, on a quest to kill her twin brother Edgar, after doing away with their dad. Fonda excellently conveys the contrast of the terrified spiritual adolescence of man to Nadja’s personification of physical temptation and evolutionary awareness. Still, this is a sexy vampire story, but with modern gothic underpinnings, innovative camera techniques, and emotional relevance for people living in the nineties. Did I mention the indiscriminately lusty feedings?
Cemetery Man
This brilliant 1996 gothic erotic horror masterpiece puts Italian Director Michele Soavi permanently on the map, and makes him one of the directors to watch. The humorously demented storyline, brilliant lighting and set design, darkly erotic and highly skilled actors all combine to create an atmosphere you will never want to leave. Strangely sexy Brit Rupert Everett plays a groundskeeper at Buffalora Cemetery, a very unfinal resting-place where the dead won’t stay that way. Knowing he will face a mountain of paperwork if he reports these bizarre occurrences, he just re-kills the reanimated pests with the help of his dim-witted sidekick Gnaghi. When the mysterious, very voluptuous and sexually deviant woman he falls in love with dies, he finds himself trapped in a continuing series of strange dilemmas. Interestingly, the storyline is a veiled criticism for the bureaucratic inefficiencies of the Italian government, summed up symbolically in the story’s ending. This is a perverted, sick little film, and you will like it very much.
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