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“Love is stronger than death… even than life.”

Twenty-five years before Bram Stoker revolutionized the world of horror with his iconic novel Dracula, another sensual vampire was drifting into the moonlit bedchambers of society’s upper crust. First appearing in a 1871 edition of the literary magazine The Dark Blue, Carmilla, a.k.a. Mircalla, Countess Karnstein, preys upon unsuspecting young women in the crumbling castles of the Austrian countryside. Despite never gaining the ubiquity of Stoker’s dark antagonist, Sheridan Le Fanu’s gothic novella Carmilla is one of the world’s first examples of vampiric literature and helped to establish the archetype of the lesbian vampire. Belgian director Harry Kümel combines this foundational text with the true story of Hungarian serial killer Elizabeth Báthory to create another sinister seductress in his 1971 erotic horror film Daughters of Darkness.

Newlyweds Stefan (John Karlen) and Valerie (Danielle Ouimet) are still enjoying the...

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The Oldenburg Film Festival, Germany’s leading fest for independent cinema, has announced its 2022 lineup.

The 29th Oldenburg Festival will kick off Sept. 14 with The Ordinaries, the first feature from German director Sophie Linnenbaum. The meta tragicomedy stars Fine Sendel as Paula, a simple Supporting Character in a repressive three class-society where there are Main Characters, Supporting Characters and the untouchable Outtakes. The Ordinaries premiered at the Munich festival this year, winning Linnebaum and her production team the German Cinema New Talent Award.

Also screening at Oldenburg this year will be Lola Quivoron’s Rodeo, which premiered in Cannes, Colin West’s SXSW sci-fi comedy Linoleum starring Jim Gaffigan and Better Caul Saul‘s Rhea Seehorn; TIFF 2022 title The Gravity from French director Cédric Ido; Andrea Bagney’s Spanish drama Ramona, which prmiered in Karlovy Vary this year; and Jean-Paul Civeyrac’s A Woman...

Sacrificing oneself for love is a too cute and too familiar interaction thrown in movies like strawberry jam. It is simple, ordinary, and expected. Romance in horror films, however, is chaotic, bloody, and revolting. Horror and eroticism are an unexpected sweetness, so go ahead and serve that with your morning toast. Monsters have indulged in romance with mortals as we have seen in The Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954) to more recent movies like The Shape of Water (2017). It’s a classic story about a beautiful woman and a hideous beast, but even cinema changed the familiar storyline.

The 1970s opened an endless coffin of vampire films about love, sexuality, and the survival of the fittest. Open relationships, casual sex, gender fluid romances, and bloodthirsty villains painted the theater towns crimson red. The decade brought light to cultural issues that never seemed to be reflected on the mirrors of prior vampire films.

Finally, a horror shocker that needs to make no excuses! Harry Kümel’s interpretation of the Elizabeth Báthory legend excels in all departments and succeeds in each of its aims. Erotic Eurohorror meets Sternbergian visual decadence, making a vivid (and bloody) statement about classic screen exoticism. Given the full glamour treatment, silky Delphine Seyrig is striking as the deceptively congenial vampire queen. It’s a rare throwback to the beginnings of erotic Eurohorror — sex and death, together again! Blue Underground takes the leap to 4K Ultra HD and stacks the extras with key interview content, and a soundtrack CD.

Daughters of Darkness

Ultra-hd + Blu-ray + CD

Blue Underground

1971 / Color / 1:66 widescreen / 100 min. / Le Rouge aux Lèvres, Les Lèvres Rouges Street Date October 27, 2020 / 59.95

Starring: Delphine Seyrig, John Karlen, Danielle Ouimet, Andrea Rau, Paul Esser.

Cinematography: Eduard van der Enden

Film Editors: Denis Bonan, Gust Verschueren

Original Music: François de Roubaix

Written by Pierre Drouot,...

With Halloween approaching quickly, we have one final round of home media releases headed our way this week in case you’re looking to pick up some last-minute films to check out this spooky season. Blue Underground is releasing Daughters of Darkness in 4K this Tuesday, and Severin Films is keeping busy with an array of titles, including The Black Cat, Patrick Still Lives, and Shock Treatment.

Vinegar Syndrome also has quite the lineup of films coming home this week, including Grave Robbers, Memorial Valley Massacre, Zombie 5: Killing Birds, and several Amityville sequels. Arrow Video is also showing some love to both Cold Light of Day and The Last Starfighter, and if you’re a big fan of The Monster Squad, you’ll definitely want to check out the Wolfman’s Got Nards documentary.

Other releases for October 27th include Scary Tales, Spine Chiller, Weedjies: Halloweed Night, Attack of the Unknown,...

“Love is stronger than death… even than life.”

Limited Collector’s Edition of Daughters Of Darkness includes 4K Uhd Blu-ray, Blu-ray, Soundtrack CD, collectable booklet, reversible sleeve, and 3D lenticular slipcover (First Pressing). Blu-ray features 1080p HD Resolution and DTS-hd Master Audio Uhd features 2160p Ultra HD Resolution and Dolby Vision Hdr, with Dolby Atmos and DTS-hd Master Audio. Check out this trailer for the restoration:

International screen icon Delphine Seyrig (Last Year At Marienbad) stars as Elizabeth Bathory, an ageless Countess with a beautiful young ‘companion’ (Goth goddess Andrea Rau) and a legendary legacy of perversion. But when the two women seduce a troubled newlywed couple (Canadian beauty Danielle Ouimet and John Karlen of Dark Shadows and Cagney & Lacey), they unleash a frenzy of sudden violence and depraved desire that shocked both art house audiences and grindhouse crowds worldwide.

Co-written and directed by Harry Kümel, Daughters Of Darkness remains...

In addition to their 4K Ultra HD releases of movies such as Lucio Fulci's Zombie and William Lustig's Maniac, Blue Underground has announced that they're bringing Harry Kümel's 1971 vampire film Daughters of Darkness to 4K Ultra HD/Blu-ray this year as well.

Special features and a specific release date have yet to be announced for the 4K Ultra HD release of Daughters of Darkness, but according to Blue Underground's Twitter account and Blu-ray.com, it is slated for a fall release.

You can view the official cover art (via Twitter) and synopsis (via Blu-ray.com) below, and stay tuned to Daily Dead for more updates.

Synopsis: " International screen icon Delphine Seyrig (Last Year at Marienbad) stars as Elizabeth Bathory, an ageless Countess with a beautiful young "companion" (Goth goddess Andrea Rau) and a legendary legacy of perversion. But when the two women seduce a troubled newlywed couple...

In a climate when most horror movies rely on either shock value or a cheap “gotcha” scare, it’s sometimes hard to remember when horror movies didn’t function that way. Belgian filmmaker Harry Kümel’s film Daughters of Darkness (1971) is a perfect example of this seemingly lost mode of horror film, and has earned its reputation as one of the most beautiful and interesting vampire films to date.

Stefan and Valerie (John Karlen and Danielle Ouimet) are a recently married couple on the way to their honeymoon when they make a detour and stay at an opulent, yet empty hotel. Shortly after arriving, another pair of guests appears on the scene, Countess Elizabeth Bathory (Delphine Seyrig) and her “secretary” Ilona (Andrea Rau). In a virtually plotless film, these four characters are able to create a sumptuous ballet, running the gamut from intense seduction to the eroticism of fear. Every...

On 11 October, Halloween began early at the Barbican Centre with a screen talk by Mark Gatiss and film critic Jonathan Rigby, followed by a screening of Harry Kümel's Belgian vampire film Daughters of Darkness (1971). The hour-long discussion covered much the same ground as Gatiss' BBC4 series A History of Horror - on which Rigby was show consultant - but for fans it was a great opportunity to see in person these two engaging, funny, and impressively knowledgeable horror enthusiasts.

The pair chatted about German Expressionism and the striking black and white images from Robert Wiene's The Cabinet of Dr Caligari (1920) and F.W. Murnau's Nosferatu (1922) that stayed with them long before they were able to view the actual films. A large part of the talk was given to Universal's classic monster movies, which started with Lon Chaney in The Phantom of the Opera (1925) and The Hunchback of Notre Dame...

DVD Playhouse—March 2011

By

Allen Gardner

127 Hours (20th Century Fox) Harrowing true story of Aron Ralston (James Franco, in another fine turn), an extreme outdoorsman who finds himself trapped in a remote Utah canyon, his arm pinned between two boulders, with no help nearby, no communication to the outside world, and dim prospects for survival, to say the least. Director Danny Boyle manages to prove again that he’s one of the finest filmmakers working today by making a subject that is seemingly uncinematic a true example of pure cinema. Inventive, breathtaking, funny, and horrifying, often all at once. Amber Tamblyn and Kate Mara make a memorable, brief appearance as hikers who connect with Ralston during his journey. Also available on Blu-ray disc. Bonuses: Commentary by Boyle, producer Christian Colson, co-writer Simon Beaufoy; Deleted scenes; Featurettes. Widescreen. Dolby and DTS-hd 5.1 surround.

Amarcord (Criterion) Federico Fellini’s Oscar-winning, autobiographical classic might...

Directed by Harry Kumell Starring Delphine Seyrig, Andrea Rau, John Karlen Danielle Ouimet UK DVD Premiere The hypnotically beautiful Delphine Seyrig ("Last Year In Marienbad") stars as Countess Elizabeth Bathory, who may or may not be the infamous .Scarlet Countess' of legend, who bathed in the blood of 300 virgins to maintain her youth. When she arrives at a deserted palatial hotel in Belgium with her sultry companion Liona (Andrea Rau) she comes across a newlywed couple Stefan (John Karlen) and Valerie (Danielle Ouimet). Tension within the young couple . Valerie is pressurising Stefan to tell his disapproving mother about their engagement . is exploited by the countess when she rouses Stefan to ecstasy with an account of her ancestor's unquenchable thirst for blood. Three...

Ever since Gloria Holden first made ghoulish goo-goo eyes at her girl victims in 1936's Dracula's Daughter, horror films have been fascinated by the lesbian vampire. Blame J. Sheridan LeFanu, the French writer whose risqué short story Carmilla broke the boundaries of homo-erotic bloodsucking and whose taboo allure helped eventually launch this evolving spate of increasingly explicit dark fantasy pictures, many of which reared their horny heads in the considerably more liberal 1970's. UK horror studio Hammer were the first ones to really make their muff munching mark with Roy Ward Baker's LeFanu adaptation The Vampire Lovers and other films, like Jose Laraz's almost hardcore 1974 epic Vampyres and Vincente Aranda's The Blood Spattered Bride (whose title I happily cribbed for this tome) continued to push the envelope, mixing fangwork with female nudity to grand effect.

But there's one incredible film that always gets lumped in with those lower brow sex-soaked exploitation pictures.

Most vampire movies suck like most porn, the pleasures of the flesh drained of all life. Fortunately there’s Daughters of Darkness, starring the intoxicating Delphine Seyrig as the blonde, femme fatale Countess Elizabeth Bathory. Harry Kümel’s very-70s flick is a sexy roundelay akin to Radley Metzger’s 1973 soft-core Score, only in this case the hungry horny couple are the blood lusty Countess and her secretary/lover/protégé Ilona Harczy played by Andrea Rau (with lips to rival Angelina Jolie’s – someone get Brangelina a vampire movie already!), looking like a knockoff Lulu with her flapper haircut. The objects of their carnal obsession, newlyweds Stefan (John Karlen, resembling a cross between Michael J. Fox and Andrew McCarthy but, alas, bo ...

Most vampire movies suck like most porn, the pleasures of the flesh drained of all life. Fortunately there’s Daughters of Darkness, starring the intoxicating Delphine Seyrig as the blonde, femme fatale Countess Elizabeth Bathory. Harry Kümel’s very-70s flick is a sexy roundelay akin to Radley Metzger’s 1973 soft-core Score, only in this case the hungry horny couple are the blood lusty Countess and her secretary/lover/protégé Ilona Harczy played by Andrea Rau (with lips to rival Angelina Jolie’s – someone get Brangelina a vampire movie already!), looking like a knockoff Lulu with her flapper haircut. The objects of their carnal obsession, newlyweds Stefan (John Karlen, resembling a cross between Michael J. Fox and Andrew McCarthy but, alas, bo ...