Eschewing the traditional vampire settings of old-world Europe and the modern-day big city, Stephanie Rothman's 1971 film "The Velvet Vampire" instead has as its unusual backdrop the American desert Southwest, a milieu that works far better than might be expected. In the film, we meet a (seemingly) young woman named Diane Le Fanu (a distant relation of Sheridan and/or Carmilla, perhaps?), a beautiful brunette played by Celeste Yarnall, an actress more often seen as a blonde (and who is still, amazingly, quite a beauty, 40 years later). Diane invites Susan and Lee Ritter to her house in the desert after meeting them in an art gallery, but what the Ritters don't suspect, until too late, is that Diane is more than just a vamp...she's a vampiress, and with quite an appetite, to boot! Though filmed on a very limited budget, and with nary a special visual effect to its name, this film still manages to impress. In the three leads, Celeste is by turns supremely sexy and not a little frightening; Michael Blodgett is certainly more sympathetic than he was in the previous year's "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls"; and Sherry Miles, though no great shakes as a thespian, is certainly convincing as the dim-witted Susan, not to mention an accomplished screamer. The use of some surrealistic dream sequences, and the deliciously morbid soundtrack score by Roger Dollarhide and Clancy B. Grass III, consisting largely of weird sound effects and trippy acoustic guitar, are the two elements that really put this picture over, though. Indeed, they elevate the film above the level of the mere horror flick to something quite artful. Filled with unusual touches (that voyeur's room, those raw chicken livers!) and culminating with a Greyhound bus ride from hell, "Velvet Vampire" yet manages to ultimately disappoint, insofar as Diane's undoing is concerned; perhaps the weakest and most unconvincing vampire death scene I've ever witnessed. Up until then, however, the picture is fairly riveting. The DVD that I just watched, by the way, from an outfit known as Cheezy Flicks, looks a bit on the coarse and grainy side. A shame, really, that the picture quality isn't as sharp as Diane Le Fanu's teeth....
Review of The Velvet Vampire
