User reviews

A beautiful female vampire (Lina Romay) lures men to their doom.

Depending on which version you watch, you might get a more or less pornographic film with horror themes or a horror film with some sexual themes. I watched the Netflix version, which seems to be somewhere in the middle, or perhaps leaning towards porn (there were naked men and women within the first ten minutes, and a simulated sexual encounter). Not at all what I expected, and frankly it disappoints me that this version is not more horror.

Concerning the sexual scenes, Franco has said, "There was a need to show it, like you must show how Dracula sucks his blood, you need to show how this Countess sucks the semen." I am not sure if I buy that.

Female Vampire (1973)

*** 1/2 (out of 4)

Jess Franco's erotic twist on the vampire legend has Lina Romay playing Countess Irina, the last member of a vampire family who plans on ending the legacy. A troubled journalist (Anna Watican) shows up to interview Irina and soon the vampire is putting a spell on her. This film is available in three different versions. A hardcore one, which I've watched before, a horror version and a softcore version, which is being reviewed here. The difference in this take on the vampire legend is that Romay doesn't suck the blood out of the neck but instead sucks the semen out of you know where. When you talk to Franco fans about this film you'll usually start a heated debate but to me this is one of the directors best films. The opening, with Romay, naked of course, walking through a fog filled forest, really sets the tone for the film, which also includes a terrific and haunting score by Daniel White. Romay plays a mute in the film and I think this is one of her best performances because she's able to display a sadness that really works for the film. It doesn't hurt matters that she walks around completely naked throughout the movie and this beauty is certainly her in prime shape. This softcore version is certainly more erotic than horror but this is just fine as I find the movie to be incredibly sexy. There's a nearly ten minute lesbian scene between Romay and the reporter, which is extremely hot. Franco himself as well as Jack Taylor, Alice Arno and Monica Swinn has supporting roles and all add fine work (although it's hard to tell with some of the English dubbing). This version runs a tad bit too long at 101-minutes but if you get caught up in the dream like nature of the film then you really are seeing one of the more unique sexploitation films out there. I've seen the XXX version, which is just downright ugly and kills the beauty of the original film but I'm still trying to seek out the horror version and will hopefully come upon it sometime soon.

Female Vampire (1973) Horror version

*** (out of 4)

I finally managed to get a copy of this alternate version of Female Vampire, which is better known as Erotikill or The Bare Breasted Countess. This is certainly a new film and really separates itself from the better known "sex" versions, which also contains another alternate version with XXX scenes. In this horror version everything is basically the same story wise with the major exception being that Countess Irina (Lina Romay) sucks blood and not other things. The differences in this version are quite major and the biggest is that this cut runs nearly 35-minutes shorter. The opening sequence with Romay walking through the woods features her wearing panties, which eliminates all of the below the waste nudity. All the attacks aren't done through sex but instead are bites to the neck, which also include shots of Romay's bloody lips. The film still has a lot of nudity but most of the below the waste stuff has either been taken out or are alternate shots with Romay wearing clothing. The subplot and relationship of Romay with the journalist (Anna Watican) is also shortened to the point where we don't see the two characters together very often. Other changes include a torture chamber sequence where Romay bites on more necks from women she has captured down there. So, is the film any better or worse? I think this horror version works fairly well as a horror movie but it's nothing we haven't seen before and it really can't compete against Franco's much better Vampyros Lesbos, which is pretty similar. I think taking away the sexual aspect of the story kills all of the originality so to me the sex version will always be the preferred one.

Female Vampire, or whatever you'd like to call it, is maybe a difficult film to rate/review, because there are supposedly so many different versions floating around. I watched the Image Entertainment Region 1 DVD released in 2000 (ID9105BIDVD). However, even though the film isn't a complete loss artistically, I can't imagine it getting a passing score unless there's a "version" out there that has completely different scenes than the film I watched, because this one was basically horrendous. This is the first Jesus Franco film I've seen so far that I have hated, but admittedly, I don't think I've even seen a quarter of them.

At least for this version of Female Vampire, there's an easy way to tell if you might like it. The film is basically 10 – 15 minutes of dialogue, scattered throughout, with ridiculously bad English language dubbing (no subtitles were available), and about an hour and 20 minutes of poorly filmed softcore porn, featuring mostly unattractive looking people (Lina Romay, the star, doesn't do much for me), alternated with scenes of people sitting and staring, random ocean shots, shots of an odd hood ornament from a car's windshield, etc. Basically, if you're into early 1970s softcore porn, then you should like Female Vampire.

Since Romay ended up as Franco's wife (I'm not sure if they were married before Female Vampire or not), it seems like maybe the film was just an excuse to get her naked and encourage her to have sex with a bunch of different people, including women (by the way, there was one woman whom I thought was attractive--the strawberry blonde--but she doesn't get very physical with anyone).

I actually watched the dialogue scenes twice to try to make some sense of the plot, because it's very "poetic" if we're being overly generous, and mostly incoherent gibberish if we're being honest. The first time through I had difficulty listening to more than a sentence or two at a stretch. Once it stopped making sense, my attention would wander.

But as far as I can tell the plot is something like this: Countess Irina Karlstein (Romay) ends up on the island of Madeira, off the coast of Portugal, presumably because her family owns some property there. For some reason, there are a number of other people on the island who know something about her and who suspect that she's around. When corpses, who have been "sucked dry" by this female vampire, start showing up, it confirms the other characters' suspicions. The other characters include Baron Von Rathony (Jack Taylor), who likes to sit and stare at nature and read us passages from a travel guide, Dr. Roberts (none other than Jesus Franco, using the pseudonym of "Jess Franck" in this version), who does the autopsies on the bodies--which we unfortunately never get to see except for one humorous occasion, Dr. Orloff (Jean-Pierre Bouyxou), a blind doctor of something or other who gives us the weird autopsy occasion (it involves manually checking a female corpse's bite wound), Anna (who seems to have been played by two actresses, Gilda Arancio and Anna Watican), who is a journalist, and some other assorted men and women whom I could never figure out who they were. Oh, and I forgot to mention that Irina is mute through all of this. I don't know why. Maybe Romay has a voice like Lina Lamont (Jean Hagen) in Singing in the Rain (1952).

Anyway, some of these characters encounter each other at various times and talk about Irina, the bodies, read more travel guide passages to us, randomly start muttering gibberish--er, uh, getting poetic--and so forth. There is little sense of a dramatic arc, there's no climax (snicker), and so on. Don't forget that this "plot" stuff takes up only about 10 – 15 minutes.

What happens instead is that Franco gives us a lot of lingering shots of Romay in various states of undress, occasionally wearing lingerie, with random out of focus zooms into her breasts, crotch, and so on. Just as often Romay is in various states of undress with another actor or two, and we get the same kinds of crappy shots, which show us extremely arbitrary "sex", before Romay "kills" her "lover/opponent" (in other words, before they stop moving). Most of the cinematography (unfortunately by Franco, as "Joan Vincent") in the film is really horrible. A large percentage of it is out of focus. It is often jerky. The zooms are ill timed, rough and awkward.

There was one softcore scene that was entertaining, if only because it was so odd. Romay starts making love to a bed--licking the bedpost, gyrating against it, mounting a long, round pillow, etc. Of course, the cinematography was crappy again, so it was difficult to award any bonus points.

All of this is accompanied by one of the two pieces of music that Franco paid for--some swanky jazz (almost Vince Guaraldi-ish) and more often, a melancholy orchestral piece that sounds like a mutation of "I'm Always Chasing Rainbows". This latter piece receives some typical porno music variations, if that's the kind of music you're into.

And if the above doesn't dissuade you enough, by the last couple "love scenes", I had to fast forward through them a bit--something I _never_ do with any film--because I just couldn't take it any longer. Boring sex--I would have said it was an oxymoron before watching Female Vampire. The extra point I awarded was for the idea at the end of the film, where Romay is in a "bloodbath". There are almost a couple attractive shots in this scene, even if the "blood" looked more like light pink Kool-Aid.

In the Madeira Island, the mute Countess Irina Karlstein (Lina Romay) is the last descendant of the evil Karlstein vampire family. She lives with her also mute servant and seems to be nymphomaniac, seeking for sex most of the time without satisfaction. Irina likes oral sex with men and women to suck off not only semen, but apparently also blood, killing her male and female lovers.

"La Comtesse Noire" is a soft-core movie of sexploitation without story and the only intention is apparently expose the naked body of Lina Romay that works naked all the time. I have just watched the French version released in Brazil, with audios in English (and Portuguese subtitle) and Portuguese only. The funny thing is, if you watch with audio and subtitle in Portuguese, they do not match. This version has an explicit fellatio of Irina with one of her victims and seems to be a home video, with a messy screenplay and an annoying music score that is repeated every time that Lina Romay is naked meaning that along the entire movie. My vote is two.

Title (Brazil): "A Maldição da Vampira" ("The Curse of the Female Vampire")

Cultmaster Jess Franco delivers with this "Female Vampire" the jolliest and sleaziest bunch of sleaze you'll ever behold, and that's a guarantee! This in fact is the closest you can get to renting porn while still able to claim it's essential and rare cult, haha!! The star in this film is Franco's favorite toy-girl, the astonishingly beautiful (at least back then) and sexy Lina Romay, who definitely makes up in charisma what she lacks in experience and acting skills. Luckily for her, her character is a mute so can use her body language to the fullest! She plays Irena von Karlstein, the last descendant of a cursed family of vampires who's doomed to travel from one great place to another and survive by making love to random people...The poor, poor girl!! Irana isn't your ordinary type of vampire as she's perfectly able to stand daylight and it ...um...isn't exclusively blood she sucks! Countess von Karlstein really is one of the most unique Franco characters ever and you'll unquestionably love her! Whenever she's not killing people, she walks naked through the woods or makes love to the furniture. In order to add a tiny bit of substance to story, there's a sub plot involving a neurotic scientist (played by Franco himself) who wants to destroy the yummy Irena. So, what exactly is the point of this film? There isn't any...and that's the beauty of it! Like several of Franco's film, this "Female Vampire" is rather meaningless and overall incompetent BUT also very sensual! The photography is magnificent and the musical guidance is very beautiful. The film is slow-paced, elegant and remarkably stylish for being a – let's face it – voyeuristic movie! If you're into euro-sleaze, cult classics and off-category movies .... this is a must! The same film is also available as a different cut and under a different title – Erotikill – but that one is pure pornography!

Hmm. When watching this film you might be forgiven for forgetting that you're actually supposed to be viewing a horror film. I mean, yes, the theme is vampires, but there is no actual horror in this film - one graphic and a couple of implied deaths, yes, but nothing else that would disturb you. The fact is, that director Jess Franco was out to make a film where he could show the world as much of his wife Lina Romay in the nude as possible - and he succeeded. The horror, unfortunately, only comes second.

As you might expect from a director with Franco's reputation, this isn't a film for all tastes. Most film fans will likely be put off by the lack of an actual plot or story to THE FEMALE VAMPIRE - instead, it's just a number of scenes linked together with some added filler in-between to stand in for the plot. All of these scenes are sexual in nature, which quickly became boring for me but might appeal to other viewers. Romay is actually not bad as the vampire herself, a mute, waif-like figure who walks about in a see-through nightie. It's clear that Franco desperately wants to make a film in the style of Jean Rollin and he does succeed to some degree - scenes of Romay stalking the woods looking for victims are done quite effectively. It's just a shame there are only a couple of them.

One thing this film has in its favour is the music. There's a main theme which plays constantly, a kind of lyrical piece with a mournful woman wailing. It's actually very good and gives the film an effectiveness that it really shouldn't have. Aside from the passable Romay are some stock wooden actors and poor dubbing; turning up in one role is the director himself, playing a doctor who obviously models himself every night on Dracula's Van Helsing. Elsewhere we have some hairy French macho-types to give you nightmares and a character named Dr. Orloff but who is totally unrelated to the mad doctor of Franco's first horror film, THE AWFUL DR. ORLOFF (this guy is blind, for a start).

Infuriatingly, just when it looks like something interesting is going to happen in this film, it abruptly cuts to the closing titles and fails to tie up any of the loose ends - in fact, nothing happens! Fans of female vampires should be sure to check out Hammer's Karnstein trilogy in place of this dull affair. It's clear that this film is a rip-off of that trilogy (the naming of the vampiress as KarLstein kind of gives the game away) but it lacks the necessary pacing and action to make it entertaining. A brief spot of gore or a cheesy special effect would have helped come to think of it. As sex films go, this explicit exercise in voyeurism would probably fit the bill quite nicely, but for a horror film, it just doesn't cut it.

This is definitely not Twilight! Countess Irina Karlstein (Line Romay) spends most of the film dressed in a cape, a belt, and knee-high boots. She doesn't say a word - she doesn't have to! No wonder Franco married her - she is incredibly beautiful.

I once ordered a copy of Erotikill, another name for this film, but didn't get to watch it as I was send a bootleg copy that wouldn't play. I can now see the real thing; a beautiful film set in Portugal.

All vampire tales are erotic, but Romay takes it to new heights, as the eroticism is open and highly graphic. You can say that her victims would go willingly even if they knew the final outcome. Male or female, it doesn't matter to the Countess, as she displays the same high energy in her work.

Beautiful scenery, beautiful music, and the most beautiful and erotic vampire you will ever see.

Personally, I am a huge fan of Jess Franco, who has enriched the world of Eurohorror/Exploitation by a vast variety of films, including masterpieces such as "Gritos En La Noche", ("The Awful Dr. Orloff", 1962) and Miss Muerte" ("The Diabolical Dr. Z", 1966), a vast amount of entertaining sleaze, as well as big-time stinkers (such as "Sadomania"). With a repertoire of over 190 films, Franco must be the most prolific Exploitation director of all-time; and while I can understand those who do not share my admiration for the Spanish Trash-deity, one has to give it to Franco that even his lesser films always have a certain weird style, which is almost impossible not to like for a cult-cinema fan. Take this film, for example: "Les Avaleuses" (aka. "Female Vampire"/"Bare Breasted Countess"/"Erotikill") of 1973 is, without any doubt, an incredibly nonsensical film that is more Porn than it is Horror and ranges among the most shamelessly plot-less Euro-Exploitation features ever produced. And yet I cannot claim I didn't enjoy it.

The main attraction is Franco's Nr. 1 muse (and real-life wife) the stunning Lina Romay. Sexy Lina plays Countess Irina Karlstein, a female vampire who walks around wearing only a cape and a belt, who kills her victims (of both sexes) during sex, and who does not limit herself to sucking blood exclusively. Then there's also a weird-looking pathologist (played by director Franco) who desperately tries to convince the police that the mutilated corpse are victims of a vampire, not a madman... This may not sound like a proper plot-description, but fact is that this confused little film does not really have a proper plot. About 90 per cent of the film are soft-core porn (or hard-core porn, depending on which version you see), sleaze, and shots of beautiful Lina Romay walking naked through the forest. The 'Horror' is quite ridiculous, and the dialogue ranges among the most nonsensical things ever written. Lina Romay's leading character is mute, but her communicating through body language is quite welcome! There is also a character named Professor Orloff (is it Franco's own Dr. Orloff?) who only talks truly bizarre nonsense. The rest of the cast includes Eurocult regular Jack Taylor (who was in many Franco films, and also starred in many other Spanish Horror productions including many films in which he played alongside the late Paul Naschy), as well as the weird-looking Franco-flick bit-part-player Luis Barboo.

Basically, this film is recommendable for two reasons, the first and most convicting one being Lina Romay who walks around naked for almost the entire film. The second reason is that it is a Jess Franco film, and therefore delivers the nonsensical plot in a particular, stylish manner. It is obvious that Franco didn't even bother about the plot, and he certainly doesn't give a crap about people nagging about the lack of it. In typical Franco-fashion, the film is atmospheric, nicely shot in beautiful locations and accompanied by a nice score. The plot may be almost non-existent, and the film may be a mere repetition of sleazy sequences - one still doesn't get bored. The sequences shot in the car, by the way, are a nice tribute to Tod Browning's 1931 "Dracula" with Bela Lugosi.

Overall, I can only recommend "Female Vampire" to my fellow enthusiastic fans of Jess Franco. To anybody not familiar with Franco, I would recommend to check out his brilliant early works, such as "The Awful Dr. Orloff", "The Diabolical Dr. Z" or "Venus in Furs" and skip this one. While it does range in the lesser half of his repertoire, it isn't the worst film he has ever made, though. Once asked about the reason for film-making, Franco replied: "Showing the female body naked." How can one not appreciate such honesty?

Female Vampire (1973) follows a day in the life of a vampire named Irina (Lina Romay). Even though she's a mute, she doesn't need the spoken word to communicate how she feels. This film is sexual charged retelling of the vampire legend. Irina is a smoking hot vampire who swings both ways and has an unusual taste. If you want to see something extremely different then watch Female Vampire. I could tell you more but where's the fun in that!

Lina Romay has to be the sexy vampire to ever grace celluloid. Her presence is truly amazing. She has a beauty that is indescribable. I love this movie. I usually don't watch vampire movie (except the Hammer films, of course) but this one had me captivated from the beginning until the end. There's a funny part at the start of the film when Miss Romay bumps into the camera. I love this movie and I can see why Jesus Franco made her his "assistant" after this film. Afterwards the two became an unstoppable team. Even today they're still making films. Long live team Franco/Romay.

Highly recommended.

Whether intentionally or not, Jesse Franco films can be strangely allusive. Like Godard, he shoots quickly and cheaply (in one year he made 12 films!), yet can remain startlingly true to his own vision. Like Godard he sometimes focuses on female characters to critique masculine structures of power. Like Godard he uses a crime genre to subvert its assumptions, reducing narrative to a minimum, expanding 'superfluous' scenes to bursting point. Like Godard and Altman he foregrounds the female body, but refuses to eroticise it. Like Melville's LE SAMOURAI, the heroine's power in LES AVALEUSES is based on both the donning of an 'armour'-like uniform, and on a muteness (here literal), a refusal to enter into the matrix of language that is the foundation of male-dominated society.

the heroine, Irina Karlstein, is a beautiful Countess who has inherited the family 'problem' of vampirism. spending most of the movie deshabille, her homicidal method is a variation on the traditional bloodsucking more appropriate, shall we say, to a decade that produced DEEP THROAT. She does not discriminate in her prey between male and female. A melancholy voiceover reveals her lack of control over this 'gift'.

Intercut with this plot are a series of 'male' narratives, including a pretentious writer almost supernaturally attuned to nature who can divine her presence, and many even be her creator; a detective and pathologist who disagree on the nature of the serial slayings; and a blind, possibly Teutonic, hippy.

How do you describe a Jesse Franco film without veering into the unprintable? Apparently, Franco shot two versions, one emphasising horror, the other, er, lovemaking. It is easy to sneer and most critics do, but has anyone actually systematically examined his oeuvre, his themes, his imagery? Because he has a very distinctive visual style as hostile to narrative comforts as Godard, an alienating melange of absurd romanticism and pedantic distance, excruciating close-up and disjointed editing, exploitative voyeurism and liberating point of view.

It wouldn't be right to call it pornography either, which depends for its success on an onion-like structure, a gradual formal disrobing if you will. Franco denies us this by clothing his heroine like Margarita on her broom in Bulgakov's novel - thus we have nothing to look forward to, our power of undressing is denied. This makes the film almost, weirdly feminist: the profusion of painfully extended scenes - explicit, yet ungraphic, ranging from lesbianism to onanism - seem very private, empowering rites excluding us (the presumed male viewer?) from participation, forcing us to watch.

AVALEUSES doesn't cheat as a horror film either, from its sex/death thematics to a rarefied setting to a scientific endeavour linked to law defeated by primeval forces. Irina is linked to the forest - she IS sexuality - and the film is full of gorgeous colours, and a use of red filter which might be a tribute ot LE MEPRIS.

But, perversely for a film featuring a mute and a blind man, the film is best enjoyed ,as Sirk desired, with one's eyes closed - whatever one thinks of the movie, the soundtrack is a masterpiece, enriching what we're watching; a magnificently varied mix of lounge, jazz, Legrandesque romanticism, 60s pop etc. You never want it to end, a coitus continuus if you like.

Many of Jess Franco's movies are slim on plot, and strong on atmosphere. 'Female Vampire' is a typical example. The story can be summarized in two lines, and the climax is actually revealed on the back of the Redemption version video case, so there's no mystery or suspense in this movie. What there is though is the gorgeous Lina Romay naked throughout. She may not be much of an actress (and her character is mute, so there is no dialogue), but she is beautiful, and makes one of the hottest screen vampires ever. The sight of her walking through the mist wearing nothing but a cape and a belt will stay with you for a long time! Judging this movie is difficult. As a horror movie it fails, but as a voyeuristic treat it certainly succeeds! Not Franco's best by a long shot, especially as large chunks of it are out of focus(!), but highly recommended 1970s sexploitation nevertheless.

A meandering dull-fest directed by the notorious Jess Franco, and "starring" Lina Romay as a mostly nude vampiress who sucks the life out of men and women "orally," if you get what I'm driving at. Other than this, there isn't much in the way of a story. It's typically botched by Franco's lazy direction and bad camera-work... shots are often out of focus and Madame Romay bumps into the camera at one point! Lina is attractive enough physically, but here she presents no sensuality, no sex appeal, no magnetism beyond her looks. This functions more as a porn film and that's about the only reason worth looking - and even that gets boring real fast. 0 out of ****

(aka: EROTIKILL or FEMALE VAMPIRE)

I saw the Image DVD and although there may have been some hard-core sex scenes that were deleted from it, I doubt I'd do anything for this film. In fact, I doubt anything can save the viewer from this boredom.

Lina Romay appears out of the fog with nothing on except a cape and a belt, with the camera zooming down and focusing on her black pubic hair region. Typically crass for Franco. Still, I don't mind watching.

We get to see Lina as a Austrian countess who if you watch the EROTIKILL version, sucks blood out the traditional vampire way, or if you watch the FEMALE VAMPIRE version, sucks sperm (or other sexual bodily fluids) out of her victims the untraditional soft-core way.

Most of the film involves soft-core scenes of Lina having sex with men, women, bedposts, pillows, herself, etc. and although I love looking at Lina's naked body, I'm not so sure I want to spend (almost) 2 hours doing so.

The Image DVD uses a good print that does have some sprocket damage that's quite noticeable during the whipping scene (which looks pretty tame, btw) and some alternative footage from EROTIKILL which shows Romay biting people's necks and the blood dripping from her mouth. That's about the only blood you'll see in this film, and it's not even in the FEMALE VAMPIRE version.

Sorry Lina but even you can't carry it.

2 out 10

Well this is pure Franco that's for sure.

The story, to put it mildly, is not it's strong point - a female vampire goes around killing people by means of oral sex and that's basically about it.

Female Vampire shares many of the traits of Franco's earlier Vampyros Lesbos, i.e. a stultifying pace, an iconic female lead, uninteresting male characters, lots of sex, half-hearted horror, low production values and a persistent score. However, on every count, this is an inferior movie. Lina Romay is this movies strong point but she does not have the sheer magnetism of Soledad Miranda; where Vampyros Lesbos had a definite erotic style, Female Vampire is mostly endless ugly softcore scenes; and this film's very turgid score is simply not in the same league as the lounge classic that accompanies Lesbos.

This is effectively a softcore sex movie with a very loose horror angle. Franco does deliver his somewhat unique sensual approach to proceedings and it is quite effective at times. And with Lina Romay he does have a leading lady with a definite screen presence - without her, this film would most probably be worthless; however, even the gratuitous naked shots of her become wearisome after a while. And as for that dull and repetitive soundtrack! The production values are incredibly low and my guess is that Franco must've shot this one in under a week.

It's really pretty bad but if you are a Franco die-hard and/or a Lina Romay fan then it might be worth a look. Other viewers should be warned that this is, to say the least, not for everyone...

The strongest part of La comtesse noire is the peculiar mood the whole movie radiates - and the question of all questions is, if Lina Romay, the visual style and the soundtrack (mellow jazz tunes) are able to capture your attention. On the surface La comtesse noire is just another sleazy softporn flick from the 70s (and maybe that's just it), mixed with the vampire theme, on the inside it gives us a look at decadence, melancholy, boredom, the waste of time, the way of carnal desires, cruelty. But what I mostly miss are some serious elements of horror a la Suspiria (that would fit in just very nice), and no doubt, some of the erotic scenes are rather funny to watch, and I guess this was not the intention of the director nor the cast ;) Anyway, with some minor changes (less erotic, more horrror) this could have been a real good one, a missed opportunity so to say, and my rate would be 2 or 3 steps higher.

Along with the original Dr. Orloff, this is probably one of Franco's best films (although I can't claim to have seen even a high percentage of them), and its mostly down to the extraordinary presence of Lina Romay and the lush score which accompanies her every move. She's still one of Franco's favourite leading ladies, but this was her defining moment.

This film starts out with a semi-clad female by the name of "Countess Irina Karlstein" (Lina Romay) walking in a forest in Spain on a foggy evening. She then comes upon a man who she easily seduces and then proceeds to kill him while he is in the throes of passion by drinking his blood. Although she clearly doesn't enjoy her actions, she knows that she cannot stop because she suffers from what she calls "the curse of the Karlsteins" which requires her to feed at regular intervals. And so, not long afterward, she seduces another man in her hotel room and kills him as well. Meanwhile, upon examining the first body, a man by the name of "Dr. Roberts" (Jesus Franco) begins to investigate and each day the evidence leads him closer and closer to the source of it all. Now, rather than reveal any more, I will just say that this was one of the worst movies I have ever seen. Not only was the entire film extremely slow and boring but the director (Jesus Franco) kept playing the same awful music to each scene over and over again which really got on my nerves. Likewise, although several scenes involved sex and nudity, none of them were in the least bit erotic. Quite the opposite. In short, I didn't care for this movie at all and I have rated it accordingly.

What an excellent film! Try not to dig too deep but this is classic eurotrash and when you've been away from eurotrash for a while you'll need a stunner like this to remind you how fantastic it can be. Jess Franco has let us down occasionally in the past, but this must surely be his masterpiece. Trust no American issues as they prefer violence to sex and edit accordingly. Don't analyse the plot because you'll miss the point.

Beautifully shot by Joan Vincent, this is serious erect-nipple vampirism, with all the longing and the loneliness that goes with belonging to the undead...although there are not many people who look as alive as Lina Romay does in this movie. Absolutely excellent and for a change coherent. Wistful, sexy, hypereal. Genuinely an extraordinary movie.

Convincing but cheap, its erotic moments are creepy and sexy and it never resorts to blood just to make a point. That would have been fine in most horror films, but Female Vampire isn't a horror film with a creepy atmosphere, it's more like a creepy atmosphere with a horror film. Romay is sexy and convincing -- Franco has wisely let his villains remain mute, eliminating a lot of silliness. Taylor is refreshing as a poet who believes his destiny is to join her in immortality. A lot better than some of Franco's other 300-someodd movies.

Phil Hardy's Horror encyclopaedia calls "Les Avaleuses" one of Franco's better efforts which "outclasses ... Vampiros lesbos" and is filmed with "unusual care". Personnally, I cannot confirm any of these assertions. This movie is a rather mediocre product not developing its potential.

Certainly, it contains some nice shots, e.g., the half naked countess Irina wandering through the foggy forest (at least when she is not bumping into the camera) or the final "blood bath". There are also interesting plot elements, namely, Irina's misery, as reflected by herself, and her relationship to Baron Von Rathony, but they haven't been satisfactorily developed. Therefore, what remains is a shallow though strange porn movie. Whatever atmosphere Franco might have wished to create, it is ruined by the sloppy editing and camera work. In fact, the camera, when not out of focus, is helplessly zooming back and forth or meandering around to no avail. Needless to say that Franco didn't take the pain of removing the failed shots. In this light, an occasionally well composed frame appears to be the result of sheer luck. The editing, too, is amateurish. Transitions between scenes are sometimes so brutal that you remain puzzled with what has happened.

Well, do it like Don Sleazo himself, quickly forget about this movie and proceed to the next one!