Art for art's sake? Vampyres (1974)

Sally Faulkner

Vampyres is one of the biggest cult films of its era, a lesbian vampire thriller with few holds barred and one which kicks off as it means to go on with the bloody murder of two women as they make love in an old dark house, in the silken sheets of a grand old bedroom. It’s an extraordinary start to the film and, you have to wonder, if it was director José Ramón Larraz’s main idea for what is essentially a vampire mystery film. Firstly, it doesn’t seem to fit with any of the traditional origins for vampires, ghosts yes, but not the undead who feast on human blood and secondly, there is no explanation of why this was done to the women and how this fits into the narrative, for a long time I was expecting it to be a flash forward.

I’ve seen Larraz’s work before, notably The House that Vanished (1973) and, whilst he’s so good with building atmosphere and disquiet, there are elements of exploitative violence that I found too much. The best actor in Vampyres is Sally Faulkner who plays a young married woman, Harriet, who is caravanning near the decrepit mansion where the two vampires haunt. She delivers a naturalistic performance that anchors the film’s unreality and narrative acceleration towards the abnormal and all of the director’s horror tropes rely on her counterpoint, otherwise it’s just a bloodbath.

All of this may have been despite rather than because of Larraz’s direction with Faulkner made to feel uncomfortable during the making of a film, an experience she described as unpleasant. Despite her experience on stage and screen, felt the director was disrespectful: "It was not that we were seeking star treatment… José was very single minded and not supportive—he was particularly critical of me." Maybe he wanted to rile one of his more able cast members and perhaps that was for the benefit of certain aspects of his film, but it’s hard not to view this as unpleasant and unnecessary. You get actors in to perform and not just react José.

Murray Brown and Marianne Morris

So, for me these aspects undermine the overall impact of a film that contains many fine moments of weirdness and tension. But maybe I’m too squeamish, although there were certainly enough critics at the time who agreed though with David Pirie, in The Monthly Film Bulletin, opining "it is rare for sex and violence to be so completely and graphically integrated in a British movie..." whilst Screen International's Marjorie Bilbow described the film as "A let down for horror addicts, with fringe benefits for voyeurs."

In between the bloody beginning and some supremely unpleasant scenes towards the ending, we’re treated to an Angle-Spanish take on Daughters of Darkness with less style and more red sauce. We meet Harriet (Sally Faulkner) and John (Brian Deacon) as they head off on holiday with their caravan in tow. They pass a cloaked woman at the side of the road trying to catch a lift although Harriet says she spies a second behind a tree, as with many things to come, John overrules his partner’s judgement, he’s very much in the normal world, a calming presence as is always required in these films were the unthinkable only happens slowly. The two park up in a field overlooking the mansion and there’s a strangeness in the night when Harriet sees lights on in the house and a hand clutches at their window… or does it? John thinks no, of course.

Anulka Dziubinska

The next day, a man called Ted (Murray Brown) stops his car to pick up the glamorous hitchhiker in the exact same spot and she reveals her name as Fran (Marianne Morris) and the two chat as he drives her towards her home, the large shadowy mansion featured in the film’s introduction. She invites him in and, being made of flesh and blood, he can hardly refuse and, after wine and some preamble, they embrace and he decides to stay the night.

He awakes in a daze with a strange wound, he shrugs it off and makes his way to the caravan for some Dettol and a large plaster. Just as we think Ted’s ready for a lucky escape, the memories of last night’s good time cause him to wait for Fran’s return and near dusk she arrives with the blonde Miriam (Playboy model Anulka Dziubinska, in her first film role) along with another young man, Rupert (Karl Lanchbury). The evening’s revels begin and, whilst Ted is passed out, the women kill and feast on the body of this new male body before showering together to wash his blood away if not their sins.

Intrigued by the comings and goings, Harriet follows the two women as they make their way across the countryside in the morning towards a graveyard where she loses their trail. Ted meanwhile had roused himself enough to drive away and he passes a road accident in which he sees the mutilated body of Rupert… Unable to calculate two plus two, Ted is also unable to resist returning to the house where surely his blood count and increasing number of questions will increase his chances of dangerous driving.

Murray Brown's Ted feels drained and confused...

Harriet meanwhile is more and more resolved to find out what exactly is happening even as John tries to get her to focus just on their caravan, tins of corned beef and gas stove. The various pennies are going to drop at some point and perhaps then we will properly understand the beginning.

Dusty verdict: I can see why Vampyres has a cult reputation for its flexing of various vampiric tropes and its focus on female dominance and male victims, even though Hammer has already been there, albeit less explicitly. There has been some re-evaluation in recent years with film scholar Leon Hunt noting that "the male heterosexual narrative of Vampyres, is an explicitly masochistic one," as the male characters in the film are relegated to "props" used for the vampires' sexual encounters with each other. However, I’m not sure I buy that given the amount of female flesh and degradation on show. This is exploitation no matter how much academic revisionism might try and find new meanings.

As I said earlier, it has a good atmosphere and some good performances, notably Sally as well as Murray Brown and Marianne Morris who is really acting for two alongside Anulka. There’s also a surprising cameo form one of the greatest silent film actors, Bessie Love who worked with DW Griffith and everyone else from the 1910s onwards, is shown as the wife of a rich American about to but the cute, haunted house. What could possibly go wrong…

 

The amazing Bessie Love, sixty years in film...

 

 

 

 

Running on empty… The Body Stealers (1969)

You could argue that this film makes the most of its obviously limited budget and it does feel as if they either used up the funding too quickly or had it cut abruptly! At the start we see parachutists in the air, helicopters taking off and landing and a variety of locations but, as the story progresses we spend more and more time in studio. Dialogue and not special effects leads the way and even the alien spaceship had to be rented from the Daleks*.

But there’s a quality cast who do their best to keep things going, hampered as they are by a patchy plot that desperately wants to achieve far more than it actually does. You can’t really dislike such a film: its intentions are good and it does have some splendid sixties skirts, cardigans and slacks along with shots of the Red Arrows to redeem itself even if its ideas eventually collapse in on themselves due to a lack of aliens with motivation…

Watching parachutes

Things start promisingly enough as a group of military top brass led by General Armstrong (George Sanders) gather to watch a test dive for some revolutionary new parachutes designed by Jim Radford (Neil Connery brother of Sean…). All is going well until there’s a glow in the sky and the three men completely disappear leaving their back backs and chutes to fly to earth without them.

Top brass

It’s a situation the government wants to keep as quiet as possible and as the men gather in government offices they are left in no doubt by Hindsmith (Allan Cuthbertson) that answers must be found before any fuss is made. Hindsmith is an archetypal smug man of power who seems to view his hapless secretary, Joanna (Sally Faulkner – who featured in the classic Doctor Who serial, The Invasion – another link!) as part of his rights and privileges.

Allan Cuthbertson and Sally Faulkner

An investigation is duly launched but before long abduction takes place, this time in full view at a crowded airshow. There’s some great stock footage of the Hawker Hunter era Red Arrows followed by one of the film’s few special effects as a parachutist is zapped by a heat beam before vanishing.

A special effect

As the crisis grows it is decided that freelancer Bob Megan (dynamically-voiced Patrick Allen) is the best bet for reaching a swift conclusion without too much fuss… Jim finds him enjoying an amorous picnic with a young blonde called Paula (Carol Hawkins) having flown to the middle of nowhere… Bob’s twin passions being “birds” and aviation.

Patrick Allen and Carol Hawkins

Bob agrees to help his mate especially when he discovers that he knows many of the missing men: all of them highly trained parachutists and flyers. He is taken to a NATO research facility where he meets the scientists leading the analysis, Dr. Matthews (Maurice Evans) and Julie Slade (Hilary Dwyer) with whose biology he immediately takes a concern. Interesting point on the sixties mind-set here: sexual combativeness seems to have acted as a signifier of heroic tendencies… and Mr. Bond, I blame you.

Bob sets his sights on the attractive scientist... (Neil realises it's all Sean's fault...)

Doctor Slade rebuffs Bob’s efforts to establish how she’s “doin’” and tries hard to keep in on the point and it’s now that the talking really begins as the action shifts to focus on the research facility. Doctor Matthews hints at possible interstellar intervention whilst one of the missing men is found, his body chemistry altered and with a radiation level high enough to power a small nuclear submarine.

Meanwhile Bob has taken up digs in a local pub at which he shares a few doubles with a landlord called Mrs. Thatcher (Shelagh Fraser) – if only she could have been snatched and used to replace the other Mrs. T… the school milk would still have been taken away but it would have been replaced by gin.

Lorna Wilde

From the pub Bob goes on a late night walk along the beach where he encounters an ethereal beauty staring out at space and the sea. She is Lorna (Lorna Wilde) and, in addition to being a woman of obvious mystery is unable to resist Bob’s charming directness… the two embrace before she picks herself up and runs away… Bob and Lorna meet again the next evening and she happier to linger longer… there’s something strange about her and not just her instant attraction to Bob’s knitwear…

Don't worry, Julie's only being knocked mildly unconscious...

The team investigates the parachutes finding similar levels of radiation… and then the chutes go missing after Julie is knocked unconscious…. But still the mystery seems as big as ever although the situation is now so serious that it is ruining Hindsmith’s ability to concentrate on his extra-curricular activities involving Joanna who, disappointed for some reason, tells him to look elsewhere for extra tea and biscuits.

The answer – it seems – is to send Bob up in a special radiation-proof costume to see if he can avoid the teleportation and discover more about the process and the people involved.

Bob is assailed by alien rays!

Whilst this ramps the tension up from “de-frost” to simmer, it hardly brings things to the boil: Bob is duly assailed by the red rays but survives the jump in order to tell the tale and to land himself in brave convalescence nursed by Julie… but events are moving quickly now and they just might be onto something…shocking!

Dusty verdict: Gerry Levy directs this patchy affair with efficiency – probably his only way forward in the circumstances and his actors keep straight faces in their attempt to make a drama out of the crisis of the script. The music by Reg Tilsey is also good value; providing dramatic impetus when the lack of effects begins to intrude…

Patrick Allen and George Sanders

 Patrick Allen strides manfully through his scenes and is a believable hero if an unconventional love interest. Neil Connery looks a lot like brother Sean but he cannot act like him even though he does well. Sanders, Cuthbertson and Evans provide solid character-acting whilst the array of pretty actresses from Sally to Lorna and Hilary all manage to bring some trace sense of being more than just adornments to the plot.

Hilary Dwyer

As I said The Body Stealers is not an unlikeable film and is ideal - undemanding - rainy afternoon viewing when you want to be taken back to a time when technology was more respected and the future was approaching with far greater certainty than it is now…

The film is now available on good value DVD from Odeon Entertainment from MovieMail or Amazon – but I think I’ll keep hold of my old VHS.

*Re-used from the Doctor Who film Daleks Invasion Earth: 2150AD

The Red Arrows!

A woman of mystery...

Joanna's had enough...

Neil impersonates Sean...

Stranger on the shore

Spot the difference: Dalek ship on the right