By Andrea Thompson
The 1971 film “The Velvet Vampire” couldn’t be called a good film exactly, but there’s a reason it’s achieved a kind of cult status. It’s a bizarre mishmash of art and classic slasher, and it’s the kind of movie to watch and appreciate for an artist working within their limitations.
And make no mistake, Stephanie Rothman is an artist, even if the industry refused to give her much of a chance to be one. She was given a job and mentored by one of the great kings of schlock horror, Roger Corman himself. But Rothman was forced to indulge a genre that was ultimately unsatisfying to her, and was never given a chance to break out of it and realize her true filmmaking ambitions once B-movies waned in popularity.
But in 1971, Rothman was fresh off her hit film “The Student Nurses,” and decided to make a vampire film that indulged and subverted the tropes audiences were so familiar with even by then. There’s the bewitching, very sexual lady vampire, the unease of a woman whose fears are dismissed, an isolated location, and even a creepy gas station attendant whose aloofness should have been a warning.
But this is the freewheeling 1970s California, the perfect time for a sexy vampire to meet a young married couple and invite them to her gorgeously stylish abode in...the desert? It seems a strangely inhospitable place for a vampire to call home, so I suppose said couple Lee (Michael Blodgett) and Susan Ritter (Sherry E. DeBoer) don’t have much reason to be suspicious when Diane LeFanu (Celeste Yarnall, also you gotta love the tribute to Carmilla author Sheridan Le Fanu) invites them to stay for the weekend. Susan has plenty of reason to be angry and jealous though, given her husband Lee’s clear attraction to Diane, and how Diane brazenly flirts with him right in front of her.
It’s hardly the stuff of feminist films, but the motions of “The Velvet Vampire” are exactly that, motions. Susan may be a damsel who has to be saved twice in ten minutes, but it’s Diane who saves her each time, first in a dark mine and then from a rattlesnake when she’s lying out in the sun. Diane is drawn to each human around her, from her human servant Juan (Jerry Daniels), to the unfortunate mechanic who drives out to her place one night and the woman who comes in search of him, and of course, both halves of the newly arrived married couple, but it’s Susan she’s most open with and drawn to. And it’s Susan she saves for last in a bizarre twist on the Final Girl, pursuing her even when she flees to Los Angeles.
And while Diane is shown to have her own tragic layers, it’s Susan who goes through the most changes. She is objectified, appearing topless in many scenes, but so is Lee, and it’s in a naturalistic way as she’s lying in bed with her husband, and as she begins to fall more and more under Diane’s spell, she becomes more like a fetishized doll, ironically spending less time nude and clothed in a frilly pink negligee. Like many a B-movie film, color is everything, and much of the cast almost seems to take their cue from Susan, adorning themselves in various shades of pink shortly after she does.
But much like any good vampire film, red is the color of choice, from the various sources of lighting to Diane’s gorgeous outfits, and of course, the blood of her many victims, most of whom she loves to death like a classic female vampire, and which the trailer takes care to emphasize.
It’s a good thing Diane has style, because there’s not much else to vampires in this movie. Diane may be able to go out in the sun, but other than her thirst for blood, and later, as we discover, a fear of crosses, she doesn’t seem to get much out of being a vampire other than immortality. There’s no feats of strength or healing abilities, and she gets injured quite easily.
She also isn’t much in the brains department, but then, neither is anyone else, because that’s not really the point of “The Velvet Vampire.” What it does emphasize amidst all the schlock, plot holes, and constraints that involve both budget and story, is women turning the tables on male entitlement. Diane takes advantage of those who see her as harmless, and Susan regularly pushes back against her husband and others who seek to use her for their own ends. They might resemble each other a little too well, and it’s probably why Diane pursues Susan so far, even to her death. Bent on indulging her thirst at costs, Diane once again loves to death, it’s just that this time it’s her own.
The Velvet Vampire is streaming on Tubi, Amazon Prime, and The Criterion Channel.
