The Velvet Vampire (Stephanie Rothman, 1971)

 

Cast: Michael Blodgett, Sherry E. DeBoer, Celeste Yarnall, Gene Shane, Jerry Daniels, Sandy Ward, Paul Prokop, Chris Woodley, Robert Tessler, Johnny Shines. Screenplay: Maurice Jules, Charles S. Swartz, Stephanie Rothman. Cinematography: Daniel Lacambre. Art direction: Teddi Peterson. Film editing: Stephen Judson, Barry Simon. Music: Roger Dollarhide, Clancy B. Grass III. 

You won’t see worse actors than Michael Blodgett and Sherry E. DeBoer (billed as Sherry Miles) as Lee and Susan Ritter, a young couple who fall into the clutches of Diane LeFanu (Celeste Yarnall) in The Velvet Vampire. And you probably won’t encounter a wackier vampire movie, one set in the desert, of all places. But blood-sucking Diane seems immune to the sun until the very end, when she’s attacked by a gaggle of cross-brandishing people under a sun that has pierced the Los Angeles smog. So what is this low-budget programmer doing on the Criterion Channel, that streamer of international film classics of the highest order? It’s probably there because it’s October, and the channel is doing its best to fill the annual glut of horror movies with some that demonstrate the history and variety of the genre. And also, perhaps, because director Stephanie Rothman was a product of the Roger Corman quickie-movie factory that gave a start to directors like Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, and James Cameron, and actors like Jack Nicholson, Bruce Dern, and Diane Ladd. Rothman never reached those heights, but she built a career in exploitation movies that were marked by her emphasis on strong women and her shrewd instincts as a writer-director. So The Velvet Vampire has become a cult classic for reasons that transcend the ineptness of some of its performances – though Yarnall, in fact, is actually quite good in her role – and the creakiness of its screenplay. Rothman makes the most of the desert setting, and she finesses the lack of a budget for stunt work and special effects when Diane meets her demise at the end. Unable to make the character appear to burst in flames, she cuts from the cowering Diane to a shot of logs in a fireplace, achieving the effect with simple editing. She provides an erotic charge by suggestion, with a comparative minimum of nudity. It’s not a good film, but it’s an entertaining example of how to do a lot with very little.