Slideshow
DAUGHTERS OF DARKNESS
Belgium, France, West Germany, U.S., Canada, 1971
Directed by Harry Kümel
With Delphine Seyrig, John Karlen, Andrea Rau, Danielle Ouimet
Approx. 100 min. DCP.
“The old hotel porter gulps when he lays eyes on the Countess Bathory, and his Adam's apple bobs up and down like an organic yo-yo. ‘But...I remember that you stayed here 40 years ago, when I was a bellboy,’ he says. ‘And you have not changed — not in all those years!’ Indeed, she has not. She hasn't bought any new clothes, either. She wears slinky 1930s dresses, and high boots, and a veil over her face, and a vinyl rain cape, and enough feathers to turn an ostrich's stomach. We find out that she has a famous ancestor who remained eternally young by bathing in the blood of 800 virgins. But the current countess has a problem, because virgins are getting so hard to find these days. Right away, we figure the young honeymoon couple at the hotel hasn't got a chance.” – Roger Ebert
Reviews
“A good example of a classy genre of vampire film that follows a style I call psychological high Gothic. This ‘abstract and ceremonious’ style depicts evil as ‘hierarchical glamor’ and deals with ‘eroticized western power.’”
– Camille Paglia, Sexual Personae (1990)