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 LUST FOR A VAMPIRE (1971)

In 1970, Hammer Films released The Vampire Lovers, the first film about the sadistic and Satanic Karnstein family. The three movies, known as The Karnstein Trilogy, have become infamous for titillating scenes of nudity and their through-the-male-lens depiction of lesbianism. The films are based on the novella Carmilla by Irish author Sheridan Le Fanu. Polish actor Ingrid Pitt was the first to wear the shroud of Carmilla Karnstein, who destroyed families with her ravenous desire for budding flesh. In Lust For A Vampire (directed by Jimmy Sangster from Tudor Gates’ script), blonde, Danish Yutte Stensgaard takes up the Karnstein, blood-stained funerary garments and heads off to school.

Suzanna Leigh leads the student body in dance.

The belief that homosexual men and women recruited children for sex partners was one of the most pernicious myths surrounding homosexuality in the 1970s.  Even as civil rights and legal protections were growing in America, schools fought to keep them out to save the pupils from “corruption.” Screenwriter Tudor Gates’ second chapter of the Karnstein Trilogy addresses these fears.  His story puts a predatory, lesbian vampire amid the youthful, lovely maidens in an academy near Castle Karnstein.

Carmilla/Millarca (Yutte Stensgaard) and her roommate Pippa Steele go for a moonlit skinny dip.

Lust for a Vampire begins 40 years after The Vampire Lovers ended, with the bloody rebirth of Carmilla during a Satanic ceremony in the ruins of the castle. The reborn vampire enrolls in Mrs. Simpson’s Finishing School for young women and begins seducing (and consuming) the student bodies.  To Mircalla’s (the name the vampire is using) consternation, the male staff members have become obsessed with her as enrollment decreases.

History professor Giles Barton (Ralph Bates) discovers Mircalla is Carmilla Karnstein.  In the Karnstein cemetery, he confesses his devotion to her and begs to be her servant so he can learn the black arts.  She bites him, leaving him crawling behind as she cruelly walks off without a backward glance. 

Giles reveals he knows Millarca's secret.

Richard Lestrange (Michael Johnson), the second male instructor to have an unhealthy obsession with Mircalla, presents some of the most problematic elements of the movie. An author of horror fiction, he has a chance encounter with her outside the school.  He develops an uncontrollable fixation on her, and cons his way onto the school’s personnel to be near her.

Richard declares his love.

But even an older man stalking a teenage girl is not the cringiest thing Lestrange does.  Since this film is a male-centric fantasy of lesbianism, all the pupils are young, pretty, barely dressed and live in a sheltered world with few men present.  The implied message is these women are suffering an illness brought on by the lack of masculinity in their environment.  In these sorts of pornographic fantasies, heterosexual copulation cures them of their affliction.  When Lestrange lures Carmilla back to the cemetery to seduce her, she struggles at first but ultimately succumbs to his advances. Even though she could kill him like she did Giles, she is unsure how she feels and lets him live.  

The long-term results of Carmilla and Lestrange’s coupling never get explored.  A torch-bearing mob suddenly rises and sets fire to Karnstein Castle. Lestrange rushes into the castle to rescue Carmilla. He sees her die when a flaming stake impales her. At the end, the school’s love-struck gym teacher (Suzanna Leigh) leads away a dazed Lestrange. 

I give it a year. 

Giles Barton (Raplph Bates) and Richard Lestrange (Michael Johnson)

Carmilla, Countess Karnstein is reborn.

The Karnsteins at home.