Dir. Jess Franco, Germany/Spain, 1971, 89 and 80 minutes, in German with subtitles
Cast: Soledad Miranda, Ewa Strömberg, Jess Franco, Dennis Price, Paul Muller, Fred Williams
Review by Colin Dibben
Here are 2 excellent days, in which bad is so bad it gets good again, to one of the great 1970s soundtracks. Both films feature mesmerising performances by Soledad Miranda and almost as many displays of ‘boobs n bush’ as of softly overlit, sparsely furnished hotel room sets.
Vampyros Lesbos – surely one of the great film titles, the ‘does what it says on the tin’ suggestion mystified by bullshit Latin – is a retelling of the Dracula story. Linda Westinghouse (Strömberg) travels to an island near Istanbul to sign a real estate deal with the glamorous Countess Nadine (Miranda). Meanwhile, back in Istanbul, an erotic cabaret leaves a young woman dead, bleeding from neck wounds. ‘What the bloody neck is going on?’ (ho ho ouch), you may well ask yourself over the next 80 plus minutes.
She Killed in Ecstasy also tells an ur-story: a beautiful young widow seeks revenge on the 3 men and 1 woman who destroyed her husband’s career in medical research and led to his suicide.
With these 2 films, Franco turned to a way of telling stories that is oblique, or perhaps so direct, so material, so a matter of chopped up celluloid sequences that it appears oblique. For example, a scene full of exposition – such as when Linda’s boss tells her to visit Countess Nadine – will be followed by a scene in which Linda is walking round a swimming pool patio, where the countess is sunbathing. There are no soft joins connecting events.
At the same time, the reality, the normality of the places shown – be they sets or real places – is heightened, despite some set dressing and hazy lighting. The actors, too, seem to wander in a fugue state from shot to shot, with a kind of normalcy. A normalcy that is once again made strange by their outlandish 70’s outfits, such as a long purple knitted cloak and big brown sunglasses. The effect is dreamlike.
The sexual acts shown are very tame by today’s standards, even given the frequent female nudity. The cabaret act in Vampyros Lesbos sets the tone: there is something icy, staged and un-erotic about them all.
I think a comparison with David Lynch helps fix what is special about these films. Everything in the frame in a Lynch film feels Lynchian: he or his creative team exert control over every aspect of what we see and it is a rich experience for the senses. Here, on the other hand, everything on-screen feels slightly extraneous, like it is alluding to something else that is not on-screen, perhaps the ungraspable reality of the act of filming itself.
Heavy stuff, I know! Thankfully, for many, the best reason to watch these films is the glorious sitar funk soundtrack by Manfred Hübler and Sigi Schwab, which sounds really powerful in the clean audio that accompanies these restored versions. Incongruity abounds here too: sitars in Istanbul – well, why not? – and the tracks aren’t always deployed in a mood-appropriate fashion. Who cares? This must be one of the best soundtracks from a decade of crazy good soundtracks.
Speaking of the 4K restorations, they look as good as they sound. The UHD/Bluray package in each case comes with nice extras, including a look at Soledad Miranda’s surprising and tragically short career and late-in-life interviews with Jess Franco.
Vampyros Lesbos and She Killed in Ecstasy are both out on 30 March 2026 from Severin Films. Each film is presented in a 2-disc 4K UHD / Blu-ray edition.
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