Female Vampire

France - Belgium / 1973 Directed by Jess Franco Starring Lina Romay Jack Taylor Monica Swinn Color / 101 Minutes / Not Rated Format: DVD (R1 - NTSC) Image Entertainment

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Now available in the 4-disc Jess Franco Collection

		Review by B. Lindsey

1     5   10 = Highest Rating

A sexy, raven-haired woman emerges from the mist, walking through a forest as if in a trance. Save for a black cape, knee-high boots and wide leather belt she is quite naked. To the strains of a lilting romantic melody she draws closer and closer. Suddenly she stops, staring vacantly into the camera. The shot pans slowly down over her bare breasts to zoom in on the dark thicket of her pubic hair, then seems to fade to black... only to return us to this Goth exhibitionist, still standing in the forest. Now she moves forward again, coming right at us, walking directly into the camera — literally, for she bumps her chin on the lens.     Yes, folks, it's a Jess Franco film. And this time, using a slew of aliases, he handled almost all the major chores himself, including the screenplay, photography and editing. The results are disastrous. Female Vampire is a sloppy, disjointed, boring mess. With a self-indulgent Franco at the helm, this ship doesn't just run aground — it is dashed to pieces on the rocks. While I've only seen a fraction of his huge body of work, it's apparent that Franco truly needs a strong-willed producer to ride herd on him, keeping his more avant-garde impulses in check. Otherwise he comes up with dreck like this.     Lina Romay — who replaced Soledad Miranda as Franco's cinematic muse after the Eugenie de Sade star died in an auto accident — is Countess Irina, last of the Karlstein line of vampires. On a picturesque island off the Spanish coast she seduces both men and women and drains them not of blood, but of their very life essence. This isn't done via the traditional bite on the neck, either. In Franco's kinky twist to standard vampire lore, Irina sucks the life out of her victims while performing oral sex. At least they die happy! Her beefy, unnamed manservant (who really should be called Morpho as far as I'm concerned) takes care of any bodies that require disposal. The local cops are puzzled — a bit too nonchalant as well — about the mysterious deaths she leaves in her wake, but the island's pathologist, Dr. Roberts (director Franco, in yet another supporting role in one of his own films), suspects vampirism. He takes his theory to an occult expert, a blind weirdo named Dr. Orloff (Jean-Pierre Bouyxou), for confirmation. Meanwhile a visitor to the island, a bohemian seeker type (Sexy Sisters' Jack Taylor), is drawn to the mysterious Countess and falls for her, even though he realizes that to love her physically means death.     Irina is painted as a tragic figure, trapped by destiny to kill those she wants only to love. She's extremely horny, too — the film conjoins her desire for the "life force" with that of lust for carnal pleasure. Romay is naked (or nearly so) for 99% of the film, and when not getting it on with someone she's languidly rolling about on her bed, teasing her servant and masturbating with abandon. (At one point she performs fellatio on a bedpost... Jeez! Somebody get this gal a vibrator!) Franco is obviously besotted with Lina Romay. (They would eventually become lifetime companions and are still making movies together some 30 years on.) He forces us to wallow in her fleshy charms ad nauseum. Sure, she's an attractive woman, with a great rack, but she's just not All That And A Bag Of Chips. Romay lacks the beguiling, magnetic screen presence of Soledad Miranda; an entire film simply can't be built around zoom shots of her ass and crotch, as much as Franco seems to think so. (At least she doesn't have any bruises or zits on her bum.) Since Irina is mute, never speaking to the other characters, Romay's naked body does all the talking. It isn't long before the conversation becomes tedious... Not exactly the viewer reaction Franco was aiming for, I'd wager.     When near-constant nudity and softcore sex grow tiresome then you're in serious trouble. Increasing the aggravation, composer Daniel White's score repeats the same sappy theme over and over and over again to the point of annoyance. The script's insipid English dialog is further compromised by godawful dubbing. But it's Jess Franco's directorial style that truly sinks the film. Wobbly panning shots, combined with a fetishistic predilection for the zoom lens and generally haphazard editing, make Female Vampire look like an amateur production at best, despite the fact that at this point Franco was already a seasoned filmmaker with a number of well-made movies under his belt. (So did he actually intend for so many shots to be out of focus?) Clearly, Franco's 'art' is usually best served when someone else is holding the camera.     I can say this in defense of Female Vampire: it's not quite as heinous as Franco's Lust for Frankenstein. It is boring as hell, though — truly the Kiss of Death.

Image Entertainment's DVD presents the 'middle' cut of Female Vampire, which falls somewhere in between the heavily edited (and altered) American cut, Erotikill (a.k.a. The Bare-breasted Countess), and the hardcore porn French version. The 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen print displays some damage (especially during the whipping sequence and Dr. Roberts' discovery of Irina in her bath); colors look a bit faded and washed out. The mono audio tracks — the original French is included as an option, though without subtitles — are serviceable enough. As extras the disc includes liner notes by Tim Lucas, the French trailer (sorry, no porno shots) and an 8½ minute reel of alternate footage used for Erotikill. These scenes demonstrate just how radically different that 'horror-centric' incarnation of the film is. In them, Romay's nudity is mostly covered up and the death-by-oral-sex motif is completely jettisoned in favor of traditional neck biting and bloodsucking. 10/16/03

UPDATE In April 2005 Image is re-releasing Female Vampire as part of the 4-disc Jess Franco Collection box set. The entire set sells for less than one of the stand-alone DVDs... A much better deal!

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