The pictures make it look more interesting than it is. This is junk that was classed up by some excellent photography from Claude Renoir, grandson of Pierre-Auguste Renoir. The director is Roger Vadim who believe it or not was part of the famous French New Wave group that included Truffaut, Goddard and Chabrol. Vadim was in the sub division of the New Wave that was dedicated to marrying beautiful women and the sticking them in pseudo porno crap that were pushed off as films of erotic artistic expression.
The plot was based on some ancient vampire story called Carmilla except it was modernized and set in Italy where I suppose the idea was to juxtapose the decadence of the Italian aristocracy with the corruption of a sexy lesbian vampire. Or was it just an attempt on Vadim's part to see how far he could get away with having his two leading ladies play kissy face with each other? Vadim's latest wife at the time, Annette Vadim played Carmilla. Carmilla is in love with her cousin an Italian Count who is in love with another woman who seems to be half brain dead. Carmilla gets possessed by the soul of an ancient lesbian vampire, who was released during a fireworks display at the Count's estate. It's pretty easy to guess where the movie goes from that point.
The only interesting part of the movie is a lengthy dream sequence which was clearly influenced by Cocteau.
A good example of the foreign film as nudie peep show masquerading as art during the 1960's.
87 minutes.
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