Laura and the Vampires from Space

My friend Laura recentlywrote the following in her blog Buffalo. Asparagus. Love. :

Vampires in space would be a really stupid idea for a story....

Vampires in space would always be asleep, or always awake, or at their most dynamic, a lot like narcoleptics. 

 Queen of Blood, Planet of the Vampires, and Life force are the three that immediately came to mind. I am sure there are plenty more out there (please feel free to add to the list in the comments).

I had to respond, but could not come up with anything more intelligent than my paltry list and that her mother smells like elderberry wine.  To add insult to injury, she also made me a mix CD that is pretty rocking.  I seldom get mixed CDs so it was a real pleasure to recieve it, but again, it left me creatively stymied.

Then I had an idea, solve both at once.  Cheap, easy, and with a little luck, she would be pleased to have a CD that is the soundtrack for her own space vampire movie! 

Laure und der Raum Vampire is a startling and original film.  German science fiction films from the late sixties, especially with vampires, are a rarity, but writer and director Reid Hotz managed he create such a film

And what a movie!  Visually rich in that mod sixties, won't the future-look-really-cool style and a swinging soundtrack by Clause Harmony (the Mozart of Porn), Laura and the Space Vampire is worth watching just for those alone.  But has plenty plenty more to recommend it.

Starting off with an explosion on a space station at the edge of the Solar System the action doesn't let up until the breathtaking, for 1968, special effects blow out at the end of its 99 minute running time.  Hotz's iconoclastic view of the future turns several genre conventions on their side.  For example, the men are not square jawed, karate expert intellectuals and the women aren't, well, space stewardesses whose major purpose is to get rescued in the final act.

The nightclub scene from Laura 

The soundtrack can be downloaded here.