Wow! Such a good movie.

SERIOUSLY. This is what the crap Hollywood still puts out?

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

There's a more than satisfactory amount of boom-boom in the movie's trim running time.

If you're looking for a visually impressive vampire film in the spirit of DAUGHTERS OF DARKNESS but with much more sex and violence, then you've come to the right place. VAMPYRES is a classic film of the seventies, replete with excellent crisp photography and fine direction from Jose Ramon Larraz. A nice sense of impending doom and perversity runs throughout the film until the final devastating climax where nobody is spared from the horrors. If you're looking for a film which ties up all of the plot threads in nice neat explanations, then you've come to the wrong place. VAMPYRES offers up no answers, only questions.As a film almost totally devoid of plot, you'd be forgiven for thinking this might be pretty boring and incomprehensible. It's not. It's difficult to describe how this film works, only to say that to understand it you must see it. There's some spellbinding, hypnotic quality to the vampire ladies which somehow connects to the viewer. Once you've seen them, you'll never forget them, as they're that spooky. This isn't really a scary film, but more of a sombre, haunting one which builds up plenty of atmosphere and style in between each "action" scene.The nudity level is extremely high in this film, effectively beating the trilogy of Hammer's lesbian vampire films at their own game. High, too, is the blood level, with some really wince-inducing vampire moments which will have you averting your eyes if you dislike the sight of blood, as it just looks so damn realistic here. Especially the horrible bits where the vampires lick and drink blood from a cut on a man's arm...it doesn't bear thinking about, and I'm not normally squeamish. While there might be something of a repetitive nature to the film (vampires seduce victim, vampires kill victim, and so on...) each new scene is handled afresh in a way which never becomes boring.Of the two vampires, Marianne Morris is the most alluring, while the oddly-named Anulka the most frightening. Both women convey well their lust-filled diet of sex and blood in the many erotic scenes of the film, using their physical presence for maximum effect, both picked for their attractive yet odd appearances. The rest of the cast are all good in their roles too, giving performances which make their characters realistic and believable, especially the unfortunate woman who falls victim to their advances at the last minute. This may well be the final word on lesbian vampires. With beautiful scenery, plenty of heavy atmosphere, and some of the strongest images ever put on film, this is a truly wonderful movie.

Now then, before watching this movie, I had never heard of it, let alone discovering that it is apparently a cult classic. So, cult status aside, I will endeavour to add to all of the reviews from people that undoubtedly know more about the film than I do. Therefore, I am just reviewing as I saw it....nothing else. It certainly wasn't a bad movie at all and didn't have me reaching for the stop button for one moment. It was intriguing without having a mind-blowing plot. And despite other reviewers saying how good some of the acting was, I myself found that the only decent acting performances to speak of were from Brian Deacon and the unrecognisable (well it was 1974) Michael Byrne. Yes, there was a certain degree of nudity, but not really any more than the amount rearing its head in the Hammer films of the time. And yes, I can see why it was 'butchered repeatedly' (as it mentions on the case of the DVD) when released. So, I can only guess that it is the titillation, the gore and the censors that resulted in this receiving much higher praise than it deserves. In fact, some of the acting is very wooden, particularly from its main male star Murray Brown and the two leading lady Vampyres, Marianne Morris and Anulka. As I have already said though, this wasn't bad enough for me switch off....it is still worth a watch, just to see what all the fuss was about at the time of release.** As an afterthought, I thought that I would add that I only discovered the film in a box of DVD's that I was given. having read the background of the it's various releases, the version that I saw was the Blue Underground release....an American DVD, that I was very surprised to find worked in my DVD player. The extras contain an excellent and more up to date interview with the two leading ladies. Though their memory of where the main location was is completely wrong.

An attractive young lesbian couple are gunned down in the mansion where they live and, for some reason, then become vampiric creatures who seduce passers-by from the nearby road.Husky, busty Marianne Morris and blond Anulka Dziubinska (billed as Anulka) as Fran and Miriam seem very at ease with the plentiful nude/sex scenes – even though the DVD extras refute this. Both actresses' voices are also dubbed, much to their chagrin, and while such a practice seems unnecessary, the dubbing is more convincing than is often the case. They really do represent a kind of other-worldly sensuality that is essential for this kind of role. Whether stalking the misty, dewy countryside or the corridors of their magnificent home in their velvet capes, they look exactly like the spooky sirens they are meant to be. Other, sundry characters are deliberately dressed down to make the main couple look comparatively more exotic.It's hinted that Ted (Murray Brown), who is enticed to the country house and tormented throughout, is the man who originally 'murdered' the girls, although this is never really explained. Neither is the fact that he fails to recognise the house he is brought back to.And yet the plot is not particularly high on the agenda. The endless discussions on the sophistication of wine and the charming attributes of the ladies could have been spent on making things clearer, but it seems there was an artistic decision to leave things enigmatic – which I have no problem with, as it fuels the Jean Rollin-esque dream-like atmospherics of the film. Equally, the nature of Fran and Miriam is muddy; the (rushed) ending of 'Vampyres' speculates they may have been ghosts all along, although the trail of bloodied destruction they leave proves them too tangible for that!

One of the most popular exploitation sub-genre's in the 1970's was the lesbian vampire flick. It was hinted at as far back as the 1930's, using Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu's novel Carmilla as their primary influence, but not fully embraced until the late 1960's by Hammer Studios. As censorship wavered and the grindhouse circuit was born, films became more exploitative and the European low-budget film industry became flooded with movies by film-makers like Jess Franco. Spanish director Jose Ramon Larraz's UK-set Vampyres is one of the most fondly remembered. But, as those familiar with grindhouse movies will be fully aware, that doesn't mean it's particularly good.In an old mansion isolated in the woods, lesbian vampire couple Fran (Marianne Morris) and Miriam (Anulka Dziubinska) stalk the surrounding area in search of men to prey upon. They take the men back to their mansion, kill and feed on them, and then leave their bodies by the side of the road in their crashed car. A young couple, John (Brian Deacon) and Harriet (Sally Faulkner), park their camper on the mansion grounds. Harriet notices strange behaviour from the vampire couple and witnesses the physical deterioration of Ted (Murray Brown), a young man taken in by Fran.Shot at Oakley Court, location of many a Hammer horror and Dr. Frank N. Furter's castle in The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975), Vampyres has that lush British old-school horror feel about it. The problem is, it feels like a fifty-minute film stretched out into ninety minutes, full of endless walks, curious glances, inane conversations and dull erotic scenes. When the horror does come, it doesn't hold back on the blood, featuring a couple of quite unsettling scenes of violence. It just takes so long to get there that it hardly feels worth the wait.There is also a gaping plot-hole in Fran and Miriam's approach of staging the murders as car accidents, which becomes ridiculous after we see Fran stab a victim in the back. They wait for their victims by hitch-hiking in broad daylight, and are even seen doing so by Harriet as the couple approach the castle. Just how long would it take for the police to put two and two together as the bodies quickly pile up? However, it's surprisingly well-acted, especially by the seductive Marianne Morris, whose scenes are all the more erotic when she keeps her clothes on, and the cinematography, reminiscent of Hammer, is lovely.www.the-wrath-of-blog.blogspot.com