Evengyny Thanks for the memories!

Grimerlana Plenty to Like, Plenty to Dislike

Console best movie i've ever seen.

Marva It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

Leofwine_draca A slow-moving art film dealing with a pair of women who are vampires - except not in the typical sense. I'll make it clear from the start that I'm not a big fan of art-house films - I'm more of a traditionalist myself. This accounts for the film's average rating - the rating is of how much I enjoyed the film, not of how good the film is. I admit that the film is very good and deserves 5/5 for its merits, however, I only enjoyed it partially because I'm not really into these slow-paced, character-focused movies.It's a film which makes good use of some European locations - the photography is wonderful and reminds me of DON'T LOOK NOW. The acting is also above average, with standout performances from Delphine Seyrig as the hypnotic Countess and John Karlen as the violent, hypocritical husband. It's only Danielle Ouimet who spoils things with her wooden performance - she may be beautiful, but she's no actress. There is very little action in the film, apart from the finale, making this one hard to sit through for some impatient viewers.Throughout the film, the key focus is that of relationships - between the two couples, and how they interact with each other. Although billed as a lesbian vampire affair, it's actually quite subtle, with only a couple of kisses here and there - don't worry, there are no explicit scenes in this film. The basis is the story of Countess Bathory, the real-life woman who bathed in virgin's blood and who was also the inspiration for the Hammer film Countess Dracula, starring Ingrid Pitt. Indeed, the blood is kept to a minimum too, and the blood-drinking is tastefully portrayed. The film succeeds in enchanting the viewer and wrapping them up in the vampire's spell, becoming almost hypnotic. There are a couple of shocks - the sudden, brutal whipping, or the bloody bathroom death - but these are few and far between. For the most part it's a subtle, understated, dreamy affair. Only occasionally dipping into unintentional comedy - the murder of the bicyclist was unexpected and amusing - DAUGHTERS OF DARKNESS is otherwise a well-made, but only moderately enjoyable film.

moonmonday Daughters of Darkness is one of those films where the viewer can generally be sure of what will happen from one moment to the next, but it's still interesting enough to keep watching. It's fairly predictable, up until the last second, which unfortunately you find yourself wishing that perhaps you're wrong...and finding out you were right all along.It's a good enough story, though, with characters boasting many facets and many levels of depth, although unfortunately the surface is barely scratched with most of them. That's also kind of a disappointment since the cast of characters is so small, it's not like they couldn't have explored deeper. The actors were most all up to the task, so why does it seem so shallow in so many ways?The direction, the cinematography, the hair, the makeup, the costumes -- all of it is splendid. Unfortunately by the last half-hour, it's all started to spin its wheels, and the experience has begun to sour. By the last shot, you're done with the movie and more than slightly irritated that you were asked to invest 100 minutes into something that really didn't deserve them.But the Countess was so seductive and interesting, and the young couple were so strange and intriguing, and you knew the story like any old tale, but you hoped that familiarity wouldn't spoil you on it. And when it did anyway, you felt betrayed, as betrayed as you should, yet you still took away a particular feeling from it, something you did like, even if it was ultimately not an overwhelmingly positive experience.This is a film with far more style than substance, and what substance there is remains mostly untapped. There's far too much time-wasting and actor-wasting, too many scenes that don't add up to anything, and an ending that will literally make you angry.Is it worth watching? Once. And only once.Don't make the mistake of going down that road again: it presents far more than it can back up, and that perhaps is the most unfortunate quality of all in this film. It is, at its heart, even flimsier than the shallowest Hammer vampire number, and not nearly as fun as any of them, ultimately. It could have been much better. If only it had bothered to make a good ending of itself. But a bad ending can ruin even a good story, and this was just barely adequate, struggling to breach the surface of mediocrity and pastiche.There is a visual splendour to it, and it is enjoyable to watch and digest as a piece of art. The characters are not all so superficial as they may appear, but any depth remains sadly unexplored, perhaps tragically, by the resolution or lack thereof. Some plot threads are completely dropped, others misappropriated, and all in all this ends up an unsatisfying mess by the last fade to red.If you like unconventional vampire films, give it a try. It won't have any secrets for you, and it won't have any surprises, but it might be amusing for a couple of hours. Don't expect it to become a favourite though.

Scott LeBrun This viewer will admit right off that he is more accustomed to horror movies of the more traditional kind. However, that doesn't mean that he can't appreciate what a movie like this tries to do. Harry Kumel's "Les Levres Rouges", a.k.a. "Daughters of Darkness", as I am sure has been said numerous times before, has higher aspirations than cheap thrills. (That doesn't mean, however, that fans hoping for a trash quotient won't get it, as there is a fairly generous dose of nudity, male and female, in one key scene.) It's stately, intelligent, and very deliberately paced, with a clear focus on character and ambiance. Now, there are some genuine shock moments and scenes of sudden violence, but they are few and far between.The action, so to speak, is mostly set inside a vast, opulent hotel that a honeymooning couple is visiting in the wintertime. So, it is actually almost empty, until the couple, Stefan (John Karlen) and Valerie (Danielle Ouimet) make the acquaintance of sophisticated Countess Bathory (Delphine Seyrig), who just might be THE Elizabeth Bathory of real-life infamy, and her sultry companion, Ilona (Andrea Rau).Enhanced by lovely music composed by Francois de Roubaix, the movie, just like its cagey main character, has a certain, seductive allure going for it; it's hard not to be captivated by Seyrigs' performance and hang on to every word she speaks. One can sense that her presence can only lead this young couple to some pretty dark places, as passionate impulse takes over and the violent side of Stefans' personality is more prone to emerge. In fact, as this story plays out, The Countess doesn't seem as bad as Stefan turns out to be.The other actors do a fine job of reinforcing the notion that a substantial part of acting is REACTING, as their characters feel the influence of this sexy stranger. The atmosphere and mood of this movie are simply excellent, as right from the get go, there is a very somber feel to the characters and dialogue. Stefan and Valerie go so far as to admit that their relationship is not really based on love. Character details like this are given throughout; Stefan reacts with more than casual curiosity to being present at a murder scene, and when he and the Countess recount the horrific acts of Elizabeth Bathory, it arouses them more and more; Valerie yells at them to stop, and is it the sordid nature of what they speak, the fact that they're getting turned on, or both, that is unnerving Valerie? What the characters realize about themselves and the others becomes vitally important to what unfolds.With its elements of lesbianism, eroticism, and sadomasochism, this is an interesting piece of cinema for patient viewers.Seven out of 10.

chaos-rampant Beware as you go into this, it may sound like Hammer but it's nothing like it. It's a chic, stylish vampire film dripping with the most wanton aestheticism. The whole thing exudes the scent of an absinthe dream, the contours of a flowing red dress.Superficially it is about a couple of newly-weds - but who, as the film opens with them having sex in a train cabin, openly declare that they don't love each other - who find themselves stranded in Ostande and move in to a strangely empty hotel for a few days. A countess Bathory arrives there with her female companion, there's also the baffled concierge who tries to stay out of passion's way.I say superficially because the dynamics between the couple is what at first sight seems to be driving the story. The woman is desperate to break out from the limbo of anonymous sex and be introduced, thus be legitimized as a wife and woman, to the man's mother, an aristocrat back in England. The man, on the other hand, is content to derail those expectations and savour the erotic dream he has concocted to inhabit.But of course we come to understand that the narrative is powered from outside. The countess courts both, seducing in the emotional space between them. She personifies that wanton aestheticism right down to her body language. It is important to note that she is played by the actress who starred in Marienbad for Resnais, which this film alludes to; in the mysterious hotel setting with its expansive balustrades, in the twilight wanderings, in the sense of time revoked and sensations amplified.She is the architect of all this, building around these people the desires that will yield them to her. So it is the man's semi-conscious world of secret pleasures, but it's she who is slowly, slyly perverting them. She does this with the malevolent purity of a femme fatale.It does not matter that she is Bathory, or that blood is eventually savored from wrists, this is merely the desire made visible in a way that would appeal to a niche audience. So even though Jess Franco borrowed the velvety sunsets and decadent air from this for Vampyros Lesbos, this operates deeper. It matters for example that she seduces the man into a new obsession with violence, the destructive flipside of eros. It further pries the woman apart from him.Gradually what was a matter of taking pleasure from flesh is spun into something else entirely; again involving flesh but now literally draining from his.It ends with a stunning sequence across countryside roads; a lot of the imagery recalls L'Herbier - who also inspired Resnais - but here more pertinently. The soul has been so withered away from inside, so consumed from the fever of passion, that mere sunlight sends it reeling. Of course we can explain away by falling back to our knowledge of vampire lore, but we'd be missing on the finer abstractions; how, for example, the femme fatale is magically cast into the circumstances that, as we know from our knowledge of this type of film, would precipitate her demise. Nothing else would do after all.If we follow the set of reactions from what at first sight appears like an accident, it can be plainly seen how it all flows from her desire to control the narrative.It's marvelous stuff just the same, the colors, the desolate aura. I just want to urge you to see as more than just an 'artsy vampire flick'. Save that for Jean Rollin.