begob A troubled newly wed couple on their way to meet his mother are forced to stay in an off-season hotel, where a mysterious woman traps them in her malevolent web.Interesting start to this, with lots of movement as we discover the flawed nature of the marriage. Great performance from the actress playing Barthory, who has real presence on screen and does great close-ups. But the hammy performance of the concierge sets off the alram bells, and sure enough the story stutters and starts and loses its pace even as the ridiculous killings are ticked off. This actually had the potential for a psychological thriller, but they decided to just give it a lick of the supernatural instead. And what's with the mother? Weird but random.Lots of praise for the eroticism, but it fell flat for me. There are some good two-shots of faces closing together, but it really doesn't take its time and is a bit prudish with the wife.The lighting of the hotel foyer was too bright and flat, but otherwise it looked good. And the music was interesting.Overall, a misconceived story that doesn't really pack a mythology, but it looks good and covers up some of the weakness through the central performance.

Red-Barracuda The vampire film was very popular in Europe in the early 70's. Several key entries in the genre were released at this time such as some interesting films from Hammer Studios as well as numerous titles from specialist auteurs like Jesus Franco and Jean Rollin. Unlike the majority of films from this sub-genre, Daughters of Darkness underplays the vampirism and nudity somewhat, while still retaining a dark mood and overwhelming eroticism. It's certainly far classier than most others in the vampire genre and is committedly artistic with beautiful cinematography and costumes shot within interesting locations, with a very effective and unusual soundtrack. Its story has a honeymooning couple Stefan and Valerie end up at a deserted hotel in Ostend where the only other guests are a pair of unusual women, one of whom it turns out is the Hungarian Countess Elizabeth Bathory.Like the later Don't Look Now (1973), Daughters of Darkness uses the strange mood of an off-season resort to great effect. Like that film too, this is a horror film that really works simultaneously as an art film too. Director Harry Kümel needs to be given a great deal of credit for the stylish presentation that always feels like it accentuates the content, rather than just being showy. The visuals are especially memorable and the use of colour quite excellent throughout, while the strange setting adds its own unorthodox atmosphere to proceedings. It has to also be added that this is still a movie that does not disregard its horror angle at the expense of artistry as there are several macabre scenes and some that go for a much more visceral approach. It's a film that operates in several ways.These things all in themselves would ensure that Daughters of Darkness would be a classic within the genre but it doesn't even take into account the presence of Delphine Seyrig. This is a calibre of actress very rarely seen in this type of movie and she is really quite magnificent as Countess Elizabeth Bathory. She oozes sensuality throughout the picture and very easily convinces as a woman capable of seducing anyone. Her mysterious acting persona is one of her gifts – see it utilised in another famous enigmatic film Last Year at Marienbad (1961) – and here it is her very screen presence that makes us believe in her supernatural character. Seyrig is clearly the star here and head and shoulders above everyone else but the rest of the cast actually do good controlled work too.Daughters of Darkness is certainly a classic of its type. It just seems to have a lot more going on in it and a pleasing ambiguity. Take for instance the character of Stefan, who it becomes clear is not only a violent sexual sadist but whose overbearing 'mother' turns out to be a very strange man instead. It's these kinds of bold moves that make the film as a whole even more fascinating and disturbing. This is undoubtedly one of the all-time great European cult horror movies for several compelling reasons.

chaos-rampant Beware as you go into this, it may sound like Hammer but it's nothing like it. It's a chic, stylish vampire film dripping with the most wanton aestheticism. The whole thing exudes the scent of an absinthe dream, the contours of a flowing red dress.Superficially it is about a couple of newly-weds - but who, as the film opens with them having sex in a train cabin, openly declare that they don't love each other - who find themselves stranded in Ostande and move in to a strangely empty hotel for a few days. A countess Bathory arrives there with her female companion, there's also the baffled concierge who tries to stay out of passion's way.I say superficially because the dynamics between the couple is what at first sight seems to be driving the story. The woman is desperate to break out from the limbo of anonymous sex and be introduced, thus be legitimized as a wife and woman, to the man's mother, an aristocrat back in England. The man, on the other hand, is content to derail those expectations and savour the erotic dream he has concocted to inhabit.But of course we come to understand that the narrative is powered from outside. The countess courts both, seducing in the emotional space between them. She personifies that wanton aestheticism right down to her body language. It is important to note that she is played by the actress who starred in Marienbad for Resnais, which this film alludes to; in the mysterious hotel setting with its expansive balustrades, in the twilight wanderings, in the sense of time revoked and sensations amplified.She is the architect of all this, building around these people the desires that will yield them to her. So it is the man's semi-conscious world of secret pleasures, but it's she who is slowly, slyly perverting them. She does this with the malevolent purity of a femme fatale.It does not matter that she is Bathory, or that blood is eventually savored from wrists, this is merely the desire made visible in a way that would appeal to a niche audience. So even though Jess Franco borrowed the velvety sunsets and decadent air from this for Vampyros Lesbos, this operates deeper. It matters for example that she seduces the man into a new obsession with violence, the destructive flipside of eros. It further pries the woman apart from him.Gradually what was a matter of taking pleasure from flesh is spun into something else entirely; again involving flesh but now literally draining from his.It ends with a stunning sequence across countryside roads; a lot of the imagery recalls L'Herbier - who also inspired Resnais - but here more pertinently. The soul has been so withered away from inside, so consumed from the fever of passion, that mere sunlight sends it reeling. Of course we can explain away by falling back to our knowledge of vampire lore, but we'd be missing on the finer abstractions; how, for example, the femme fatale is magically cast into the circumstances that, as we know from our knowledge of this type of film, would precipitate her demise. Nothing else would do after all.If we follow the set of reactions from what at first sight appears like an accident, it can be plainly seen how it all flows from her desire to control the narrative.It's marvelous stuff just the same, the colors, the desolate aura. I just want to urge you to see as more than just an 'artsy vampire flick'. Save that for Jean Rollin.

Claudio Carvalho Two days after getting married in Switzerland, Valerie (Danielle Ouimet) and Stefan Chilton (John Karlen) travel by train to take a boat to England to visit Stefan's mother at the Chilton Manor. However, the train has to stop in Ostend and the couple lodges in the royal suite at a seaside hotel. The concierge Pierre advises that the place is empty since it is out of season and they become aware of three murders in Bruges.In the same night, the Hungarian Countess Elizabeth Báthory (Delphine Seyrig) arrives in the hotel with her secretary Ilona Harczy (Andrea Rau) and Pierre swears that she had been in the hotel forty years ago with the same appearance. When Valerie and Stefan cross the path with the mysterious countess, their lives are affected by the woman. Meanwhile a retired detective (Georges Jamin) snoops at the hotel suspecting that the countess may be the serial-killer that drains the blood of the victims to use as elixir of youth. "Les Lèvres Rouges", a.k.a. "Daughters of Darkness", is a weird and stylish vampire film. The story is very erotic and keeps the sexual tension along 100 minutes running time. Stefan is a sadistic homosexual weirdo and his "mother" is actually an effeminate man. The Countess is a lesbian vampire that wants Valerie as her protégé and mate. The film was shot only during the night and has a beautiful cinematography. My vote is six.Title (Brazil): Not Available