#karnstein trilogy

[papsiguesss]

“May I have this dance tonight?”

Couldn’t stop thinking about General Spieldorf and how badly I wished I would have been the one waltzing with him during the party scene… so I had to draw him 🥹

[thechemistryset]

John Hough, Twins of Evil, 1971

[macgyvertape]

Movies from this week are Dracula (1936) and the 2 sequels Dracula’s Daughter, and Son of Dracula; as well as the Karnstein Trilogy of Hammer Studios (The Vampire Lovers, Lust for a Vampire, Twins of Evil). The 1930s Dracula collection also included House of Dracula and House of Frankenstein (which I didn't watch). I unintentionally seemed to have picked notable entries in the genre of lesbian vampire films (Daughter of Dracula & Karnstein movies).

Some thoughts and questions:

The 1930s films were affected by the Hays code, despite a lot of unsourced statements otherwise. The Karnstein movies were also affected by the British Board of Film Classification, which I didn't know was a UK censorship board.

I’m interested in the difference between Hays code and recently post Hays code movies (also fuck the Hayes code). My impression of Hammer studios was based on their pre Hayes code films, and that is rapidly changing due to their 70s sexploitation films with a lot of topless scenes.

My October 2022 vampire movie month has now extended to reading non fiction filmography books; Celluloid Vampires; Life after Death in the Modern World and The Hammer Story: The Authorised History of Hammer Films.

Sad I don’t know enough about the 1930s to recognize any distinctive fashion markers, or even how much suits like that were worn daily. How hot and awful would it be to wear a 1930s suit all day outside like in the movie, nowadays?

I had a moment of mentally re-framing things when I remembered the 30s movies were made and some were set during the Great Depression. It’s a period of time I only really know from AP US History class briefly touching on it; and in pop culture reading Grapes of Wrath, and the American Girl Kit series. I’d be fascinated to read reviews from when these movies came out, just because I have such a pop culture influenced mental image of daily life during that time.

Son of Dracula was done “Filming began on January 7, 1943 and concluded on February 2”, was that short production schedule typical to the time, since this would have been during WW2?

I didn't realize 1930s Universal had a monster cinematic universe, with not just Dracula but other monsters as well. Makes their failure to launch the "Dark Cinematic Universe" in the late 2010s even more embarrassing. Watching House of Dracula the movie definitely expected my to be familiar with the Frankenstein movies.

A lot of ableism to unpack about how the poster advertises “hunchback” alongside the other villains like it’s a genre trope. I’ve seen some of the post genre parody with Terry Pratchett Igor, and I didn't realize this trope originated from the Universal 1930s movies.

My favorite movie was: The Vampire Lovers (1970) - in good horror the vampire isn't just a vampire, in this film it's also about a 70s view of predatory lesbianism and female sexuality. I support women’s wrongs: there should be more female vampire/human monster romance. The extremely homoerotic topless scenes were a lot of fun to watch, especially with how much of an ingenue Emma was. The costuming seemed like it was going for an early 1800s fashion and I found it interesting in how much variety there was in the dresses.

My least favorite movie was Son of Dracula (1943) - this is the only 1930s Dracula film that has multiple black characters but only in minor roles, and they are all extremely dated servant stereotypes. I would be cheering on Alucard preying on the main characters especially because they live on a damn plantation but to be really petty he didn't even bother not to have an American accent. The script has other problems, but why change the setting to the Deep South then do nothing with that setting?

[crystaalzinho]

[calliecastle10]

Finish it I must!

We must make painful choices, I do what’s necessary, Jenny!

What choice but simple duty?!

[abs0luteb4stard]

W A T C H I N G

[akilahia]

Don't piss me off Karnstein Trilogy.

[thefollows]

Loved the sets, costumes, and style of these The Karnstein Trilogy films.

And what movie isn’t better with twins! Even family gets them mixed up.

[bandaidfingers]

🦇🩷THE VAMPIRE LOVERS (1970)🩷🦇

Another Carmilla adaptation. It’s also the first film in Hammer Horror’s Karnstein trilogy, and the only one that is a direct adaptation, both on this little list of mine and in the other Hammer Karnstein movies. I found this one a little boring the first time I watched it a few years ago, but I have enjoyed it on rewatch every time since. It’s colorful, it’s suspenseful, and with lots of passionate kisses exchanged between lovely Ingrid Pitt and her various female costars, it’s also a little sexy. One of my favorite parts of the Carmilla novel, which this movie includes, is Laura’s nightmares of a large cat attacking her in her bed—a manifestation of Carmilla praying on her while she sleeps—and so I had to draw it.

third drawing in my lesbian vampire illustration series :)

and you can buy the original drawing HERE :)

[livefromcastledracula]

Book Carmilla vs Adaptations (SPOILERS)

Here are a few 'interesting' adaptations. I like some of them for their own merits, but mostly dislike them as Carmilla adaptations for the below reasons, with some notable exceptions: Vampyr: The Dream of Allan Gray (1932 film): The first Carmilla inspired movie, although it keeps almost NOTHING from the novella except 'female vampire'. In this case, a creepy old lady rather than a charming young lesbian. This is a really moody, slow, acid trip of a film though, a treat for fans of vintage vampire film. (3/10) Hammer Karnstein Trilogy: The Vampire Lovers is the gayest and most book-accurate. Carmilla still kisses/seduces men before killing them, boo. The second one her identically-named reincarnation is blonde and has sex with / falls in love with a man booooooo. She's not in the third one at all. It's all very 70's and nowhere near queer enough, but at least we got the incomparable Ingrid Pitt in the first movie. 5/10. Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust: 'Carmilla' shows up as a surprise third act villain. She's an elegant and imposing vampire queen with a castle called "Cjethe" and the Vampire King offed her previously for being A Bit Too Extra. She's... Bathory. She's Elizabeth Bathory, right down to the name of her historical castle, the elaborate gowns and the blood-bathing. Bathory in Castlevania Nocturne even looks a lot like this one. Cool scary vampire lady, but Carmilla In Name Only. 4/10 Castlevania (Games): She's fine here, but mostly just kind of a big Dracula groupie like most of the other non-Dracula vampires. Often depicting as a flying skull or mask crying bloody tears, with optional succubus-like figure reclining on top of it. Cool. Rondo of Blood has her appear together with a ninja vampire Laura with bunny ears because why the hell not. 6/10 Castlevania (Netflix show): Baddass, angry Karen. She's amazing in the first season when she's scheming against Dracula, but after that she just sort of sits on her butt sipping wine and griping about men for a whole season until Isaac storms her castle. A cool character but not a great Carmilla, because Carmilla for me is defined by how much she loves women, not how much she hates men. Still amazing voice work by Jaime Murray though and her last stand was insanely baddass. 7/10

Carmilla Web Series / Movie: My favorite adaptation. It's obviously playing waaaay fast and loose with the canon and reframing her as a charming antihero in a zany urban fantasy, but there's deep current of love for the source material, especially in the movie. Natasha Negovanlis has charisma off the charts and the Hollstein romance is adorable. This Carmilla might be a black-leather-wearing snarky millenial goth with a Canadian accent, but as the show goes on it peels back layer after layer of the romantic, poetic, wistful, world-weary immortal hinted at by the novella. This show redeems LeFanu's lovelorn villain in all the best ways. 10/10. 2019 movie / Styria movie: I still haven't seen these, have heard good things about the gothic cinematography on the most recent one but not good things about the rest of it. The trailer looked moody and pretty though, I may watch it at some point.

[whoiwanttoday]

I am posting some Madeline Smith today because I rewatched the Vampire Lovers last night. It's a movie I have always held near and dear to my heart since I was just a little kid and watched it and was pretty sure it's about as erotic as a movie can get. Usually that leads to me posting Ingrid Pitt, who is the titular Vampire but it's a Hammer movie from the 70's and Hammer Glamour means all the girls are kind of titular if you get my drift. Anyway, I adore the old Hammer stuff and I am not going to claim everyone needs to rush out and see any of it but there's a reason its the stuff that has stood the test of time. If you don't know, Lesbian vampires were a huge, huge cinema trend in the 70's but it's the Hammer Karnstein trilogy that has maintained it's place in the world of horror while most of the rest have fallen away (you can make an argument for Vampiros Lesbos but that is really something only mega nerds know, so you've just outted yourself as a mega nerd if you were thinking of that). I would say @kat-eleven could give you her opinion as she watched the movie but her opinion was wrong, full of takes like, "Why are those girls kissing" and "I feel bad for the boys who won't get to have a wife now cause the girls are all kissing each other". To each their own I guess. Madeline Smith was in quite a few Hammer movies over the years and looked great in all of them. I have actually posted her twice before but I bet it's been since 2016 or so I did the last time. She has very big eyes which are good at conveying a doe eyed sort of innocence that works for Gothic Horror. She has to be innocent and naive for some of it to work. She also has big other things which is important when fulfilling Hammer Glamour, the term applied to Hammer's use of period dress that was rather low cut. But classy cause it was olden days. A sophisticants cleavage if you will. Anyway, here is Madeline Smith with all her big eyes and sophisticated cleaveage. Today I want to fuck Madeline Smith.

[nickmarino]

The Karnstein Trilogy (1970-1971)

[docrotten]

LUST FOR A VAMPIRE (1971) – Episode 196 – Decades Of Horror 1970s

“He had a heart attack.” And you get a heart attack! Everybody gets a heart attack! Is that normal? Join your faithful Grue Crew – Doc Rotten, Bill Mulligan, Chad Hunt, and Jeff Mohr – as they count the heart attacks while they continue their reverse trek through Hammer’s Karnstein Trilogy with Lust for a Vampire (1971).

Decades of Horror 1970s Episode 196 – Lust for a Vampire (1971)

Join the Crew on the Gruesome Magazine YouTube channel! Subscribe today! And click the alert to get notified of new content! https://youtube.com/gruesomemagazine

Decades of Horror 1970s is partnering with the WICKED HORROR TV CHANNEL (https://wickedhorrortv.com/) which now includes video episodes of the podcast and is available on Roku, AppleTV, Amazon FireTV, AndroidTV, and its online website across all OTT platforms, as well as mobile, tablet, and desktop.

In 1830, forty years to the day since the last manifestation of their dreaded vampirism, the Karnstein heirs use the blood of an innocent to bring forth the evil that is the beautiful Mircalla, or as she was in 1710, Carmilla.

  Director: Jimmy Sangster

Writers: Tudor Gates (screenplay); J. Sheridan Le Fanu (based on characters created by)

Selected Cast:

Barbara Jefford as Countess Herritzen

Ralph Bates as Giles Barton

Suzanna Leigh as Janet Playfair

Yutte Stensgaard as Mircalla / Carmilla Karnstein

Michael Johnson as Richard Lestrange

Helen Christie as Miss Simpson

Mike Raven as Count Karnstein (dubbed by  Valentine Dyall)

Christopher Cunningham as Coachman

Harvey Hall as Inspector Heinrich

Michael Brennan as Landlord

Pippa Steel as Susan Pelley

Judy Matheson as Amanda McBride

Caryl Little as Isabel Courtney

David Healy as Raymond Pelley

Jonathan Cecil as Arthur Biggs

Erik Chitty as Professor Herz (as Eric Chitty)

Jack Melford as Bishop

Christopher Neame as Hans

Kirsten Lindholm as Peasant Girl

Luan Peters as Trudi

In the Seventies, Hammer Films struggled to find its way as horror films moved away from gothic horror into modern-day terrors; however, the company famous for Dracula and Frankenstein did earn some success with a trio of films referred to as The Karnstein Trilogy. The Grue Crew settles in to revisit the middle entry, Lust for a Vampire, which follows Vampire Lovers (1970) and leads into Twins of Evil (1971). Unfortunately, the film was plagued with misfortune from the onset: both Peter Cushing and Ingrid Pitt refused to return; the original director, Terence Fisher, suffered injuries when he was hit by a car and was replaced at the last minute by Jimmy Sangster; the director and the writer clashed with producers who insisted on including the pop song “Strange Love.” Even co-star Ralph Bates called the feature, “One of the worst films ever made.” Certainly, there must be some highlights. Certainly…

At the time of this writing, Lust for a Vampire is available to stream from  Shudder, AMC+, Tubi, and Flix Fling. The movie is also available on physical media as a Blu-ray from Shout! Factory.

Gruesome Magazine’s Decades of Horror 1970s is part of the Decades of Horror two-week rotation with The Classic Era and the 1980s. In two weeks, the next episode, chosen by Doc, will be Kingdom of the Spiders (1977). William Shatner and 5,000 spiders! What could go wrong?

We want to hear from you – the coolest, grooviest fans: comment on the site or email the Decades of Horror 1970s podcast hosts at feedback@gruesomemagazine.com. 

Check out this episode!

[falsebooles123]

Finding the First Gay Kiss - Diary of a Big Ole Gay - 3/6/23

Hey Whores, How you been can't remember the last time we talked. Totally not staring into the abyss of fear and shitting myself. Hiiiiii.

(yeah I'm just trying my best right now and or going insane)

so I'm trying my best to get some hours this month so that I can in fact pay my bills and its been stressful. But it turns out that when I'm stressed I watch a lot of movies so heres what's been going on.

Victim (1961) dir. Basil Dearden

A spirtual sucessor to Anders die als Andern this is 2 hours of a crime thriller that just so happens to be about gay people. This film is part of British New Wave which tends to be very focused on british margenilized groups and Dearden manages to be surprisingly sympathetic for the time period. Sure this film features tortured gays who don't even get to fuck a twink but this is a lot better representation then most of the queer rep during the period.

Its important to recognize the effects that censoreship had on the time period. I still have to do some research on british censorship because it is different from american censorship but suffice to say, gays weren't meant to be depicted in a wholesome way so the Tortured Gay Trope stems from that influence. Gays who wanted to stick there dick in some pussy and be "fixed" was the story people could tell with gay people so it was the story they told.

Lust for a Vampire (1971) dir. Jimmy Sangster

The second in the Karnstein Trilogy (yes I watched all three), this one is only slightly lesbian. We have nubile women walking around with there titties out, we have pretty vampire lady being a little interested in the ladies and then .... she fucks a dude.

Yeah they no homoed this lesbian vampire. This is the last in the series that has any lesbian undertones as Twins of Evil is a lot more like a classic folk horror then a lesbian vampire story. There all alright films but I was also very sad when I watched them.

The Vampire Lovers (1970) dir. Roy Ward Baker

Oh Carmilla!

This film is the most faithful to the Carmilla canon. Its a movie where Baker told the Censor board. But Hays Prude's!!!!!! this is based on a classic gothic story, the Lesbanism is like so important to the plot and she has to have her titties out to its like symbolism you know and one they like play with each others tits thats like super hot... I mean like double symbolism. We're respecting the source material.

Yeah this is a movie that centers lesbians for the male gaze and who doesn't like tittys but theres also some aspects that are just gross. Apparently the young coquette was told that her nude scenes would only be for the "Japanese Audience" and the Carmilla Actor encouraged her to go nude despite her misgivings. So its giving double predatory lesbian vibes.

I will say that this is very faithful to the plot despite the fan service and they make a point of making these vampires follow the original rules of the Le Fanu story.

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958) dir. Richard Brooks

Fuck I forgot how hot the two leads were. Fun Fact: This film was in color because the director wanted to show off how pretty the actors eyes were which is absolutely a good reason.

This is another Tenessee Williams play which I feel like I have a relevant quote here somewhere.

Yeah, so as we know local asshole, Will Hays, was like wah wah theres to many coke orgies in my movies about white supremacy myths, think about the children just not the ones in the mines. (yes I understand that it was a multi-person thing and this stamp licker was just the figure head I too have read Hollywood Babylon now shush), so everyone got together to write a wet blanket code to censor shit and some of that shit was THE GAYS. Thats not to say that that inherenetly stopped queer films from happening, (through the gayest Code Film I have is Slyvia Scarlet after that we mostly have a lot of queer subtext and foreign films like Clud de Femmes or the Orphic Trilogy), but as we get into the 50s and 60s the main we began to see films be more about the stigma of gayness. Theres a few different films that act out the pansy scare, (Tea & Sympathy, The Childrens Hour), were people are accused of being little homos, and these types of sexual repression films were if were lucky its something like Victim (1961) or Detective (1968) were these homos are actually gay they just hate themselves, (remember that the Hays Code was like you can have shit they just have to be villanized or shown that its a tormented lifestyle: See the Queer-Coded Villian), and at worse its just implied that this is the reason this person was sad and killed themselves. 

T-Billy plays actually work well on this front which is probably one of the reasons why so many got made during this time frame. The Hays Prudes were loosening the iron grip on queer depictions and T-Billy's Ouvre was already playing with like the specter of queer subtext so it was a match made in some prudes queer-erasasing heaven. I think that its also a testiment to the power of how gay Tenessee Williams is, that when you literally do a hachet job and try to rip out the queerness of his films. The queerness is just felt that more strongly. He was a master of somehow writting negative queer representation. Storys were the missing person in the room is on everyones mind. 

wow honestly I have been popping off with my reviews lately.

So put it simply this movie has a lot of queer subtext but they also take out all of the parts of the original play that was actually super gay. Its still an amazing film but it misses points in the queer catergory due to censoreship.

A Taste of Honey (1961) dir. Tony Richardson

so lets talk about british new wave. basically it was a lot of arthouse nonsense adapting plays about disenfranchise poor brits. This film is about a bunch of british people "That just didn't exist". Namely people like single mothers, interraccial couples and a singuler gay.

I've been writing out full reviews for the last couple films and I'm just been very mentally drained lately. so if you want a bigger description check out my Letterboxd.

This films gay rep is absolutely shitty. This man doesn't even call himself gay his gal pal just insinuates it. he doesn't have a boyfriend hes literally just this artsy domestic sort and it is very lazy rep in terms of writing. Don't get me wrong as a film this disserves the accolades it has but it doesn't get points in the queer films category.

It might explain why I've had a hard time with these films as of late. The 1960s are kinda the low point of the queer movie watchlist as we arn't dealing with the sexy queer subtext, (rebecca is iconic we stan) and we arn't dealing with the bright aggresiveness of New Queer Wave so this decade is like the Queer Truama Porn of Early Queer Cinema (yeah thats what I'm calling it now)

Everything Else I Watched Recently

The Great Train Robbery (1903), The Broken Butterfly (1919), Thelma and Louise (1991), The Blood on Satan's Claw (1971), The Toll of the Sea (1922). Antonio da Silva short films.

Also been watching a lot of television lately

Junji Ito Maniac - Trash

Cunk on Earth - Iconic

28 Days Haunted - absolute trash and iconic.

I'm gonna try to finish watching the staircase at some point this week and I will try to keep up with my gay movie watching i've just kinda burned out on life right now.

[thecraggus]

Twins Of Evil (1971) Review

Twins Of Evil (1971) Review What better way to close out the Karnstein vampire trilogy than with a barely related tale of witchcraft and witch-hunts?... click link to read more Read the full article

[takanuru]

**The Karnstein Trilogy: Gothic Horror, Vampires, and Forbidden Desires*...