This was nearly an episode about Lesbian Vampire Killers.
Instead, we we have chosen the 1970s vampiric gothic horror masterpiece, The Vampire Lovers starring Ingrid Pitt and Peter Cushing. Is it actually scary? Probably not, but vampires are inherently queer and this one is actually a lesbian!
This is a queer movie watch party for your ears, hosted by Rowan Ellis and Jazza John. Join us as we take a look at the queer film canon, one genre at a time. From rom-coms to slashers, contemporary arthouse cinema to comedy classics - Queer Movie Podcast is a celebration of all things queer on the silver screen!
New episodes every other Thursday.
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Production
- Hosts: Rowan Ellis and Jazza John
- Editor: Julia Schifini
- Executive Producer: Multitude
- Artwork: Jessica E. Boyd
Transcript
[Intro Music]
JAZZA: Welcome to the Queer Movie Podcast, celebrating the best.
ROWAN: And worst.
JAZZA: In LGBTQ+ cinema. One glorious genre at a time.
ROWAN: I'm Rowan Ellis.
JAZZA: And I'm Jazza John. Each episode we discuss a movie from a different genre of cinema.
ROWAN: This episode, genre is--
ROWAN & JAZZA: Queer Horror..
JAZZA: [vampire laugh]
ROWAN: Thanks, Jazza.
JAZZA: But, before we dive into this week's episode, Rowan, what's the gayest thing you've done since we last spoke?
ROWAN: Well, this is actually something that I've wanted to do for a long time. But every time I've tried to do it, there's been a It's not been available for me. And that is volunteering for a Queer Organization specifically for a Queer Youth Group or kind of youth mentoring organization, something like that. And there's, sadly not a lot of them in London, and a lot of them kind of were at capacity or weren't doing their services because of COVID. But at the beginning of the year, I applied and I've just found out today that I've been accepted, so I'm very excited. I've got to do some training, obviously, very soon, but yeah, I'm gonna get to do some mentoring.
JAZZA: It's gonna be so cool. And you're officially becoming a Queer Elder--
ROWAN: Oh my God.
JAZZA: --soon anyway, aren't you?
ROWAN: Yeah, I am.
JAZZA: Yeah.
ROWAN: In a week's time, I will indeed hit 30 and therefore--
JAZZA: Good then.
ROWAN: --become an OAP.
JAZZA: Uh-huh. As a as a cis gay man, I stopped aging at 24. So let me know--
ROWAN: You never will reach that, yeah, I'll let you know what it's like.
JAZZA: Awesome. Thank you so much.
ROWAN: And Jazza, what's the gayest thing that you've done since we last spoke?
JAZZA: So recently, the UK started lifting lockdown restrictions, right? And we were able to have familiar relations again. I had relations with an individual and was able for the first time to actually complete a full session of prep. Do you know how prep works?
ROWAN: I was wondering where you were going with it. I was like, complete a full session of what?
JAZZA: Yeah, it's not session--
ROWAN: --[2:00] I was like a full, a full session of--
JAZZA: A full of [2:03] like a--
ROWAN: --[2:03] relations, you able to what?
JAZZA: I full cycle, a full cycle of [2:06].
ROWAN: Pretty you.
JAZZA: So I do have that you're able to get it on the NHS now. And it is for anybody who doesn't know a medication that prevents you from getting HIV. And how it works is you're meant to take it two hours before you have relations. And then afterwards you've had relations in order to properly protect yourself. In the past, I have only ever prepared to have the relations and never had to complete the whole cycle of prep.
ROWAN: Oh my God, that's the saddest thing I've ever heard, that's hilarious.
JAZZA: Is it.
ROWAN: You know what, that was excellent. That was a very good--
JAZZA: Thank you--
ROWAN: --gayest thing I've done since [2:42]--
JAZZA: Yeah yeah yeah. I feel like an actual adult now.
ROWAN: Look at you.
JAZZA: [2:45] yeah, look at me. Man in my 30s, finally able to look after myself.
ROWAN: Full disclosure to everyone listening, Jazza as he said that grinning like a little schoolboy does have a tiny gnome figurine right behi--as he said, I felt like such an adult. There is a tiny gnome figurine right behind him.
JAZZA: I'm an adult who collects plushies and plays D&D like these are--
ROWAN: You know what, fair enough.
JAZZA: Yeah, these are not things that are mutually exclusive.
ROWAN: Yeah, you know what, you're right.
[3:09]
[Transition Music]
JAZZA: The film we have chosen for today is the 1970s vampiric Gothic horror masterpiece. The Vampire Lovers, starring Ingrid Pitt, and the absolute legendary Peter Cushing. So without further ado, let's start nibbling away at Roy Ward Baker's, The Vampire Lovers.
ROWAN & JAZZA: [trumpet sound]
ROWAN: Are you anticipating some kind of like dramatic horror music [3:47]--
JAZZA: Yeah, in my head like it's the the title card.
ROWAN: Excellent.
JAZZA: I actually, vampire [3:53].
ROWAN: I know we just said that we were going to go straight into talking about the history of the genre and the--
JAZZA: Uh-hmm.
ROWAN: --context of it. But I just also need everyone to know not to make this the call out Jazza Podcast. But--
JAZZA: It it already is.
ROWAN: --I came up with a whole list of, honestly, iconic wonderful, queer horror movies have come out. Especially some in the last few years. Because we have had an absolute amazing blossoming of queer horror within the last few years. I came up with an amazing shortlist. Jazza, came up with a movie that I immediately vetoed. That is the movie lesbian Vampire Killers.
JAZZA: Uh-hmm. Which has James--
ROWAN: Which has--
JAZZA: Corden in it.
ROWAN: --James Corden in it, is therefore I hate crime. And I immediately vetoed it. And then the list Jazza went through the list and it. Basically the secret came out that Jazza is a massive baby. And essentially would just was not able to watch an actual horror movie. And so--
JAZZA: Uh-hmm.
ROWAN: --we have watched this movie, which is, horror in the most technical sense of the word.
JAZZA: No, but it's like, it's it's a lot of foundations of horror, like, like it's a classic Gothic, lots of dark cobwebby castles. Lots of screen Queens, a couple of screen Kings.
ROWAN: Yes, every element of horror except the bit where it's scary, which I think suited Jazza just fine.
JAZZA: Yeah.
ROWAN: I think that was--
JAZZA: 100%
ROWAN: --that was, I think he's very pleased with himself that he managed to get this. Because the other, we watched some of the trailers together. And there were a few trailers that Jazz stopped halfway through and went, "Oh, yes, I think we get the idea." And then, and it was very obvious why.
JAZZA: Apparently, I'm quite good to watch horror movies with. Just know that if you ever watch a a legitimate horror movie with me, that is actually scary. I'm not having a nice time. And you know what, in this podcast that I am lucky enough to have with you, Rowan. I want to have a nice time, you know? And I don't think that's too much to ask.
ROWAN: Okay, well, when we connect, spend actual time together, maybe I'll just I'll be like, oh, yeah, let's watch this nice little, like animated children's movie and then just slip in a horror movie instead. You could just hold onto my hand.
JAZZA: Maybe next year's Halloween, we can have a special episode again. And you couldn't actually scare the hell out of me, it will be good.
ROWAN: Yeah, if everyone could just audio clip Jazza, just then essentially promising on his on his firstborn son that he will watch a horror movie with me, that'd be great. So I know that Jazza, you've done normally when we watch these movies, we do a little bit of context. And then we talk to each other and go, oh, wait, shit, did we do the same context maybe hopefully, we looked up different bits of trivia otherwise is going to be very boring for both of us. And luckily, we had kind of done a mix. So I know that you've looked up Hammer Horror, which is the kind of studio and very specific niche genre that this particular movie is in. So would you like to tell me about it? I'm ready to learn.
JAZZA: Yeah yeah yeah, so a Hammer, also great name, Hammer Productions. They were a production house in the UK, who were famous for bringing a lot of classic horror from the black and white era of the 1930s into color. We making a lot of the classics like Frankenstein, Dracula, The Mummy, etc. Remaking them into color movies for audiences throughout the 1950s and 60s. The other thing that they were very well known for doing is having a butt ton of sequels for everything. So this particular movie that we're doing. The Vampire Lovers, has two sequels to it. Lust for a Vampire, released the following year, and then Twins of Evil. Which as far as I have been able to find out on the Wikipedia page was just kind of like the same plot two more times, but with different actors. But to be fair, if the punters are going to go and watch it, then why not right? The reason the The Vampire Lovers itself is quite interesting, and is that a little bit of a tipping point in terms of cinema, is because it was towards the end of the strictness of the Hays Code in the US, which is a piece of us legislation that was very tight collared, around the depictions of sex, nudity, deviant acts like homosexuality.
ROWAN: I'm gonna be annoying and interrupt here is the Queer Film Historian bitch on this podcast. Because I think it's genuinely interesting. It wasn't technically a piece of like Governmental Legislation as such, it was a code that was self-imposed by Hollywood on itself, specifically, because they thought that the government will be even more harsh, so they were like, oh, shit, like, let let's just, we promise no titties, no gays, no, no--
JAZZA: No titties, no gays.
ROWAN: [8:39] for gays, we promise. And and so yeah, no, it's it's a, it's one of those kind of really interesting things actually happened with the comic, comic books as well, the Comic Code Authority happened as well.
JAZZA: Mmm.
ROWAN: A lot of industries at the time were like, well, I guess if someone's gonna do it, it might as well be us, to ourselves.
JAZZA: Uh-hmm. Yeah yeah yeah. And this was kind of like, towards the end of the prolific nature of the Hays Code. And it was still actually really hard to get this past the censors. The Vampire Lovers, which obviously, is pretty gay. There's naked ladies and there's titties absolutely everywhere. And there's also a man who dies while he's having a piss. So it's not really kind of like the highest brow of entertainment. But the reason that they were able to get especially the the gay shit through the censors, even at the time as they were expanding. Was because it was based on the original source text from the 1800s, Carmilla, which is like a classic text. And because it's seen as a classic text, they were like, actually, this is basically Shakespeare. I don't think anybody actually said that. But essentially, that's how they managed to to get around it.
ROWAN: Just being true to the original.
JAZZA: Yeah yeah, exactly. But yeah, we're watching a a movie about lesbian vampires. Of course, there's going to be a little bit of a camper and Gothic horror is always just a little bit of camp. But it's also a really interesting moment in kind of like the attitudes of prudishness, that were in Hollywood throughout the 50s and 60s.
ROWAN: Absolutely. I do, I do agree with you like Hammer Horror is just camp, it's just campy. Like it just has that energy to it in general--
JAZZA: It is now.
ROWAN: --and I think as well like well, we'll talk about this when we're actually talking about the plot and the performances and stuff in the next section. But yeah, the acting of the time was not exactly the most based in like realism. And and I think that that style of acting that was popular then I think just is so imbued with camp--
JAZZA: Uh-huh.
ROWAN: --as you look back on it now. Even if this hadn't had a load of vampires in it, I feel like it still would have felt a little bit--
JAZZA: Uh-hmm.
ROWAN: --kind of queer energy.
JAZZA: A 100%. It reminded me an awful lot of like Ryan Murphy guy.
ROWAN: Oh, yeah.
JAZZA: Which obviously is referential to this era of horror. And I was like, Oh, I 100% understand where all of these references now come from in, like our modern media as well. Rowan, you had, a you also went away and did some of your own research you clever bookworm slash website were around like, vampires, sexuality, all of those things. Would you end up fine, come on, show and tell.
ROWAN: Well, basically, for those for those who don't know about the history of the vampire, it's kind of appears in a lot of different folktales and legends around different places. Just I think the idea of someone who needs to drain other people of their blood, which is very much linked to like, you know, lifeforce in a lot of cultures. It makes sense that there will be kind of mythology around that, and and kind of scary tales, and all that kind of thing. But it kind of didn't necessarily get a kind of literary grounding until the early 1800s. Were John Polidori, wrote The Vampyre, which was actually created kind of as part of the sort of Gothic horror writing contest that also produced, Frankenstein. It was a good, it was a good time that they were having in that rainy manor house. And kind of interestingly, the history of vampires, I think, has not necessarily been, obviously in the mainstream link to queerness. But when you start looking into the history of it, it's a lot of like reading between the lines when it's going on. So, for example, that original text of Vampyre, a lot of people kind of thought that potentially the that kind of central character was based on Lord Byron. There was a bit of a mix up as to who had originally written the tale. And it was attributed Lord Byron originally and then kind of had to be redacted. And so you kind of have this element of like, oh, there's this creeping queerness in there. And that only became like, more intensified when it came to Dracula, which came a bit later. Because again, Bram Stoker, lots of rumors about him being gay, he had a very close relationship with Oscar Wilde. He wrote some frankly, adoring love letters to Walt Whitman, really, really, very gay letters to Walt Whitman. And there are just some quotes that come up in the book that feel very much like they are centered around the kind of repressed, a repressed homosexuality--
JAZZA: Uh-hmm.
ROWAN: --shall we say. A lot of people have pointed out the fact that he basically started to write Dracula very, very soon after Oscar Wilde's trial and conviction. And that there was potentially a link between that and like the anxieties of being this like queer man who was worried about being like, discovered. So obviously, as with much of queer history, it is not provable. But I do think it's very interesting. And it's something a lot of people have have talked about. But yeah, I think vampire stories in general, as well as being kind of horror, obviously have a lot of links to the idea of sexuality, and and sexual anxieties, I guess over the years.
JAZZA: When we're looking at this area as well. It's really difficult to kind of like put the gay label on it. Because it wasn't a term that they used for themselves--
ROWAN: No.
JAZZA: --either, but we're just kind of trying to view it for our own lens.
ROWAN: Yeah, exactly. So in Dracula, for example, you've got Lucy, the character of Lucy, who's this kind of like symbol of the new woman. So kind of more independent and breaking free of the constraints of society, especially sexual constraints. And so if she sort of gives herself or is compromised by this kind of foreign invader, then she becomes this corrupted figure, which is very, you know, if you read through the lines, metaphorically, it's very much a sort of like fallen woman virginity loss kind of situation. And then yeah, I mean, spoiler alert for Dracula, but she ends up being staked by like, all of the men who she had been pursuing at one point or another during the story, and dies--
JAZZA: Uh-hmm.
ROWAN: --this death that's very, like writhing around and bleeding, and it's very kind of like, you know, symbolically resonant in a lot of ways. So yeah, I think I think that like even if you come to Twilight, or to more modern depictions of vampires, it doesn't necessarily have a Victorians lens of sexuality. It has a modern lens, but it's still feels like it might be commenting in some way. So there's a lot more sort of, in the vampire as the romantic lead for women's or like girls fiction, it becomes much more about a man who needs to control his natural impulses, and that he's able to do it for you. The female love interest.
JAZZA: That's the Twilight stuff isn't?
ROWAN: Exactly.
JAZZA: I'll be honest, I wasn't even I wasn't even making that link in like, I feel like Twilight is such a long time ago now.
ROWAN: Ancient history.
JAZZA: Yeah, yeah. But like, seriously, but yeah, I didn't even make that link of kind of like sexual request-ness. But then I haven't really read, I haven't read any of the Twilight books, I've only seen the movie. So maybe that's why it's not at the front of my mind.
ROWAN: Well, allegedly Stephenie Meyer did come up with the idea from some kind of romantically charged dream that she had. And she is quite from quite a religious background. So I think that the sexual repression and morality element to it is, it's not has not been not commented on by people in the past. So yeah, so I definitely think that the vampire legend and mythology and stuff has always had links to sex in some way and to that kind of forbidden element of sex. And I think that that only gets more apparent when you talk about sex that is genuinely forbidden and taboo in the way that kind of same gender relationships might be. So yeah, it completely makes sense, lesbian vampires completely make sense on a literary level. And it very much is not just a kind of, ohhh, she's sexy, and she's a lesbian, and she's a vampire. It's like, oh, there is actually some kind of literary backing to making this a a thing in your films.
JAZZA: Did you have because I accidentally came across this while I was looking through stuff around the source material for The Vampire Lovers, which is like a a vampire novel that predates Dracula by a couple of decades called Carmilla. About a lesbian female vampire. And apparently she's based on this Hungarian, I believe she's a Princess. She's a fancy person, uhm, called Elizabeth Boothroyd. Have you seen her a bit about her?
ROWAN: If this is who I think it is? Yeah, I think she married into a family and got an absolute ton of land and power from it and use that to allegedly just kill a lot of servant girls, and some minor nobility.
JAZZA: Some set I don't think we have to say allegedly anymore. This was in like the the 15, 16 [16:54]--
ROWAN: She's not gonna [16:55]--
JAZZA: [16:56] I think we're gonna get sued by Elizabeth III of Hungary fame, but she apparently killed up to 650 people and there was some people who say that she used to bathe in their blood to maintain like youth? Some of this is urban legends now, and there's some people that say that she inspired because she was from the Kingdom of Hungary. Which at that time included, Slovakia and Romania, which is kind of like the part of the world that is where like, vampiric culture comes from, I guess? And some people even suggest that she inspired Carmilla and Dracula. But yeah, like, it's an interesting part of kind of like also the, the empowered woman as well, which was definitely, I mean, deviant for the time that vampire novels became really, really big in the Victorian era. But certainly for like the 1500-1600s when she was alive, as well. And kind of like the fear and the weariness of the empowered, maybe sexualized women as well. I kind of like themes that run through this type of horror too.
ROWAN: Indeed, without I guess, should we go into talking about the actual movie and how the lesbian vampires sort of displays herself.
JAZZA: Displays herself.
ROWAN: Displays herself in this movie
JAZZA: Sometimes literally displays herself--
ROWAN: Quite literally.
JAZZA: Uh-hmm.
[18:15]
[Transition Music]
[18:15]
[ADS]
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[21:02]
[Transition Music]
ROWAN: So we normally split this into three different parts.
JAZZA: Uh-hmm.
ROWAN: We haven't conferred beforehand about what those parts are going to look like for this particular movie. But I have a feeling that we have a very similar thru line.
JAZZA: Hmm.
ROWAN: The first part I have referred to, because there was only one way we could refer to this part, given that in so many other films that we have covered in our previous episodes. This was also the title of a section of the film.
JAZZA: Uh-hmm.
ROWAN: The Party and its Aftermath.
JAZZA: Yeah. 100% It starts with the party and its aftermath. It's very all interesting things start with a party, as does this movie.
ROWAN: Yeah, for some reason, so many stories. Normally, the party in its aftermath is the last act.
JAZZA: Uh-hmm.
ROWAN: Whereas in this one, it's, it's the first so essentially, what happens at the beginning of this movie is that we have this man who's narrating talking about the fact that his sister has died and he is going on this revenge plot. Castle ruins, evil European family, some very helpful vampire lore up front. He lets us--
JAZZA: Uh-huh.
ROWAN: know you got to decapitate them. You got a stake in through the heart. We're getting a lot of exposition, but you know what, that's just how he rolls.
JAZZA: It was quick. It was quick and acceptable. I feel like you know, for [22:20]--
ROWAN: Ding, ding, ding! Here we go.
JAZZA: But also, is anyone gonna come into something called The Vampire Lovers, cold as to what a vampire is.
ROWAN: Unlikely.
JAZZA: Like, I feel like most people are probably gonna know broadly, what a vampire is and how you kill it.
ROWAN: Exactly. So it's it's the classic star of the vampire killer is here. He's narrating to us what's about to happen. We have a very fast zoom in on a guy's neck with fang bites. The camera angles and uses within this movie are just very intense. They really love a good zoom in, dramatic zoom in. They really like a good kind of interesting shots, shall we say throughout this. Which I did, did think heighten the camp element. But with, yeah, very quintessential have a horror stuff. The evil figure of the vampire looked like I would say a Halloween sheet ghost costume, mixed with a Dementor.
JAZZA: Oh, well, you have ruined that now. I thought it looks like really quite impressive.
ROWAN: I did as well. Yeah, no, that isn't to diminish how--
JAZZA: Okay, cool.
ROWAN: --creepy it did look.
JAZZA: Cool. I think that is an accurate description of what it was dressed as to be fair.
ROWAN: Yeah, I was like, you know what, if people aren't going to go back and watch this movie, if they're just listening this to to hear a little bit about lesbian vampires. I want to paint them a picture. And the picture is--
JAZZA: Uh-hmm.
ROWAN: --a teenager. You know what I'm going to build on this picture. The picture is a teenager who has been asked by their parents to take out their little kid sister and the local sisters friends trick or treating at Halloween. He obviously is too cool for Halloween costumes at this point. He's at that age where it's not cool again. And it's it's, it was cool when he was a kid but he's like, he's he's 15 now, yeah? So he is like, "Urgh, fine!" And he goes into the airing covered and he just gets a sheet and he's like, "Are you happy now?" And he cuts it lies in the sheets. He doesn't care. It's that mix with a Dementor?
JAZZA: Uh-hmm, and lace.
ROWAN: Yeah.
JAZZA: There was lots of lakes.
ROWAN: Yeah.
JAZZA: Yeah,
ROWAN: If you just put that in your head. You've seen him, you can imagine it.
JAZZA: Yeah, 100%. I also love the like beyond just the vampire and the fact that it is a bedsheet. I love the rest of the costuming in this movie, but especially our narrator and the fact that he's there with kind of like his large Bejeweled ring, long sideburns and kind of like ruffled lace cuffs as well. And as he's got kind of got his hand up to his face in shock like, "Huh?!!", you see the rough come out of his sleeve. oh, and it's quite beautiful. It's it's beautiful [24:53], I love it. And all of that coupled with like the artificial fog on the clearly papier-mâché castle. The fake IV and the fact that it's all moonlit night time. I loved it. I was here for it. I felt like I was on a movie set because I was.
ROWAN: Oh yeah, I've completely agree with you there. My note that I made for this section was for a movie about lesbian vampires. We're getting a lot of this random dude.
JAZZA: Who disappears for--
ROWAN: He disappears--
JAZZA: --the rest of the movie, by the way.
ROWAN: --for most of the rest of the movie, he comes back at the end.
JAZZA: Uh-hmm. Yeah, and comes back at the very end to ruin it with men.
ROWAN: Yes, well, I mean, what we don't want to give you any spoilers right now. You're gonna get spoilers in approximately how many minutes and take hours to get to the end act. The other note I made was vampire girl is cute and blonde has very shiny hair, please drop the routine. So I was thinking--
JAZZA: I think, I think it's being, I think, I think the routine is being immortal.
ROWAN: You know what? That makes sense, that checks out. I will say, and we kind of briefly talked about this before we started to record. But the the effects were really good. The there's a computation that happens at this point, and genuinely very, very good special effects, very well-practical effects.
JAZZA: Yeah, like they had Madame Tussaud's head being like, cut off loads of blood everywhere. I laughed when the vampire was killed at the beginning of the movie. I'm sure people in 1970 may have been genuinely shocked. It's--
ROWAN: Mmm.
JAZZA: --really difficult for me to put myself in the mindset of somebody in the 1970s.
ROWAN: I don't know whether someone in the 1970s didn't I I think they understood what movies were, Jazza. Like I don't think that they were that gonna be that shocked? I think.
JAZZA: It's not quite like in the 1920s when they first showed people a train covered [26:45]--
ROWAN: Yeah and they ran away.
JAZZA: --and people ran out of the movie. Yeah, yeah yeah.
ROWAN: No, I think that, I think that there was like, it was campy back then it was campy now. It was very much, yeah, my favorite bit of this whole big very, very beginning section before we get to the party, is the disclaimer. Because it goes from this section. It's like a good cold open if, you know, this guy's a vampire hunters. He's a eventing a sister, this is woman who's going around trying to kill people. We get some some of him explaining how to kill a vampire. And we also get her just being really really scared of a cross so you know, ohh, that bit of laws also correct. But once when the kind of credits start to roll at the beginning, there is a disclaimer that any characters or events portrayed are clearly fictitious, which definitely feels like something real vampires making a movie would say.
JAZZA: You saying, are we gonna have to make keep our eye out for more evidence that these are actual vampires making actual movies?
ROWAN: Is Peter Cushing a vampire? Who can tell?
JAZZA: Actually, you know what? He was somehow invoke one, so--
ROWAN: He does have the vibes.
JAZZA: Yeah.
ROWAN: So then we get to the actual party, which is so aggressively 60s in its hair, makeup and clothing.
JAZZA: Oh my god, the eyeliner?
ROWAN: It's incredible.
JAZZA: --the eyeliner. I was taking notes for my drag character. Like I am doing cat eyes from now on.
ROWAN: I would honestly love to see you as a in drag as a lesbian vampire. I feel like that will be beautiful.
JAZZA: Hey, just you weren't into Halloween this year.
ROWAN: It'll happen. Also in in in, again, with the over the top style acting the over the top style props and stuff. I'm not gonna lie to you, there is no way that you could watch this film with the sound on and not know who the baddies are. Because the music, really is not subtle. There is no no subtleties to this music, you very quickly know who is you're meant to find menacing. Which they needed to do because the acting is so wooden. It's really trying to like give you something give you some indication because the characters are basically just standing around without expressions.
JAZZA: And also like makeup. So you assume that the man who clearly has a inch of white stick on his face. You assume that he is the bad guy vampire, because he turns up has a flowy cape and is whiter than I am.
ROWAN: Uhmm.
JAZZA: Which is saying something.
ROWAN: Now's a good time to point out this man. So basically the plot of the party is there's like, well, there's not much but essentially it's just an excuse for our lead lesbian vampire to turn up. And for her, we assume lesbian vampire mother to, I don't know why I said lesbian, specifically of. Mainly, we can assume she's a vampire. She might also be a lesbian, it's unconfirmed. Kind of drops her off and is like, Oh no, who will look after my daughter while I conveniently have to go away.
JAZZA: Uh-hmm.
ROWAN: And they're like, well, I guess we'll look after her. So this whole party is essentially setting up, that she's gonna have to stay with this family for a little while. But every so often interspersed is just the aforementioned man that Jazza has just briefly described. Who just has a very bad like white face paint makeup on and looks very Draculary and just sort of grins a lot. And he's just never explained the entire movie, it's great.
JAZZA: Yeah, and every now and again, throughout the movie, there will be a shot of the lesbian vampires doing lesbian vampire things, And then that will cast away as a transition to a silhouette of the man with the white face on the on the horse. And I'm like, this movie wants us to believe that this this, I assume that, we know he is a vampire. He's confirmed to be a vampire at the end, because he smiles and has the--
ROWAN: It's canon.
JAZZA: Yeah, it's canon. But he is confirmed to be a vampire. And I'm like, are we to believe that he is the one pulling the strings of everything? I think that's what we're meant to believe. In which case I kind of dislike because part of the thing that I loved about this movie was the women leads and women like the middle section of the movie is just the women kind of like conversing and trying to kill one another. Why does there have to be a male puppet, puppet master? But then I realized, or, like shoot this down Rowan, and I'm sure you will if you if you do think it is shit.
ROWAN: Pew, pew.
JAZZA: Pew pew. He's Dracula, right?
ROWAN: Well, okay, so it's this question of like, the Dracula character is so well-known and so iconic in everything about him. Not necessarily the actual original Dracula from the book because most depictions of Dracula are nothing like him. But the image of him that has been created by Hollywood by movies and by kind of not even just urban legends. But like people's people's imagination from from movies and like physical--
JAZZA: Uh-hmm uh-hmm.
ROWAN: --representations of him. So I think it will be very logical to assume that it was meant to be Dracula. But it's it may be it's just because he is so synonymous with vampires we see. If we saw any vampire that looked vaguely like old timey pale skin, we would maybe assume it was Dracula.
JAZZA: But then who else is it going to be? Like, so Carmilla is our titular vampire lover.
ROWAN: uh-hmm.
JAZZA: And apart from Dracula, like obviously, they're originally from different universes from different books. They are--
ROWAN: Different cinematic universes.
JAZZA: Yeah yeah. This this is like Marvel and DC.
ROWAN: Most ambitious crossover, The Vampire Lovers.
JAZZA: But if it's going to be anybody, I feel like it has to be Dracula.
ROWAN: Yeah.
JAZZA: Because, I feel like nobody else is gonna be calling the shots for Carmilla.
ROWAN: Uhmm.
JAZZA: And even arguably, you'd argue that Carmilla wouldn't be like canonically in the book. She wouldn't be taking any direction from no man. But--
ROWAN: Indeed.
JAZZA: So we should probably introduce Carmilla, our main lesbian vampire.
ROWAN: At this point going by Marcilla--
JAZZA: Marci--
ROWAN: --in an extremely clever, different version of her name.
JAZZA: Yeah.
ROWAN: It's not it was like it was a fake name, but it was just weirdly close to her actual name.
JAZZA: It's a little bit too close, right? So she is played by Ingrid Pitt, who is a Polish-British Actress, and her Wikipedia page, incredibly impressive. She is a Holocaust survivor. Did you know that?
ROWAN: I didn't. It's really, I mean, the Hammer Horror, I know that we're kind of taking the mick out of it. But ultimately, they it has produced some incredibly iconic, especially British Actors and Actresses.
JAZZA: Uh-hmm.
ROWAN: A lot of them were in like, a ton of those very specific Hammer Horror movies and like, very much became, like icons because of it. So I didn't know that about her. But we love to learn.
JAZZA: Yes, she's a, she was a a a Polish Jew and was born 1937 was in a concentration camp in, in Poland. Managed to escape to the UK. And then what it was the era when all of the all of Hollywood were kind of like marrying like seven or eight times. She's had several marriages, she's not had seven or eight, she's had three marriages. But what had the whole classic thing of you know what, I'm just going to become an Actress. Moved to Hollywood, was a waitress for years until she got discovered. And I've got to say, I think that she carries the rest of the cast, I will say including, Peter Cushing.
ROWAN: How dare you, sir.
JAZZA: I I mean, this is one of his performances. There are other things that he's done better. But she carries this whole movie on her shoulders, I think Ingrid Pitt. I think that she is not, she's not so camp, that it makes it funny. But she really ups the energy, like throughout the film in all of the scenes and the
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