Lust for a Vampire (1971)

Confessions of a Vampire Vixen! Lust for a Vampire is directed by Jimmy Sangster and written by Tudor Gates who uses characters written by Sheridan Le Fanu. It stars Ralph Bates, Barbara Jefford, Suzanna Leigh, Michael Johnson, Yutte Stensgaard, Helen Christie and Pippa Steel. Music is by Harry Robinson and Technicolor cinematography by David Muir. The second part of Hammer Films' "Karnstein Trilogy", "Lust for a Vampire" seemed destined to be miserable from the get go. Peter Cushing had to leave the production when his darling wife fell gravely ill, Hammer's best director Terence Fisher had to also bail out, while Gates had his original romantically literate script jettisoned for one more concerned with nudey prod games. What eventually plays out on screen is a tepid and confused movie, more concerned with bosom baiting than anything resembling a coherent and dramatic horror story. Pretty much everyone involved with making it disowned it, and it's not hard to see why. From production goofs to the inappropriate cheesy pop song that assaults the ears during a love making scene, the film is badly constructed and just functions to purely show some buxom flesh in the hope that it itself will be enough. A couple of scenes are smart, particularly the resurrection of the main vampire babe, and the colour and costuming is up to Hammer's high standards, yet you can see Hammer straining for inspiration to take the 70s by storm. The cracks in their magnificent armour were just starting to show. The only real surprise is that Robin Askwith isn't in it, he could have used it as a warm up for his "Confessions Of" series of films that were soon to surface... 4/10