With 1970's The Vampire Lovers, the Hammer House of Horror took a turn toward softcore exploitation. It stars the short-lived but long admired scream queen Ingrid Pitt, a husky-voiced Eastern-European beauty who over the years has become an icon for Hammer fans and one of the genre's most attention-getting sex symbols.

The Vampire Lovers was made at a time when Hammer was in decline, as was most of the rest of the British film industry. With their Gothic horrors losing international appeal, Hammer crossed the censor barrier and introduced nudity into their product. Since a large part of the U.S. horror audience had appealed to kids, the move to more sex and nudity didn't help Hammer's fortunes. The Vampire Lovers was heavily cut for the states, yet still saddled with an "R" rating. Ads promoting the sex angle ruled out matinee crowds, and adults patrons were infuriated by obvious cuts that excised the promised erotic thrills.

In the late 1990s concerned film asset management specialists at MGM took special care to restore The Vampire Lovers to the longest original cut possible. Fifteen years later, it emerges once again on Blu-ray, on license to Shout Factory's subsidiary Scream Factory.

Tudor Gates' screenplay jams a lot of skin and too many characters into an adaptation (by Gates, Michael Style and producer Harry Fine) of Sheridan le Fanu's seminal horror tale Carmilla. Using different names -- Marcilla, Carmilla, Mircalla -- a lesbian vampire of the Karnstein line (Ingrid Pitt) decimates two noble families one virgin at a time. Brought for a visit by The Countess (Dawn Addams), Carmilla seduces and possesses Laura (Pippa Steele) while confounding the family doctor (Ferdy Mayne) and other male visitors like Carl Ebhardt (Jon Finch). As her circle of influence grows, it becomes apparent that both Carmilla and The Countess do the bidding of a mysterious Man in Black (John Forbes-Robertson), often seen waiting in the woods. But when the religious family patriarchs General von Spielsdorf (Peter Cushing) and Baron von Hartog (Douglas Wilmer) discover what is happening, a ruthless campaign of extermination begins.

Only fitfully involving as a vampire story, The Vampire Lovers wastes a substantial gathering of acting talent on a story which could have marked the revival of the Hammer tradition. With free rein finally given to raise the sex content to the level seen in European films, the studio had an opportunity to take the genre in new directions. The British Censors had given Hammer grief from the beginning of their success. The BBFC emasculated a potential Hammer classic when it stripped 1960's The Brides of Dracula of its more daring, reportedly superior screenplay. Ten years later, the 'new freedom of the screen' seems to have inspired little creative innovation beyond showing women's breasts.

The script relegates top talent Peter Cushing to a minor role as one of three vampire hunters. He goes into action for the gory conclusion, while one of his peers does the honors in the atmospheric prologue, beheading a silken-shrouded vampire woman (Kirsten Lindholm). In analyzing Hammer's Karnstein series, critics have characterized the older males as a kind of repressive posse, punishing the sensual excesses of the younger generation with puritan zeal. That theme doesn't really come to mind while watching the show: the choice of shots always makes sure we have a view of the celebrated Hammer breastworks.

Director Roy Ward Baker came to Hammer near the end of a sterling career in British film. His direction of Quatermass and the Pit shows some budget crimping but is inspired in comparison to his undistinguished work here. Whether a fault of production or script, no clear tone is created. The ethereal feeling of the prologue (admittedly, a flashback) never returns, and the majority of the film has an arbitrary, un-directed look to it. Baker knows how to put oomph into his vampire attacks, but too much of the story remains vague. The vampires can dematerialize or become invisible (take your pick), but never use that ability when in danger. Who exactly is The Countess, or for that matter, the Man in Black? Too literal and unexciting to be mysterious phantoms, they are mainly unrewarding, unexplained loose ends. Carmilla does her wicked business first in one household, and then moves on to repeat the same thing in another. The vampire attacks / seductions quickly become repetitious, even with the added spice of the nudity.

And what about the nudity? It's straightforward skin-magazine stuff, as if the makers' only previous exposure to sensuality were Playboy centerfolds. The various caressing and fondling is so tame, Carmilla hardly seems a threat as a vampire or as a lesbian. Because the naked Ingrid Pitt looks more relaxed and frankly healthier than anybody else in the picture, she's not particularly vampiric in any traditional sense. Newer vampire stories chasing a younger audience have envisioned the Undead as a new form of liberated beautiful people, but the Twilight movies haven't done the genre any favors. The Vampire Lovers is firmly rooted in the traditions of the Gothic story, but with the nudity throwing everything off balance. The icily physical, highly suspect Ingrid is able to go about her business and nobody even notices. Only closer to the climax does Carmilla loses control of events, when Kate O'Mara goes hysterical and Jon Finch (Roman Polanski's MacBeth) fails to fall for the old 'love me and die' routine. Then we see Carmilla in a more feral mode.

In narrative films hints and teases of nudity generally have a more erotic effect than the 'stand up and show 'em' displays here. The fleeting glimpses of skin in Ferroni's haunting Mill of the Stone Women and Polanski's creepy/comedic The Fearless Vampire Killers carry a stronger erotic charge, and the dramatic process of those shows isn't disrupted by a peep show. However, this reviewer will admit that for many Hammer fans this picture is the perfect mix of sex, blood, fangs and breasts.

The film restoration of The Vampire Lovers was the subject of one of Savant's first articles in 1998, the timidly-titled Restoring Prime Hammer Horror - Nudes and Gore Galore! Fans had long wailed about the raggedly censored film prints and DVDs. An American-International Pictures/Hammer co-production, Vampire Lovers was heavily censored for both England and the United States, leaving big continuity gaps in both the opening and the closing scenes. Savant's article lauded the film restoration work of MGM Technical Services 'team member' James Owsley, that required research to find uncut elements in England. Owsley first discovered the conflicting versions when the best available optical track elements didn't match A.I.P.'s printing negatives. Researcher Gary Teetzel brought forth documentation to support fan claims that the opening and closing sword beheadings were heavily censored. There was also an uncut bathtub scene with full frontal nudity that fans had seen excerpted in English TV docus, along with claims of a another brief angle in the first beheading. A final scene, a shot of a female vampire biting a bloody breast, is a rumor that nobody has actually claimed to have seen cut into the film.

In 1998, only the violent bookends were restored. In preparing the 2003 DVD, Owsley went after the missing nude scene, the absence of which had raised howls of protest in Dick Klemensen's excellent Hammer-phlie magazine Little Shoppe of Horrors. Again, the directors in MGM Tech Services supported returning to England for the original elements for the uncut, unreleased-version. At the time MGM was convinced that everything was restored that could be restored. It is possible that the breast-biting and extra decapitation shots are apocryphal, or that they were in an earlier cut that did not make it to finish.

It's now probable that most fans of The Vampire Lovers have never seen A.I.P.'s bowdlerized theatrical recut. The restored decapitations are a big improvement. The head of the busty first vampire is sliced off with a mighty whack, and now serves as a background for the main title without A.I.P.'s customary tinting nonsense. The main title credits are now a different color, and easier to read over the cluttered map background. At the other end of the picture, the final decapitation of the vampiress in her bier is greatly improved. Peter Cushing now leans heavily on the pike as he impales Carmilla, and holds the severed head, bloody neck and all, in plain view. The, "Wha - what happened? Is it all over?" disappointment of A.I.P.'s old cut is gone forever.

The much-discussed restored bath nudity is just a brief flash of Pitt's nether regions previously covered by a quick cutaway to another actress. It will doubtless thrill the fans that buy these shows to glom the girl flesh. Well, good for them and for Ingrid's ego as well. The film was meant to have it, so it's a proper restoration.  ¹