‘Lust for a Vampire’: a movie so bad an actor had their eyeballs dubbed
Hammer Film Productions is best known for making scary movies in the 1950s, ’60s, and early ’70s. In fact, they coined an entirely new cinematic genre—the Hammer Horror. By drawing on a library of classic monsters like the Wolf Man, the Mummy, and Count Dracula, hiring acclaimed actors like Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee, and turning up the camp factor to dangerously high levels, Hammer became a powerhouse and is still regarded as one of the most essential forces in horror cinema to have ever existed.
Unfortunately, nobody bats a thousand. While movies such as Taste of Fear, The Curse of Frankenstein, and The Devil Rides Out are all classics, Hammer was not averse to churning out the odd turd every now and then. Up there with their very worst offerings is 1971’s Lust for a Vampire from director Jimmy Sangster, the second instalment in the so-called ‘Karnstein trilogy’ of vampire movies based on the 1872 novel Carmilla.
Also known as Love for a Vampire or To Love a Vampire in some markets, the film centres on a novelist searching for inspiration, only to find himself in the lair of a family of undead bloodsuckers. Michael Johnson stars as the writer, while Danish actor Yutte Stensgaard plays Carmilla, the young vampire noblewoman whose exposed flesh caused a ruckus among censors upon the film’s release. Obviously, it’s all very tame by modern standards, but in the early 1970s, this was very alarming.
Lust for a Vampire is, to put it bluntly, atrocious. It’s unbelievably camp, even by Hammer standards, and the plot is predictable at best and plodding at worst. It relies far too heavily on gore and sex to appeal, a tactic that earned it an R-rating in the US and is nothing like the stellar offerings Hammer was still capable of putting out around this time. 1971 also saw the release of Hands of the Ripper, a grippingly dark picture about the daughter of Jack the Ripper.
Perhaps the low point – or high point, if you’re a sadist – of Lust for a Vampire comes early on, in the scene where Count and Countess Karnstein are resurrecting their deceased daughter in a satanic ritual. As Karmilla comes back to life, there is a close-up shot of Count Karnstein’s bloodshot eyeballs. Well, sort of. These are not the eyes of Mike Raven, the actor who played the Count, but rather those of Christopher Lee. The shot is taken from a film released the previous year, Scars of Dracula, and reports claim that they were used because of how good Lee’s eyes looked. However, there’s also a chance that Raven was so abysmal that the director replaced part of his face to get the expression he wanted.
Raven, who was legitimately a better sheep farmer than an actor, had previously retired from the profession before making a comeback in the early 1970s. He stunk up the joint so badly that, as well as having his eyes replaced for that one shot, his voice was dubbed for the entire film. Valentine Dyall, who will be known to Doctor Who fans as the Black Guardian, provided Count Karnstein’s vocals instead.
Despite being objectively terrible, Lust for a Vampire has managed to garner a cult following over the years. If you’re in the mood for a laugh at some schlocky, exploitative horror, it might be worth a watch. However, if you’re after something genuinely chilling, there are far better Hammer productions to explore.
