Vampyros Lesbos 4K 1971

I try not to watch the same type of movies back-to-back, but unsurprisingly, this is the movie I started watching as soon as A Virgin Among the Living Dead (1973) ended. The problem is that these films are very similar in genre—erotic horror, or rather mysticism—and in spirit, in the sense that both films seem to have been created by the same director. Even one very specific actor plays as if he still has the makeup and role from the previous film. This is a striking coincidence, considering that I selected the films simply based on the number of views.

To be honest, half of what I wrote about the previous film, A Virgin Among the Living Dead (1973), can also be said about this film. If we disregard the plot and cast, both films are identical. Take the theme of eroticism. Here, eroticism is not the main element, but neither are horror or mysticism. In essence, Vampyros Lesbos is a very average vampire movie, perhaps even mediocre. All efforts were focused on creating a fragmented plot with very strange twists and turns. As in the case of two other very similar films (A Virgin Among the Living Dead (1973), Doriana Grey (1976)) of this genre, i.e., erotic horror or mysticism, the plot tries to be something more exclusively through the use of eroticism and a convoluted plot, which I refer to as fragmented. It's like taking the novel Dracula and depicting all the plot twists in the strangest way possible so that the viewer himself racks his brains over what the author wanted to say. If, on the other hand, we were to straighten out the plot line, make it simpler and more accessible, we would end up with a simple film about vampires. There is no depth or even intellectualism here, just a banal plot that plays on the female theme with an island near Turkey, Lesbos.

The title already makes it clear who will be the main target of the vampires. However, since this is not Bram Stoker, but more like erotica, we get a corresponding plot and corresponding eroticism. The story itself is extremely poorly written, and it is also unclear who the other characters in this film are, i.e., everything is given very conditionally. Even the main character is presented conditionally, without any background. It's as if none of this matters, and what matters is the eroticism in the context of a mystical story. For example, we have a female counterpart to Count Dracula, plus her bodyguard, and that's it. In my opinion, this is very meager for such a personality. Although the idea is good—she attracts and uses only women. But how it was implemented leaves not only a lot of questions, but it just looks rather dull and uninteresting. If it weren't for the erotic component, the film would have evoked only one reaction—boredom.

I can't say that I particularly liked the eroticism here, although a very attractive actress plays the role of this Dracula in a skirt, and she acts quite well, including in the erotic scenes. Therefore, the erotic content reminded me of the aforementioned film A Virgin Among the Living Dead (1973). Both films have explicit erotic scenes and very attractive actresses in the lead roles, but despite this, I can't say that the eroticism here is beautiful and interesting. It's as if the director was trying to show a mixture of mysticism/horror and eroticism as a single entity. The result is interesting, but not erotic enough. It turns out that it is clearly not worth watching this film for the eroticism, but for the mysticism or horror, and even less so. Such is the paradox. The film is interesting as an example of 1970s cinema and as an attempt to play with eroticism in film in a new way. It's interesting, of course, but in my opinion, the experiment wasn't very successful. However, the film is still well made (much better than Black Emmanuelle (1975) or Amore libero - Free Love (1974), starring Laura Gemser) and therefore capable of finding an audience.