Vampiros lesbos (1971)

Director:

Jesus Franco

Writers:

Jaime Chávarri (screenplay)
Jaime Chávarri (story)

Release Date:

15 July 1971 (West Germany)

Genre:

Horror

Tagline:

A Psycho-Sexadelic Horror Freakout!

Plot:

An erotic horror tale about a vixen vampiress seducing and killing women to appease her insatiable thirst for female blood.

Plot Keywords:

Blood | Bondage | Vampire | Nude Woman Murdered | Fetish

Cast

  (Complete credited cast)

Soledad Miranda	...	Condesa Oskudar
Ewa Strömberg	...	Linda Westinghouse (as Ewa Stromberg)
Dennis Price	...	Dr. Alwin Seward (as Denis Price)
Heidrun Kussin	...	Agra
José Martínez Blanco	...	Morpho (as J. Martinez Blanco)
Paul Muller	...	Dr. Steiner
Michael Berling	...	Dr. Seward's Assistant
Jesus Franco	...	Memmet

Also Known As:

Das Mal des Vampirs (West Germany) (working title)
El signo del vampiro
Im Zeichen der Vampire (West Germany) (working title)
Las vampiras (Spain) (cut version)
Lesbian Vampires
Lesbian Vampires: The Heiress of Dracula
Schlechte Zeiten für Vampire (West Germany) (working title)
The Heiress of Dracula
The Heritage of Dracula
The Sign of the Vampire
The Strange Adventure of Jonathan Harker
The Vampire Women
Vampyros Lesbos (USA) (DVD title)
Vampyros Lesbos: Die Erbin des Dracula (West Germany)
Lesvies vampires (Greece) (DVD title) [el]
Vampire lesbos (France) [fr]
Vampiros Lesbos (France) [fr]

Runtime:

89 min | Argentina:91 min

Country:

West Germany | Spain

Language:

German

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Italy:VM14 (DVD) | Argentina:18 | Spain:18 | UK:18 | Australia:R | Germany:BPjM Restricted

Filming Locations:

Alicante, Comunidad Valenciana, Spain

Company:

CCC Telecine

Trivia:

Soledad Miranda, the actress who played Countess Nadine Carody, was dubbed by Beate Hasenau.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Mise-en-abyme (2006)

The Citizen Kane of European exploitation

Jesus Franco's 1970 VAMPYROS LESBOS (inexplicably titled above "El Signo del vampiro") is the masterpiece of all Euro-exploitation genres. You can swoon over the Greenaway lighting in SUSPIRIA; you can thrill to the comic-book metaphysics of THE BEYOND; a few solitary freaks might smack their chops over CANNIBAL FEROX. But the Big Mama, the 2001 or INTOLERANCE of the litter, is Franco's fever-dreamy Z movie, a dusted-out collage of St. Tropez glamour, poisonous softcore sex, platter-party lounge music gone Satanic, and more crazy zooms than the entire body of martial-arts movies combined.

Franco has made more movies than probably any other living filmmaker, and there's something intuitive and inspired in each of them. But in none of his other works did he so perfectly combine what he learned, in his zonked-out way, from his masters (Resnais, Antonioni and especially Welles), and his own lurid, kick-addicted, grade-Z technique. This movie isn't just for B-movie weirdos; hardcore Tarkovsky fiends might find themselves after fifteen minute saying, "God...I kind of like this...what's happening to me?"