I first saw Vampyros Lesbos (1971) when I was in ninth grade. I bought the Image Entertainment DVD from Movies Unlimited with my allowance. I instantly fell in love with Soledad Miranda and the film’s groovy score by Manfred Hübler. Vampyros Lesbos soon had me seeking out other Jesús Franco films and I have never looked back.
Vampyros Lesbos is Jesús Franco’s masterpiece. Franco had already adapted Bram Stoker’s novel faithfully with his film Count Dracula (1970) before his reimagining of the tale in Vampyros Lesbos. Vampyros Lesbos relocates the setting to the present day on the Mediterranean coast. But more importantly Vampyros Lesbos subverts Stoker’s text in its approach to sexuality.
Vampyros Lesbos does away with Stoker’s sexual paranoia and masculinist posturing. Instead Franco’s film treats vampirism as a kind of sexual liberation. Miranda’s Countess Nadine brings with her a sexual euphoria and manic libido. In Vampyros Lesbos sex becomes a kind of orgasmic fever dream set on the Mediterranean. Any fear of illness is dispensed with euphoric glee.
The Gothic trappings of Dracula are likewise discarded in favor of a sunnier setting. Beaches, villas and lapping waves become the central locales in Vampyros Lesbos. All that remains of the Gothic exists only in Miranda’s stage show. She dances with a candelabra as she strips out of her clothes in a two-tone setting of red and black. The Gothic becomes foreplay to the orgasm to come.
In this female driven iteration of Dracula vampires have reflections. And like Narcissus these reflections captivate and ensnare the onlooker. Casting a seductive spell that is both irresistible and damning. Vampyros Lesbos is a film of gazes cast from afar. People look on powerless to stop the seductions of the vampire; longing to be a part of the passion play.
Vampyros Lesbos predicts The Hunger (1983) and the notion that the female vampire can exist as a figure of sex positivity. Vampyros Lesbos rails against the panic of films like The Vampire Lovers (1970) by embracing the mantra of free love. Vampyros Lesbos remains relevant and popular because it doesn’t conform to Stoker’s myth.
