This 1967 horror opens more like a melodrama than anything else: It is sometime in the 19th century. The beautiful Ofelia (Susana Beltran) has fallen in love with the enigmatic, handsome Gustavo (Ricardo Bauleo) but her parents want her to marry the bland Eduardo. Gustavo, for his part, refuses to meet with them.
This time they really wouldn't understand, for Gustavo, contrary to his daylight trysts with Ofelia, is in fact a vampire. Seeking revenge on his paramour and her parents, he visits Ofelia and Eduardo on their wedding night, sticks a knife through the man's neck and vampirises Ofelia, returning to greet her as she rises from her (suspiciously shallow) grave a few days/nights later.
Some impressive animated credits, a regular feature of writer-director Emilio Vieyra's work at this time unroll, before we skip forwards a century or so to be introduced to a party of beatniky holidaymakers skiing, boating, partying and making out.
After what seems like an eternity of this, enlivened by some Russ Meyer-esque go-go dancing and cut-ins of birds in flight against a red tinted sky that signal the vampires' presence and power – a change from bats, at least, even if like the other revisions to the established lore it's probably down to budget constraints than wilful experimentation – the main story really kicks in as their land rover runs out of gas in the middle of nowhere. There is an uninhabited house about a kilometer away but it's rumoured to be haunted. They go anyway, leading to some nice Old Dark House atmospherics as our hero, Raul, encounters a creepy servant – first glimpsed in the opening credits as Ofelia's parents' man – who then disappears but not before slipping something into the decanter of wine that accompanies the table set for the group. It's almost as if someone knew they were coming…
The vampires, however, did not count on two things. First, Raul does not drink any of the drugged wine. Second, there is something about him that reminds Ofelia of Eduardo – unusually, the two men are played by different actors, necessitating some dissolves by the director to make the association clear for us – so she decides to make love to rather than drink his blood. Meanwhile Gustavo goes to work on the ladies…
Come the morning Raul awakens to find Laura, Beba and Gloria have vanished. He also has dim recollections of his encounter with Ofelia, the spitting image of the woman in the portrait in the sitting room. But, vampires in this day and age? There has to be a rational explanation, doesn't there?
One noteworthy aspect of Blood of the Vampires is its nationality. Contrary to what you might expect – unless you are sufficiently attuned to the differences between Castialian and Latin American variants of the Spanish language – you'd probably place it as a European co-production given the emphasis on picturesque and touristic alpine locations and the onscreen Sangres des Virgines title. Indeed, other than a map identifying the location later on, in a police station scene where director Vieyra also has a cameo, the only real clue that something about the setting is not quite 'right' is the 1960s look of Ofelia's parents' 1860s house.
Otherwise, the film certainly looks and feels the part as a prime slab of Eurotrash, with that characteristic mix of the sexy, the stupid and the sublime reminiscent of the work of Jess Franco or Jean Rollin.
Certainly in terms of the handling of sex and violence, the film matches their contemporaneous work, pushing the envelope further than the by then staid Hammer approach such that we get bared breasts and bottoms and a vampire who visibly caresses his victims prior to putting the bite on rather than the less is more approach of the not dissimilar Dracula Prince of Darkness .
On the downside the pacing is pretty languid, with too much talkiness at times and scenes that go on long after their point – if any – has been made. Thankfully, however, the B-movie running time, barely 70 minutes, mitigates against this somewhat.
Another negative is the inconsistent handling of the central Ofelia/Gustavo relationship, with the intervening century appearing not to have given them time to resolve their, er, issues; certainly neither seems very happy with life eternal, she more than he. On the other hand, this could be said to add to the air of doomed romance, with both actors – as with many of the cast regulars in Vierya's horror/exploitation films of the period – definitely looking the part.
Ultimately, it's the sort of film where you take the good with the bad and though the balance is sometimes perilously close, there's enough of the former to make it worth a look.
The audio-visual presentation on Mondo Macabro's Region 0 PAL DVD of Blood of the Virgins is never going to win any awards. But it is entirely watchable and a significant accomplishment in its own right when we consider that many comparable films are entirely lost now or, if still extant, typified by kind of the washed-out been-through-a-cement-mixer type clips that play within the accompanying documentary on Argentinean exploitation.
This runs approximately 25 minutes and is split into two halves, in much the same way as it would originally have screened on television as part of the Exploitika series. After setting the scene – Argentina as the most European of the South American countries, with a long tradition of film-making and exporting – the bulk of the first half explores the long and successful career of Blood… director Emile Vieyra, who is also profiled in a well-written and informative essay by Andy Starke.
The second half focuses on Vieyra's closest contenders in the arena of Argentinean exploitation, in the form of the husband and wife pairing of ex-matinee idol turned director Armando Bo and his bounteous, beauteous protege, former Miss Argentina Isabel Sarli.
Once the recipients of death threats from right-wing extremists for embarrassing Argentina, Sarli could easily have enjoyed an international career had she not been so loyal to Bo, refusing offers to work abroad unless he was also employed as director and then going into retirement upon his death.
Also included are a gallery and trailer reel, rounding off another nice DVD.
Copyright © K H Brown 2002-2005
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