DAUGHTERS OF DARKNESS
(aka Les Lèvres Rouge, aka The Red Lips, aka The Promise of Red Lips, aka Erzebeth, aka Blut an den Lippen, aka La Vestale di Satana)The best lesbian vampire film ever made?
Review by Philip Nutman
Belgian co-writer/director Harry Kumel’s elegant vampire movie, released in 1971, is a film whose images haunted me throughout childhood: photographs glimpsed in movie books such as David Pirie’s THE VAMPIRE CINEMA and other horror movie tomes that sporadically appeared throughout the early to late ‘70s resonated in my fevered young mind. I knew the legend of Countess Bathory, who is reputed to have bathed in the blood of virgins; lusted over pictures of Hammer Films star Ingrid Pitt (whose signed framed photo hangs on the wall beside my desk) who played her in COUNTESS DRACULA (1971); and was endlessly fascinated by equally tantalizing images of girl-on-girl seduction from French director Jean Rollin’s bande desinée-inspired vampire flicks. But it was always the images of Delphine Seyrig (Bunuel’s The Discrete Charm Of The Bourgeoisie [1972]) and Andrea Rau, as her young consort seducing a just-married couple (played by Danielle Ouime and DARK SHADOWS’ Willie, John Karlen) that truly encaptivated me. Finally, when I actually saw the film in the mid ‘80s, it didn’t disappoint. Biased? Yes, I am, but you would be missing out on a real treat if you don’t see the beautiful new transfer issued by Bill Lustig’s Blue Underground label.
The plot is simple: Ouime and Karlen arrive in the winter-bound Belgian seaside resort of Ostend for their honeymoon. It’s off-season and the town is all but deserted. They check into a wonderful, rambling and also almost empty hotel that puts the Overlook in King’s THE SHINING to shame. There they meet a Hungarian Countess named Elizabeth (Seyrig) and her servant, Ilona (Rau). The developing relationship between the four of them results in masks slipping, secrets hinted at or revealed, devolving into a spiral of codependency, blood, sex and need, ultimately leading to tragedy.
of eerie poetry with camp parody,
skillfully avoiding a collapse
into either option and produces
an unsettlingly intelligent film…”
---The Aurum Film Encyclopedia:
Horror, 1985
Viewers expecting modern day vampires a la BUFFY or UNDERWORLD—forget it: this is a leisurely paced study in aberrant psychology and sexuality that plays with the vampire archetype in a modern (at least “hip” ‘70s reality and arguably post-modern) setting. DAUGHTERS OF DARKNESS unfolds like a half-remembered dream which clings to you like fog as you struggle to come to full consciousness. While the film has echoes of other, similarly-themed European horror movies made between 1966-1974, it has its own unique sensibility that sets it apart from the rest.
This is not the first time that the movie has been released on DVD. Blue Underground released a similar version in 2003, and prior to that edition Anchor Bay (with whom Lustig was then affiliated before it was sold to IDT) offered a copy on VHS. In all cases, the print provided was the full, uncut European edition containing all the nudity missing from previous US releases. While I haven’t had the chance to fully compare this new edition with my previous BU copy, it definitely looks and sounds the best I’ve ever seen this film (and that includes my first theatrical screening, which was of a virtually unscreened print, but that was over 20 years ago). According to the reliable chaps over at DVDTalk.com (in this case, reviewer Ian Jane), “The 1.66.1 anamorphic widescreen transfer on this new DVD blows the old release out of the water. Down-converted from a new high definition master, it has much more detail and much better color definition than the previous incarnations, and the image is much sharper and appears to have better contrast as well.” Thank you, Mr. Jane.
Since my review copy arrived (unexpectedly, I might add; thanks Greg!) just as we were about to put this issue to bed, I wholeheartedly recommend you check out the dvdtalk.com review if you are interested in learning more about this new edition of DAUGHTERS OF DARKNESS’s technical specs and all the supplemental features (some old, some new, making this a definitive disc). For more info head to the DoD section of the DVDTalk.com forums.
What makes this new edition a double pleasure (and gives way more bang for the buck) is that for a limited time, this is a two-disc edition with the added bonus of a nicely transferred edition of Aranda’s THE BLOOD SPATTERED BRIDE (1972). Nominally credited as based on J. Sheridan Le Fanu’s novella, CARMILLA (1872), the grandmother of lesbian vampire stories, this is a delightfully surreal, erotic slice of Spanish exploitation cinema. Time (and deadlines) prohibit me from going into more detail and waxing lyrical, but this is an erotic horror movie definitely worth checking out if you’re in the mood for something a little bit odd with a Euro flavor. 
