On July 30th Shout Factory will release Hammer's LUST FOR A VAMPIRE on Blu. Directed by Jimmy Sangster it's the middle film in that studios "Karnstein Trilogy" preceded by 1970's THE VAMPIRE LOVERS and followed by TWINS OF EVIL later in 1971. Widely considered the be the lesser of the three films it follows Hammers then formula of mixing Gothic horror along with healthy dollops of bare breasts and blood.
The "Hammer Glamour" marketing campaign this time around focused on Danish born Yutte Stensgaard who appears here as Mircalla/Carmilla Karnstein who infiltrates a girl's school. This was somewhat of a troubled production with Sangster replacing Terence Fisher as director along with Peter Cushing bowing out of the male lead to care for wife and being replaced with Ralph Bates (who refereed to LUST FOR A VAMPIRE as "the worst film ever made"). Ingrid Pitt was originally slated to reprise her role from THE VAMPIRE LOVERS turned down the film.
Despite its dodgy reputation (including a winch the inducing pop vocal song "Strange Love" & Yutte's cross-eyed love-making) it still has a quite a bit to recommend in it. Ralph Bates was one of Hammer's better late period actors and Yutte's blood soaked bare bosom resurrection sequence is defiantly an eye-opener (stills of which were the highlight of several horror movie books back in the day). Plus, there's Hammers usual excellent Gothic set design & costumes and a cast that also includes Suzanna Leigh (THE LOST CONTINENT), Pippa Steel (THE VAMPIRE LOVERS) and Judy Matheson (TWINS OF EVIL).
This release will nicely fill out the trilogy on Blu and adds to Shout's ongoing Hammer releases which have been coming fast and furious lately. No extras have been announced yet.
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