One of the best of 70s Hammers, a deliriously over the top concoction made by relative newcomers to the studio (it lacks any sort of star names). It starts with a bang – a young girl is lured away to a castle by a woman in thrall to a vampire… who then kills the young girl and roots the woman. Apparently he’s been killing kids so a posse of townsfolk rock up to kill him, but not before the vampire has knocked off a fair few of the posse and sworn revenge (which seems a bit rich – he did kill their kids). Fifteen years later the village is struck by plague when a circus comes to town – it includes vampires. So the poor township suffers again!
The rules are there are no rules, in this vampire films. Vampires can walk around in daylight, and be revived even after staked through the heart if they are given enough blood (that is what motivates the circus vampires); small children are killed (this film probably has some sort of record for the number of kids killed on screen – and there are more killed off screen). Many memorable scenes and characters: a pants man male vampire who turns into a panther (a la Cat People or the Bram Stoker Dracula); a dwarf who assists the vampires and gets conked on the head in one scene and has a Mini Me type fight with the young male lead in another; acrobatic twins who are vampires, one of whom is very conveniently impaled by a falling cross (just like the end of Lust for a Vampire); a gypsy woman (Adrienne Corinne) who is the reincarnation (or something) of a vampire mistress; said vampire mistress has to run the gauntlet; a two way mirror allows vampires to kill people; a woman dances at the circus wearing nothing but body paint (I was disappointed she dropped out of the film); David Prowse (aka the body of Darth Vader) as a strongman.
There are also the normal women-who-get-horny-for-a-vampire (lots of nudity in this) and mob-of-people-taking-on-the-vampire and unconvincing vampires-scared-of-a-cross. The romantic couple in this one are very young, genuine teenagers – the guy is a drip but Lynne Fredericks is very beautiful as the girl (she later married Peter Sellars in real life and got all his money). Nihilistic, full-on and very entertaining; should definitely be better known.
No comments:
Post a Comment