The seventies were a golden age for lesbian vampire movies, a tidal wave that crested with 1983’s The Hunger. Jean Rollin is of course the gold standard for this subgenre of cinema, but he wasn’t the only practitioner. Take Daughters of Darkness, which I must admit that I’d never even heard of before Joe Bob’s Last Drive-In Movie Marathon.
The plot: newlyweds Stefan and Valerie vacation in Ostend, Belgium, a gloomy port city. Ostend appears to be totally empty except for Stefan, Valerie and the hotel’s porter. Soon enough the Countess Bathory and her secretary show up, trailed by an Inspector Clouseau type cop.
Valerie and Stefan met only a few days ago and now they’re married; if you think that’s weird, just wait. You ain’t seen nothing yet. Valerie is afraid Stefan’s mother will hate her, except Stefan’s mother is out of the picture. Stefan does have an older male lover, which is fine, except he’s lying to his bride about it. Stefan is also turned on by sadistic murder and likes to beat Valerie with his belt. This is why you should spend at least a week getting to know a person before marrying him/her!
The Countess and her secretary, Ilona, are almost normal compared to Stefan and Valerie. They travel by night, leaving a trail of nubile dead virgins in their wake. The Countess takes a shine to our newlyweds much to the dismay of Ilona, who expresses her displeasure by showing up nude at Valerie’s window.
I don’t want to give away too much of the plot, here. Suffice it to say there are lots of cocktails, witty repartee, the color red and sex. Daughters of Darkness does have a plot, although it crawls along at a slug’s pace. Unlike Mr. Rollin’s movies, which are Eurotrash and are in awful taste, this is an arthouse flick. Don’t get me wrong, Daughters of Darkness is in awful taste also, except its HIGHBROW awful taste.
My biggest problem with Daughters of Darkness is that the filmmakers don’t care about vampires or vampire lore. There’s a shower scene that I didn’t understand. Ilona either doesn’t like showers or she doesn’t like running water, which would make more sense, but it’s never explained which. I will say that Daughters of Darkness is a good-looking movie that held my interest, but there are better offerings out there. If you want to see a lesbian vampire movie, watch a Jean Rollin flick or The Hunger.
Abandoned Places 