This was a time when filmmakers in many different countries were totally redefining the vampire movie. The period between 1969 and 1974 saw the release of Harry Kümel’s Daughters of Darkness, José Larraz’s Vampyres, Jess Franco’s Vampyros Lesbos and Female Vampire, Michio Yamamoto’s The Vampire Doll and Jean Rollin’s The Nude Vampire. Huge chunks of traditional vampire lore were discarded. These were vampire movies in contemporary settings and these were vampires for the 70s.
The Velvet Vampire was very much part of this trend.
Lee Ritter (Michael Blodgett) and his wife Susan Ritter (Sherry Miles) meet the glamorous but strange Diane LeFanu (Celeste Yarnall) at an art gallery. Lee is clearly besotted. Diane invites the couple to her house in the desert.
The Ritters’ car breaks down so they’re stuck at Diane’s house for several days. Diane seduces Lee. Susan has disturbing dreams.
Susan isn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer but she knows when another woman is trying to steal her man.
For more than a century there have been strange unexplained disappearances in the area. Lee and Susan should be more worried by this than they are. There are clues that there is something odd about Diane but they don’t connect the dots.
This is not likely to end well for the young couple.
The acting is generally terrible. Celeste Yarnall can’t act but she does look like a spooky mysterious sexy lady vampire and she gives off the right sinister seductive but creepy vibes.
Anyone seeing The Velvet Vampire at the time (or today) who was unfamiliar with European horror would have seen it as revolutionary and groundbreaking. Anyone actually familiar with European horror would have noticed that every single groundbreaking element in The Velvet Vampire is found in Jess Franco’s Vampyros Lesbos (made a year earlier) apart from from a few ideas that are found in Jean Rollin’s The Nude Vampire (also made a year earlier). And a few ideas that appeared in Harry Kümel’s Daughters of Darkness.
Vampires who love the sun, vampires who enjoy lazing by the swimming pool, a vampire movie that eschews darkness and gothic trappings in favour of bright sunshine, vampirism as a blood disease. Even the symbolism - the scene with the rattlesnake is reminiscent of the scene with the scorpion in Vampyros Lesbos. And Franco and Rollin had already made vampire movies with dream imagery.
The best thing about this movie is that Diane is not an exiled European noblewoman - she’s an all-American girl. In some scenes, with her hat and boots, she looks a bit like a vampire cowgirl.
Finding good locations is crucial in low-budget filmmaking and in this case the locations are good. Not just the mansion in the desert but the abandoned mine and the ghost town. They could however have been used with a bit more flair and imagination.
The dream sequence with the bed and the mirror in the middle of desert achieves a nicely subtle surreal feel. It’s definitely the high point of the movie.
There’s a reason that Stephanie Rothman did not go on to a glittering career as a director. She was a terrible director. She fails to achieve the necessary feeling of menace. Everything about this movie is stilted and stiff, amateurish and rather dull.
This was a rare flop for Roger Corman. It did poorly at the box office and critics were scathing.
The Velvet Vampire seriously fails to live up to its potential. At best it’s an oddity. Maybe worth a look if you’re a vampire movie completist.
The Shout! Factory DVD offers a very good 16:9 enhanced transfer, with a few extras.
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