The Gist: A Transylvanian count heads to England with his eyes on a woman who he wants to turn into his vampire bride.
Female Vampire Factor: There is 4 in the film. First Dracula has his original brides aka the 3 sisters who go to feed on Renfield.
And finally, you have Eva (aka Spanish Mina) who attempts to bite Juan once she's under Dracula's spell.
Final Opinion: Unlike movies today which are just made once and then dubbed over in multiple languages, Hollywood actually made two different versions of the original Dracula for different audiences. The Bela Lugosi film made during the day and this film made after dark with Carlos Vallarias as Dracula.
The big difference between the two films is that this version was not held down by American sensors so as seen above bites do actually happen instead of the staring contest followed by fade to the next scene that the American version was subject to doing as to not show anything too graphic. Another major difference based on the same concept being that Eva's clothes are pretty revealing for the time, especially after getting put under Dracula's spell which honestly makes this film actually fit in with what Hammer Studios and Jenn Rollins would do years later.
For more on the differences between the two films check out the retrospective I did below but this film is indeed night and day the better of the two even if Lugosi did make a much better Dracula. As many commenters of the video had mentioned if Lugosi could have been in the Spanish film, that film would have been the definitive version and the standard that all others would and should have followed.
Because it is the first film to show a vampire bite let alone a female one and does set the standard as to what a Dracula movie does become for the rest of existence, I have to give this one a Vampire Beauty Rating of 5 out of 5. It's just a shame that actress Lupita Tovar's performance as Eva isn't as famous or widely known as Bela Lugosi's Dracula in the English version as the performance is that good and she easily could have been considered one of Hollywood's first horror sex symbols, though she did correctly recognize herself as the first scream queen. If you are a horror buff, I highly suggest checking this film out. Despite it being a nearly 100 year old film by this writing it absolutely is still entertaining by today's standards.
The Gist: A Transylvanian count heads to England with his eyes on a woman who he wants to turn into his vampire bride.
Female Vampire Factor: There is 4.5 in the film. First Dracula has his original briedes aka the 3 sisters who go to feed on Renfield but he drives them away.
Then comes the .5 as you technically do see a vampire Lucy wandering the night but any mention of her being a vampire is yada yada'd off with an orderly reading about it in a newspaper.
And finally, you have Mina who attempts to bite Jonathon once she's under Dracula's spell.
Final Opinion: This is the original which is pretty much it's selling point in seeing where the Dracula and vampire story began with Bella Lagosi being the definitive count in movie history.
With that being said the film compared to future iterations (and even an ideration made at the same time in the same studio) is very tame and thanks to the Hays code which heavily censored Hollywood films in the 1930's either cuts out anything that could be considered sexual or horrific or as is seen above vampire attacks being dumbed down to just them staring at their victims with the screen fading before anything happens with scenes following telling you that's what happened.
Just for being the first to put a version of female vampirism on film I'll give it two stars automatically but in execution I can only give it one more for a total Vampire Beauty Rating of 3 stars. The Spanish version showed us that it wasn't the filmmaker giving into the sensibilities of the viewing public as to why the film is as brief and censored as it was. It was politics and religion trying to force Hollwood into putting on film what they wanted the world to believe was the sensibility of the viewing public. A lie that still affects the way we view the past today.
The Gist: A female vampire struggling with what she is makes matters worse by falling in love with the psychologist that she goes to for help who believes she's insane and not really a vampire.
Clarification: Isabella is a single woman who gets nagged by her family over the fact that she continues to be single. On top of that she has a nasty habit of going out at night and killing people as she's also a vampire.
She sees a commercial for a psychologist at a mental hospital, so she goes there and gets committed once she tries to explain to him that she's a vampire.
From there you get an odd dynamic between the two as she is admitting what she is and everything she actual does to him, but he brushes it off as paranoid psychotic delusions she's having. That is until members of the hospital staff go missing and an inmate catches her in the act.
Female Vampire Factor: Despite you finding out eventually that her whole family are vampires, Isabella is who the film revolves around and is the only one shown doing anything vampiric. When it comes to her fangs you only actually see them once in the film and that's during a very odd scene where she starts hysterically laughing after a guy tries to scare her with a vampire mask. I guess she laughs so hard she loses control of them and they come out resulting in the guy dying of a heart attack upon seeing them.
(SPOILER ALERT)
Also in the films end it's revealed that her and the psychologist end up getting married and having a daughter who is born a vampire.
Final Opinion: The concept is good; the execution is somewhat lacking. By that I'd say that this film would be a great candidate for a remake. As is it really doesn't know whether it wants to be a comedy or a horror and doesn't do either all too well and sadly the vampiric scenes are probably the most disappointing part of it when it should be the selling point as like I said the one weird scene is the only time you see Isabella's fangs. With that I give it a Vampire Beauty Rating of 2 out of 5. It's pretty hard to come by a decent telling of the "Female Vampire who falls in love with a human and wants to be normal" story but the film Lady Dracula is still the standard and this is far from that.
The Gist: After getting possessed with the spirit of the Queen of Darkness a victim of abuse becomes a predator who goes out at night looking for men to murder.
Clarification: Suzie is a hot woman who has an abusive boyfriend who goes to live with her hot model sister when she gets tired of him getting drunk and beating her. Once she gets there she finds an old weird book which she then reads causing a demon woman to offer her powers in exchange for murdering men. From there it's up to her sister to try to release her from the spell of the Queen of Darkness which is easier said than done since Suzie likes her newfound powers which prevents her from being a victim.
Female Vampire Factor: You have two. First is the Queen of Darkness who is mainly just seen in the films beginning as she's being resurrected.
Then you have Suzie once the Queen takes over her body.
Final Opinion: This is a B-movie from Indonesia where the only real vampiric thing about the vampires in the film is that they do have fangs. Otherwise, the main vampire Suzie's method of killing is stabbing people with sharp objects. Also, she doesn't actually drink the blood of her victims as it is then sucked in by the spirit of the Queen of Darkness via a mirror that she is trapped in.
The film itself gives some "Weird Science" vibes in that the bulk of it is really about showing off how hot Suzie is. A ton of screen time goes to just checking out her sexy outfits she would seduce men with, pretty much just making her Lisa from Weird Science if she was less helpful and super homicidal.
I give the film a Vampire Beauty Rating of 2 out of 5. You definitely aren't watching this film for the plot with much of it coming off more unintentionally comedic that horrific. In fact, it feels more like it would have been better as one of those mature FMV video games that came out in that era than a standalone movie since it's that kind of production.
The Gist: While a girl is pledging for a sorority, she rents a video tape that turns her into a vampire by watching it.
Clarification: That's the best you're going to get as an explanation for this film because it really has no coherent story. Things just happen in random orders and honestly this could be split into two different films. The first being the kind of coherent story of the sorority girl turning into a vampire after watching a cursed video tape.
and a secondary less coherent and overall pointless one of a mad scientist kidnapping sorority girls and attempting to force them to have vampire babies.
Final Opinion: The concept of the story sounds great in principle, but the execution is horrible. It would honestly be better off as just a compilation of standalone vampire scenes as there is quite a bit of those that aren't horrible if it weren't for the fact that everything setting it up is bad and barely comprehendible. On top of that the vampires in the cursed video tape get a ton of time and it's not like some mysterious video like The Ring. It's literally just softcore vampire posing.
So despite all the great vampire media you get from it I can't really give it more than a Vampire Beauty Rating of 1 out of 5. If this were to be re-made but with them completely ditching the vampire doctor trying to breed babies thing it might work. Then again just watch the film Vampires of Sorority Row which at this point for me is the standard for low budget, badly written but watchable due to hot female vampires B-movies.
The Gist: A woman who secretly has a sexual obsession with her stepson is manipulated by a super villain to use those feelings to get a secret formula from him that would give him superpowers.
Clarification: This film starring Shannon Tweed is about a woman who falls in love with her late husband's son who just happens to be inheriting all his father's research (basically he created a formula that gives people superpowers). The film is fun to watch in a old school Cinemax guilty pleasure sort of away as the plot and everything about the film is wall to wall fan service. Especially since the supervillain's main henchman amount to two really hot woman who wear revealing costumes throughout.
Female Vampire Factor: As mentioned, the main plot revolves around a woman who has a thing for her stepson which is adult film stereotype 101.
Problem for her though outside of the son having the logic of a 10-year-old who is very confused about the idea that his stepmom might be hot is that he has an equally hot girlfriend. It becomes clear that the mom becomes jealous of her and by the films end both end up taking the serum to get superpowers and fighting it out. It is here when the mother gets superpowers, is renamed Electra and gets her own sexy outfit.
Oh, and did I forget to mention she got the superpowers by molesting her stepson as apparently, they can be spread sexually?
Well, when Stepmom and her stepson's girlfriend fight it out there is a point where they stop as stepmom somehow transforms into the girlfriends missing mother. When the girlfriend then let's her guard down Mom turns back, sprouts fang and stabs her with her nails before licking the blood off her fingers.
Final Opinion: So is this really a vampire film? Not really but does include a fanged woman who drinks blood which makes it good enough. Otherwise the target audience here is people into low budget superhero style films with a small bit of Cinemax style nudity thrown in. I give it a Vampire Beauty Rating of 3 out of 5. Because it's unintentionally funny it's actually a pretty easy and sometimes enjoyable watch if you're into cheesy films.
Night Gallery is a short story anthology series produced by Rod Serling of The Twilight Zone fame. Best described as a horror/supernatural version of the twilight zone it aired for three seasons from 1970 to 1973.
Out of the three seasons of the show only the first didn't have at least one episode that dealt with the subject of vampires but only this season three episode dealt specifically with female vampires. If I were to have any complaint about this episode it's the fact that this story is well below the standard of anything that would have aired on the twilight zone. The saving grace is the visuals for the female vampire are wonderful.
The female vampire in this particular episode is played by Leslie Anne Warren who is the character Hyasen. Hyasen lives on a barge in a riverbank just outside a city and a guy named Ron notices her and develops a hardcore crush on her which makes sense considering every time we see him watching her she's basically seductively posing.
Problem is Ron has a girlfriend. Well not exactly a problem for him as he ignores her and treats her like dirt so telling her he doesn't want her around because he wants hot boat girl that he has had no contact without outside of talking to her on her boat from shore is nothing for him. Ron's girlfriend Phillis instead of looking for someone who would treat her better she instead researches Hyason in hopes of finding dirt on her which she does learning that she is behind multiple disappearances in the area. Not only that but she sneaks on the barge where she learns that Hyason is indeed a vampire. Hyason catches her spying and attacks her but Phylis escapes.
Phylis gives Ron the info which he ignores and goes to meet Hyason who thanks to the water succeeding can get off the boat. Ron tells Hyason he knows she's a vampire and is not exactly on board with the whole having his blood sucked game but she tries anway and he takes off and instead ends up killing his friend who followed him.
The episode ends with Ron heading back to the barge with the intent to kill Hyason which she intends on letting him do as long as he tells her he loves her while he does it but when he see's her laying there he gets all gaga for her and can't do it.
He then decides to have makeout session with her instead but before she can bite him her father shows up, takes the stake that Ron brought and stakes his own daughter ending her.
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