I gave it a 7.5 out of 10

Boring

Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

How wonderful it is to see this fine actress carry a film and carry it so beautifully.

At a finishing school for girls in 1830 Austria, one of the students goes missing; the administration is in a quandary, not knowing that another beauty from the village was recently murdered and her virginal blood was used to reincarnate Carmilla, a female vampire of the devilish Karnstein family, who arrives at the school under the guise of a new student. Screenwriter Tudor Gates (again mining Joseph Sheridan Le Fanuand's novella "Carmilla" for inspiration) and producers Michael Style and Harry Fine all return from 1970's adequate Hammer horror "The Vampire Lovers", but results are tepid this time. With new restraints handed down by the British censors, the team has scaled back on the lesbian overtures predominant in their previous film. Worse, the bloodsucker action also seems toned down in favor of a corny star-crossed romance between the vampire-heroine and a handsome human, an author and Royal heir who falls hard for the blonde beauty (they have sex in a grassy field to the strains of a pop love ballad!). Under these conditions, crack horror director Jimmy Sangster (filling in at the eleventh hour for an ailing Terence Fisher) might be excused for his flaccid handling--and yet, amazingly, there is not one drop of suspense in this scenario. Sangster is probably responsible for the picture's strongest sequence, with smitten school co-founder Ralph Bates groveling at the feet of the new Carmilla/Mircalla (Yutte Stensgaard), though this scene, too, finishes poorly. Strong-jawed Michael Johnson positively eats his heart out after making love with the girl and finding himself rebuffed the next day, while a police inspector is killed while sniffing around and nothing is mentioned of him again. The writer and producers tried their luck a third time later the same year with "Twins of Evil", the final chapter of the Karnstein Trilogy. * from ****

I saw this film for the first time on television recently and do not know whether it was cut by the station or whether it had been butchered by the station or simply whether it had been badly edited in the first place but whatever it does not make much sense with a plot that has more and bigger holes in it than the average household sieve. The film is not remotely frightening, tense or spooky in the way that the earlier Hammer films often were and has none of the visual richness that the Terence Fisher directed films possessed - if anything it looks more like something made by Lew Grade's ITC around the same time. Most of the actors are familiar enough though I have to confess that Michael Johnson who plays the 'hero' Lestrange is somebody whose name and face has slipped my mind. He is not helped by looking a bit like Jason King would sans his moustache and as a dashing, romantic hero I can see why Johnson has proved to be so forgettable. His character doesn't attract any sympathy although he does seem to be fire and smoke proof if the finale is anything to go by. Yutte Stensgaard plays Mircalla the lesbian vampire/seductress role previously played by Ingrid Pitt in the previous year's Vampire Lovers. Stensgaard is no Pitt. She looks quite nice I suppose- in a sort of Raquel from Coronation Street sort of way- but has none of the allure that Pitt brought to the same role and quite why she has the hold over he classmates, Lestrange and Giles Barton I am not sure. Giles Barton as played by Ralph Bates is by far the best thing about the film- Bates was a fine actor who died far too young and here he gives the creepy. sexually and emotionally stunted teacher a depth the writers could not. The scene where he tries to seduce Mircalla has a pathos that nothing else in the film has. Sadly he is gone after forty minutes. The film came at a time when Hammer,like the Carry On films, was running out of steam and was unsure how to cope with the then prevalent new freedoms when it came to showing bare flesh. There is a lot less nudity and lesbianism on show here than in The Vampire Lovers and I guess that many who view this film will do so hoping to see more in the way of bare bosoms, bottoms and soft core Sapphism than is actually on show. As I said at the top of my review I am not sure how much of the flesh has been cut by either the TV Company ( Horror Channel) or the original censor but if you are expecting the films to be titillating- and the title suggests you might be entitled to think so- be prepared for a disappointment. But then so much of this poorly scripted, indifferently acted and shoddily directed film is a disappointment. 3 out of 10 is being generous and it is all for Bates.

While we anxiously await Lesbian Vampire Killers, we can visit a Hammer classic that has loads of naturally endowed women in a finishing school.While the lesbianism that is inferred is probably just normal boarding school hi-jinks, we are able to enjoy the peaks of pleasure exposed to our view. The vampire Mircalla (Yutte Stensgaard) has plenty of girls to go skinny dipping with.The teacher Richard (Michael Johnson) is quite taken with the beauty that he fellow teacher (Ralph Bates) believes to be the reincarnation of a Countess that died 120 years previous. Another teacher (Suzanna Leigh) almost buys it after she continues to stick her nose into the problems of dying and missing.As expected, the villagers finally take matters into their own hands to rid themselves of the problem.

Sheridan Le Fanu wrote a Gothic little vampire tale called Carmilla in the 19th century that has astoundingly been the subject and backdrop of a surprising amount of films. The story is quite good yet in no way is the material enough to cover the breadth and scope of more than one film - which is one of the major problems with this Hammer entry. Lust for a Vampire is the second in a trilogy of Hammer films known throughout filmdom as the "Karnstein Trilogy." The first film is The Vampire Lovers which is a wonderful adaptation of Le Fanu's work. Then we have this film - which is what it is - still clinging ever so strongly to the vastly resource-depleted story of Carmilla, and lastly there is Twins of Evil which is nothing more than a Carmilla film in name only because of places and general themes and film trends. So the story here by Tudor Gates is very lacking. This time around we have a girl's school - and the girls are of course all around 18(Many looking like they are in their early/mid 20s)and drop-dead gorgeous with well-coiffed hair, elegant dresses, and that "I just had my picture taken for the centerfold in Playboy" look. Nothing wrong with that but we are asked to believe it opened up in the heart of Eastern Europe RIGHT BY the castle of a family known throughout the countryside as evil vampires(and still coming to life every so often as we are told through the opening sequence of the film). Now I know it is only a film, and, yes, maybe I am over analyzing here - but this Hammer entry lacks the ingenuity, creative spark, and acting/directorial talents associated with Hammer. It is a product of its time - the early 70s - and Hammer had resorted to "tricks" if you will far more heavily then they ever had done so before. We see lots of bosoms here - lots.(Okay I CAN live with this.) Violence is at minimum for even a Hammer film, but what we also get which is a trend at this time are films where there is no recognizable star power. No Peter Cushing here(although I do understand he was slated to be in it but personal problems forced him to cancel). No Christopher Lee. No Andre Morel even or Andrew Keir. I would have even taken Michael Ripper, but what we get is Ralph Bates, a serviceable actor at best, in a throwaway role and not much else in terms of acting talent. The male lead Michael Johnson has a bit of charisma but is far more annoying as a thespian - I wanted him to get it very early on. The young beautiful girls are just that. Carmilla/Mircalla is played by Danish beauty Yutte Stensgaard. She is lovely to be sure, but she has little to do other than the "normal" things lesbian vampires do in films like this. Pippa Steel is also awesome eye candy. But the worst casting and most laughable of all is that of Mike Raven as some vampire in the wings so to speak who looks, acts, and sounds like Christopher Lee. Almost his whole repertoire of words is "heart attack." Pretty soon you start laughing just at the sight of him for just how ridiculous and unprofessional these scenes are - and in very bad taste as to the mood of the rest of the film. While I will agree that Lust for a Vampire is entertaining overall to a degree - it is also heavily flawed and unworthy of the great Hammer tradition, Jimmy Sangster the director, and many of the Hammer legions of production workers who have worked and created much superior work.