Vampyres



A young couple, John and Harriet, are driving through the English countryside looking for a quiet place to park their caravan and camp. While looking around one evening they pass an alluring hitchhiker on the side of the road. They don’t stop, but Harriet remarks how odd it is, because she saw another woman hiding in the bushes nearby. John dismisses her concerns and they eventually park in a clearing adjacent to a nearby manor that appears to be abandoned. Harriet once again sees the two women that evening, but her concerns are once again ignored. John just wants a quiet place to camp for a few days, and thinks Harriet is being a busybody. But as it turns out, he probably should have been paying a little more attention to his surroundings, because it’s quickly revealed that the two mysterious ladies sneaking into the manor are anything but harmless locals. Turns out the pair are getting rides from unsuspecting male passersby, taking them back to the house, sexing them up, and then feeding on them in the night…cause they’re vampires! Haha! Harriet was right and there is something suspicious about them! But if she doesn’t quit poking her nose in things, her and her hubby might be next on the menu.


I suppose if you’re gonna pick a place to die you could pick something much worse.

Ah, my final 70s Sexy Vampire Movie of the month. This one could likely be considered – by far – to be the sexiest. Which is a rather impressive feat, considering how many vampire and non-vampire related boobies I’ve seen this month in only four films. But honestly though, I… wasn’t all that impressed with it. I mean, it is definitely sexy and I can see why it’s become a bit of a cult classic. But….eh. It’s just not for me. Mostly because the “sexy” is really the only thing it has going for it.


Though they are some of the most fabulously dressed hitchhikers you’re ever going to see.

Now, I don’t consider myself a particularly picky person by any stretch of the imagination, especially when it comes to picking movies to watch (I hold this site up as evidence of that.) But one thing I do like is for my movie to have some semblance of a plot. And it doesn’t even have to necessarily be a good, coherent one, either. I’ll gladly take the ridiculous along with the sensible, because again, I’m not that picky. I mean, the least they could tell me is how getting shot full of holes somehow turned these two ladies into vampires. But no, the movie doesn’t care about trivialities like that. This is the type of movie where the “plot”, as it were, is obviously just an afterthought to the film’s true objective: the smex. Cause that really seems to be the main purpose of the film. Fuck John and Harriet, cause they’re only there as an excuse to start the movie and link the sex scenes together, and they ultimately aren’t even that relevant. Seriously, you could completely cut them out, and the remainder of the movie would lose precious little.


Who are you two again? Oh right, the weird, non-sexy couple that nobody cares about.

You spend more time with Ted, a random dude one of the ladies picks up one evening and inexplicably decides not to kill because….. Honestly, I don’t know. Maybe she wanted to keep him around for a few days in case she needed a snack? He’s really not all that interesting or good looking to justify keeping around otherwise (sorry, Ted), so I can’t really think of another possible motive. I mean, it certainly can’t be for his brain, cause he doesn’t seem all that bright, either. After waking up alone, barely functional and with a giant, mystery gash on his arm, he goes down to his car and waits ALL DAY for this random chick, that he just met the night before, to come back to the manor. I guess the sex last night was just that great, or he literally had nothing better to do that day. And you know, I might have accepted that, except he does the exact same thing again the next morning, even after he realizes that the other guy the ladies brought home the following night has ended up dead on the side of the road. Great. And it’s not even that he’s not horribly suspicious of all this, because he is! In fact, he’s very, VERY suspicious! But he still goes back anyway because…. Well, that’s the only way the audience gets to see more nudity and sex, I guess. And I swear I’m not a prude but, I mean, come on José Larraz. If you wanted to go and make a softcore film, just go ahead and make one, my dude. Because it’s clear that that’s what you were aiming for and the only thing that was stopping you was the censors. I truly hope that you were eventually able to let your bisexual vampire freak flag fly high wherever you ended up in the hereafter.


Come to think of it, men in general aren’t really painted in a positive light in this movie.

And I’m afraid to say it, but even a lot of the sexy parts of the film I didn’t find all that sexy. Some of it is indeed very sensual and sexy. Steamy even. Oh-la-la. But oftentimes the director gets obsessed with focusing too much on the “kissing” and all I can say is…. Tongues.…Tongues, EVERYWHERE. Tongues left…Tongues right…. Tongues flapping around in the wind, like a dog sticking its head out the window. Just too much damn tongue. Gene Simmons himself would watch this and probably think they overdid it a bit with the tongue action here. This movie seriously contains some of the most un-sexy kissing scenes I think I’ve ever seen. I’m sure the filmmakers were going for “passionate”, or whatever with all this whip-lashing (at least I hope that’s what they were going for). But all I could think about watching most of it was that everyone either needed to learn to close their mouths or work on their aim. I know people aren’t necessarily “exact” in such moments, but come on, this is a damn movie. Certain things should look better than they actually are. At the very least they shouldn’t look like a bunch of drunken middle schoolers trying to figure out how to French kiss for the first time.


Me thinks the director may have let a few of his kinks slip into this movie.

Other than that though, Vampyres is fine, I guess. At least technically speaking. The acting is fine. The characters are attractive. It’s appropriately lit (which is something that is always appreciated in “darker” films). And it looks nice, and moody, and gothic nearly the entire time. So it’s really got its aesthetics down pat. Though I did kind of laugh every time it showed the ladies standing on the road trying to hitchhike wearing thick, velour gowns, while everyone else in the movie was wearing standard brown, dreary 70s attire. They looked like a couple of very out of place older goth chicks trying to make it to a local convention. The kind that look like they just like to sit around, drink wine, and sing the praises of Mary Shelly and Edgar Allan Poe all the live-long day. I’m sure there are some people who are into that. I however was rather ambivalent towards it. As I was to much of the “plot”. But at least the visuals were nice, and it is sufficiently bloody, so it wasn’t a total wash for me, either. If you’re just looking for something with blood and boobs and don’t give a flying flip about the story, then I’m sure this will tickle your fancy (amongst other things). But if you’re looking for something a little deeper for your vampire movie, you may want to steer clear.

Vampyres is available on a variety of streaming services.

Vampyres is also available on DVD and Bluray.

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