The Vampire Lovers is a 1970 British Gothic horror film directed by Roy Ward Baker and starring Ingrid Pitt, Peter Cushing, George Cole, Kate O'Mara, Madeline Smith, Dawn Addams and Jon Finch. It was produced by Hammer Film Productions. It is based on the 1872 Sheridan Le Fanu novella Carmillaa and is the first film in the Karnstein Trilogy, the other two films being Lust for a Vampire (1971) and Twins of Evil (1971). The three films were somewhat daring for the time in explicitly depicting lesbian themes.
Plot[]
In mid-18th century Styria, a beautiful blonde (Kirsten Lindholm) in a diaphanous gown materializes from a misty graveyard. Encountering Baron Hartog (Douglas Wilmer), a vampire hunter out to avenge the death of his sister, the girl is identified as a vampire and decapitated. Decades later in 1790, a dark-haired woman leaves her daughter Marcilla (Ingrid Pitt) in the care of General Spielsdorf (Peter Cushing) and his family in Styria. Marcilla quickly befriends the General's niece, Laura (Pippa Steel). Laura subsequently suffers nightmares that she is being attacked, and dies of a gradual sickness; whereupon Marcilla departs.
Faking a carriage breakdown, Marcilla's mother leaves her (now using the alias 'Carmilla') at the residence of a Mr. Morton, where Carmilla befriends and seduces Morton's daughter Emma (Madeline Smith). Thereafter, Emma suffers nightmares of penetration on her heart, and her breasts shows tiny wounds. Emma's governess, Mademoiselle Perrodot (Kate O'Mara), becomes Carmilla's accomplice. The butler and a doctor suspect them; but Carmilla kills each one. A mysterious man in black watches events from a distance, smiling (his presence is never explained). Having killed the butler, Carmilla takes Emma prisoner and departs. When Mademoiselle Perrodot begs Carmilla to take her too, Carmilla kills her. Emma is rescued by a young man named Carl (Jon Finch), and Carmilla flees to her ancestral castle, now a ruin. All this coincides with the arrival of the General, who brings a now-aged Baron Hartog. They find Carmilla's grave, which reveals that her true name is Mircalla Karnstein, where the General forces a stake into Carmilla's heart and cuts off her head. Thereupon, Carmilla's portrait on the wall shows a fanged skeleton instead of a beautiful young woman.