Rating: 
Summary: This Is The One
Review: Look no more. This is the erotic vampire flic ive been searching for. There are good vampire movies and erotic vampire movies. This one combines both to make a great viewing experience. Thick gothic atmosphere two beautiful vampire girls and plenty of victums. Very well done.
Rating:
Summary: READ BEFORE ORDERING!!!
Review: Make no mistake this film is a cult classic along side the other female vampire film Vamyros Lesbos. It is bloody and sexy and fun.Other reviews have done a great job of describing the film but one point about the DVD releases, while AnchorBay does a great job on plenty of Fulci titles they dropped the ball with their Vampyres DVD as it is actually slightly cut. Get the Blue Underground DVD as it is uncut and has some remakable special features.
Rating: 
Summary: cool
Review: My favorite parts were when Fran & Miriam would run through the grave yard. Awesome.
Rating:
Summary: Share Pleasures of the Flesh...and Horrors from the Grave!
Review: Okay, 1974's VAMPYRES admittedly has numerous nude scenes--full frontal female nude scenes, in some cases--that was a prerequisite for the sexploitation horror pouring out of Europe in the 1970s. And yes, the two female players have hourglass figures, ample bosoms, and beautiful faces. However, this British indie film, directed by Spanish auteur José Ramón Larraz, has a cinematic aesthetic that makes it stand out above its contemporaries as a horror film of true quality. Larraz does a fantastic job of directing, working in close conjunction with cinematographer Harry Waxman to ensure that nearly every shot of every scene is a balanced, well-framed image. In keeping with the spooky atmosphere of the moldering English manor house and surrounding grounds used for location shooting, production designer Ken Bridgeman maintains the perfect ambiance throughout. And unlike many other buxom sexploitation actresses of the era, erotic stars Marianne Morris and Anulka (Dziubinska) can actually act, and they do a superb job in making the eponymous characters both scary and sympathetic. In addition to the outstanding efforts of cast and crew, the tight, well-written script is refreshingly new--even from this vantage point of some thirty years hence. Avoiding the usual vampire clichés, these VAMPYRES are really more like ghosts who have some inexplicable but insatiable desire to feed on the blood of the living. They don't have fangs, they can tolerate moderate sunlight, and instead of resting in musty old caskets, they sleep in a wine cellar during the brightest of the daylight hours. They also can eat, drink liquids other than blood, and seem to genuinely enjoy sex. And they even sometimes have sympathy for their victims, a characteristic that may lead to their ultimate downfall. The myth of the vampire has always been regarded as sexual in nature, especially the intimacy of the flesh-penetrating bite on the neck. VAMPYRES carries this metaphor to the extreme, with heterosexual vampiric coitus portrayed as an intensely passionate, rigorous event that includes feasting on the blood of the non-vampiric partner. And the eponymous characters in VAMPYRES don't gently suck from two pricks in the neck; in the midst of sexual passion, they tear open their victims and lap up the crimson liquid with ferocious, writhing pleasure. In short, VAMPYRES is an excellent British erotic horror flick that is superior to most others from its era of origin, and it can even stand up against many straightforward, non-sexploitation horror films. It is well written, well acted, and has high production values throughout--and all this in spite of a low, low budget. Director Larraz and his co-scripters have take an idea that they could play for camp or sheer sexploitation and, instead, deliver a thought-provoking look at indiscriminate and promiscuous sex, physical obsession, and guilt. And on top of that, they still throw in lots of delicious T&A. The DVD from Blue Underground is a great buy. Not only does it present a widescreen restored director's version of this excellent film--transferred primarily from the original negatives--but it also has lots of cool extras. It offers a feature-commentary track with director José Ramón Larraz and producer Brian Smedley-Aston that is both hilarious--due to Larraz's frank use of English colloquialisms--and informative. And there are also recent interviews with Marianne Morris and Anulka Dziubinska, the film's beautiful stars; a lost scene recreated via production stills; U.S. and European trailers; and more. This is a piece of erotic artistic cinematic history that any serious horror fans will want to add to their collections.
Rating:
Summary: Share Pleasures of the Flesh...and Horrors from the Grave!
Review: Okay, 1974's VAMPYRES admittedly has numerous nude scenes--full frontal female nude scenes, in some cases--that was a prerequisite for the sexploitation horror pouring out of Europe in the 1970s. And yes, the two female players have hourglass figures, ample bosoms, and beautiful faces. However, this British indie film, directed by Spanish auteur José Ramón Larraz, has a cinematic aesthetic that makes it stand out above its contemporaries as a horror film of true quality. Larraz does a fantastic job of directing, working in close conjunction with cinematographer Harry Waxman to ensure that nearly every shot of every scene is a balanced, well-framed image. In keeping with the spooky atmosphere of the moldering English manor house and surrounding grounds used for location shooting, production designer Ken Bridgeman maintains the perfect ambiance throughout. And unlike many other buxom sexploitation actresses of the era, erotic stars Marianne Morris and Anulka (Dziubinska) can actually act, and they do a superb job in making the eponymous characters both scary and sympathetic. In addition to the outstanding efforts of cast and crew, the tight, well-written script is refreshingly new--even from this vantage point of some thirty years hence. Avoiding the usual vampire clichés, these VAMPYRES are really more like ghosts who have some inexplicable but insatiable desire to feed on the blood of the living. They don't have fangs, they can tolerate moderate sunlight, and instead of resting in musty old caskets, they sleep in a wine cellar during the brightest of the daylight hours. They also can eat, drink liquids other than blood, and seem to genuinely enjoy sex. And they even sometimes have sympathy for their victims, a characteristic that may lead to their ultimate downfall. The myth of the vampire has always been regarded as sexual in nature, especially the intimacy of the flesh-penetrating bite on the neck. VAMPYRES carries this metaphor to the extreme, with heterosexual vampiric coitus portrayed as an intensely passionate, rigorous event that includes feasting on the blood of the non-vampiric partner. And the eponymous characters in VAMPYRES don't gently suck from two pricks in the neck; in the midst of sexual passion, they tear open their victims and lap up the crimson liquid with ferocious, writhing pleasure. In short, VAMPYRES is an excellent British erotic horror flick that is superior to most others from its era of origin, and it can even stand up against many straightforward, non-sexploitation horror films. It is well written, well acted, and has high production values throughout--and all this in spite of a low, low budget. Director Larraz and his co-scripters have take an idea that they could play for camp or sheer sexploitation and, instead, deliver a thought-provoking look at indiscriminate and promiscuous sex, physical obsession, and guilt. And on top of that, they still throw in lots of delicious T&A. The DVD from Blue Underground is a great buy. Not only does it present a widescreen restored director's version of this excellent film--transferred primarily from the original negatives--but it also has lots of cool extras. It offers a feature-commentary track with director José Ramón Larraz and producer Brian Smedley-Aston that is both hilarious--due to Larraz's frank use of English colloquialisms--and informative. And there are also recent interviews with Marianne Morris and Anulka Dziubinska, the film's beautiful stars; a lost scene recreated via production stills; U.S. and European trailers; and more. This is a piece of erotic artistic cinematic history that any serious horror fans will want to add to their collections.
Rating: 
Summary: Wasted Potential
Review: Some people might call this review a spoiler, but I don't.
Still here? OK. See, I don't call this a spoiler because a spoiler gives away the ending. My review, on the other hand, is a warning that VAMPYRES does not actually have an ending.
This movie gets off to an excellent start; but, as the filmmakers admit in their audio commentary, they ran out of money. Of course the film is low-budget, which is fine. But the additional problem with VAMPYRES is that they did not even end up having the modest sum of money they expected when production began. To make matters worse, the impossible-to-work-with director José Ramón Larraz kept changing the script while filming was taking place. The result is a movie with a great creepy atmosphere and talented, charismatic actresses but a screenplay that makes absolutely no sense. Side-plots keep getting introduced in irrelevant scenes and then never referred to again throughout the film. The first few scenes bring up an intriguing murder mystery, but the filmmakers ran out of money before they filmed the mystery being solved. It would have made more sense at that point to cut the plot-development scenes out of the movie entirely and just make a straight-forward nudity and gore flick, but they did not bother to edit out the scenes that script-changes and halted production had made irrelevant. The closing scenes clumsily restate what has been obvious all along without bringing together any of the loose plot elements.
It is really a shame that more time and money were not spent on this movie. The spooky atmosphere, early plot developments, and chemistry between the cast members could have led to a true masterpiece of horror.
Some reviewers have mentioned that this is the unedited version of the film. I don't know if the edited version just cuts out the sex and violence or if it also attempts to make the plot more coherent; but if any film ever needed editing, this is it.
Rating:
Summary: Erotic, bloody vampire flick
Review: Some time ago I made a statement to the effect that I avoided vampire films like the plague. What did I do immediately after making such a pronouncement? Why, I went right out and started watching vampire films! I am nothing if not a huge hypocrite, but at least this time there is a reason for my hypocrisy. You see, I am finally getting a chance to see all the great Eurohorror classics thanks to the advent of DVD. And it just so happens that some of these great classics employ the tried and true vampire theme. How could I pass up the joy that is "Daughters of Darkness" merely because I try to avoid vampire films? Or Jose Larraz's epic "Vampyres"? Actually, I never even heard of this last movie before DVD arrived on the scene. I was thumbing through the lists of supposed Eurohorror classics and stumbled over the title. The word on it was good, great in some instances, so I decided to give it a shot. I'm glad I did. In fact, if I had to cite one example of a movie that embodied the look and feel of 1970s Eurohorror, I would pick "Vampyres." The only thing missing from Larraz's film is an extremely high gore quotient (the film is quite bloody, though).
Fran (Marianne Morris) and her blonde partner Miriam (Anulka) are just your average, everyday dead spirits wandering through rain shrouded cemeteries, back roads, and dark forests somewhere in England. We learn at the beginning of the film that someone, presumably a male, expressed his disappointment at finding the two young women in a compromising position and thus shot them with a handgun. Flash forward some number of years to a creepy looking castle located out in the sticks, the same castle where the aforementioned crime took place. Miriam and Fran, clad in flowing robes, flit from their abode to the roadside where they entice young male drivers back to the castle for an evening of wine, fun, and other assorted activities. Later, we see the police prying these hapless wretches from their wrecked cars, drained of blood and with watches that mysteriously stopped. Hmmm. Looks like something decidedly supernatural is going on in the vicinity. Could the accidents have something to do with our two wayward spirits? It sure looks like it, especially considering the last time we see these blokes alive is in the company of Fran and Miriam.
Enter three people who will soon learn more than they ever wanted to know about young, gorgeous spirit vampires. There's a driver, Ted (Murray Brown), who accepts an invitation from Fran to return to the castle only to find himself imprisoned there as a sort of ongoing snack for the voracious cutie. Then we meet a couple of campers, John (Brian Deacon) and his girl Harriet (Sally Faulkner), who set up their little trailer on the grounds of the supposedly empty castle. Camping out on the site where a couple of vampires ply their trade isn't a good idea, and it isn't too long before both John and Harriet experience several frightening up close and personal encounters with Fran and Miriam. They even have a run in with Ted, without knowing he's an unwilling participant in the festivities going on in the house, but his sudden presence along with his ghostly pallor greatly alarms our campers. Meanwhile, Miriam warns Fran that her irrational love--for lack of a better term--for Ted endangers their presence in the castle and their highway activities. Fran persists in keeping Ted around, however, and will pay a price for doing so. Maybe. O.k., she doesn't pay as much of a price as John, Harriet, Ted, and a few other sorry souls do. Spending any time at all around these vampires is extraordinarily bad for one's health.
Forget about performances or the occasional bloodshed in "Vampyres." This is a movie where the atmosphere takes center stage. Every image reeks of doom and gloom, from the forbidding castle to the rain and fog shrouded environs to the massively haunting musical score. I mentioned earlier that "Vampyres" could serve as an archetype of the Eurohorror phenomenon of the 1970s, and one need look no further than the scenes where Miriam and Fran run soundlessly through a decrepit cemetery on their frequent jaunts to the road as proof of this assertion. Anyone writing a book about the prime years of European horror films should use a still taken from these scenes for the cover. "Vampyres" isn't all about atmosphere, though. There is also an enormous amount of erotic imagery in the movie, imagery made all the more impressive considering the beautiful visages of Marianne Morris and Anulka. These are two incredibly attractive women who, despite the atrocious dubbing in the case of Morris, really help propel the plot. When you've got a film about two beautiful young ladies turned into spiritual vampires, it helps to cast two beautiful young ladies in the respective parts. European horror films are known for casting attractive women (see Edwige Fenech, Uschi Digard, Christina Lindberg, etc.), but Larraz really went above and beyond the call of duty here.
Once again, Blue Underground went overboard on the extras for "Vampyres." Interviews with Marianne Morris and Anulka grace the disc, along with a commentary track with director Jose Larraz. Too, the disc throws in a few funky trailers as well as a reconstruction of a lost scene through still photographs. The picture and audio look and sound great. I heartily recommend "Vampyres" for anyone interested in learning about Eurohorror. I would think fans of vampire films already know about this one, but they should definitely check it out if they haven't heard about it.
Rating:
Summary: Blue Underground Proves Once Again Why They're The Best
Review: Up until recently, Anchor Bay Entertainment used to be the undisputed king of releasing horror, exploitation, foreign, art house and cult cinema on DVD with all the bells and whistles that rabid collectors love. However, former Anchor Bay head honcho (not to mention notable genre director) Bill Lustig has since focused his talents on making Blue Underground the premiere distribution company amongst those who know their cult cinema... Take their treatment of Jose Ramon Larraz's evocative vampire (make that vampyre) classic. Previously available on the format in a slightly censored print from Anchor Bay, Blue Underground have released what is likely to be the definite release of VAMPYRES on DVD and anyone who has even a passing interest in foreign horror films should already own this fantastic disc... The extras (including a commentary track and a featurette) are plentiful, the print is cleaned up and, most importantly, the film is UNCUT and UNCENSORED! The movie itself is much like your standard vampire story, albeit done with a little more style that we're accustomed to seeing in this sort of film... European horror film directors always seem to have a better sense of atmosphere and visual direction than their American counterparts and it certainly shows here... Larraz makes full use of the autumnal settings and injects some real class in the film with some top-notch lighting at key moments... A scene where three characters share a drink in a wine cellar benefits greatly from this... you yourself feel as if you're down there with them by the candle-light. Outdoor scenes are particularly surreal in the way that they're shot... Of course, this is a horror film so genre fans can expect an ample amount of blood to be shed over the course of the film. Much of it isn't very explicit but I found myself shocked at least once because I wasn't really expecting it... the deaths in VAMPYRES come quick and mercilessly, as I suppose they should. There's also quite a bit amount of nudity to be found here as well, a good portion of it softcore lesbian erotica (VERY softcore... don't expect the film to slip into Jess Franco territory at all). In any case, they most certainly DON'T make them like this any more... If you even consider yourself a fan of vampire movies, or the 70s European exploitation scene in general, you should definitely have this minor classic in your collection... Not only does it provide fans with the lurid thrills that they're accustomed to seeing but it does so with just a bit of class, and there's nothing wrong with that.
Rating:
Summary: Bosoms and bloodshed, a potent combination!
Review: VAMPYRES (UK 1974): A motorist (Murray Brown) is lured to an isolated country house inhabited by two beautiful young women (Marianne Morris and Anulka) and becomes enmeshed in their free-spirited sexual lifestyle, but his hosts turn out to be vampires with a frenzied thirst for human blood... Taking its cue from the lesbian vampire cycle initiated by maverick director Jean Rollin in France, and consolidated by the success of Hammer's 'Carmilla' series in the UK, Jose Ramon Larraz' daring shocker VAMPYRES pushed the concept of Adult Horror much further than British censors were prepared to tolerate in 1974, and his film was cut by almost three minutes on its original British release. It isn't difficult to see why! Using its Gothic theme as the pretext for as much nudity, sex and bloodshed as the film's short running time will allow, Larraz (who wrote the screenplay under the pseudonym 'D. Daubeney') uses these commercial elements as mere backdrop to a languid meditation on life, death and the impulses - sexual and otherwise - which affirm the human condition. Shot on location at a picturesque country house during the Autumn of 1973, Harry Waxman's haunting cinematography conjures an atmosphere of grim foreboding, in which the desolate countryside - bleak and beautiful in equal measure - seems to foreshadow a whirlwind of impending horror (Larraz pulled a similar trick earlier the same year with SYMPTOMS, a low-key thriller which is all mood and very little action, until it erupts into a frenzy of violence during the final reel). However, despite its pretensions, VAMPYRES' wafer-thin plot and rough-hewn production values don't really amount to very much, and while the two female protagonists are as charismatic and appealing as could be wished, the male lead (Brown, past his prime at the time of filming) is woefully miscast in a role that should have gone to some beautiful, twentysomething stud. A must-see item for cult movie fans, an amusing curio for everyone else, VAMPYRES is an acquired taste. Watch out for Bessie Love, star of the silent era, in a brief cameo at the end of the movie. Originally released on DVD by Anchor Bay in incomplete form (29 seconds of carnage were accidentally omitted from one of the climactic sequences), Blue Underground's definitive disc - beautifully presented and packaged - restores all the missing footage to its rightful place. Picture quality is as good as the low-budget film stock will allow, though it's still a little grainy in places, and the mono sound is adequate. Extras include trailers, interviews with Morris and Anulka (both are older and wiser, yet still radiant), and a lively audio commentary with Larraz and producer Brian Smedley-Aston, along with an unexpurgated version of Tim Greaves' much-admired booklet 'Vampyres - A Tribute to the Ultimate in Erotic Horror Cinema', here presented in DVD-ROM format which this writer was unable to access. NB. Blue Underground's DVD includes an insert which replicates vivid artwork for an Italian release print (OSSESSIONE CARNALE), featuring a prominent Techniscope credit. However, the movie wasn't photographed in any kind of scope format, and viewers are assured the disc's 1.85:1 ratio is correct. 87m 29s
1.85:1 / Anamorphically enhanced
Mono 2.0
Optical mono [theatrical]
No captions or subtitles
All regions
Rating:
Summary: Bosoms and bloodshed, a potent combination!
Review: VAMPYRES (UK 1974): A motorist (Murray Brown) is lured to an isolated country house inhabited by two beautiful young women (Marianne Morris and Anulka) and becomes enmeshed in their free-spirited sexual lifestyle, but his hosts turn out to be vampires with a frenzied thirst for human blood... Taking its cue from the lesbian vampire cycle initiated by maverick director Jean Rollin in France, and consolidated by the success of Hammer's 'Carmilla' series in the UK, Jose Ramon Larraz' daring shocker VAMPYRES pushed the concept of Adult Horror much further than British censors were prepared to tolerate in 1974, and his film was cut by almost three minutes on its original British release. It isn't difficult to see why! Using its Gothic theme as the pretext for as much nudity, sex and bloodshed as the film's short running time will allow, Larraz (who wrote the screenplay under the pseudonym 'D. Daubeney') uses these commercial elements as mere backdrop to a languid meditation on life, death and the impulses - sexual and otherwise - which affirm the human condition. Shot on location at a picturesque country house during the Autumn of 1973, Harry Waxman's haunting cinematography conjures an atmosphere of grim foreboding, in which the desolate countryside - bleak and beautiful in equal measure - seems to foreshadow a whirlwind of impending horror (Larraz pulled a similar trick earlier the same year with SYMPTOMS, a low-key thriller which is all mood and very little action, until it erupts into a frenzy of violence during the final reel). However, despite its pretensions, VAMPYRES' wafer-thin plot and rough-hewn production values don't really amount to very much, and while the two female protagonists are as charismatic and appealing as could be wished, the male lead (Brown, past his prime at the time of filming) is woefully miscast in a role that should have gone to some beautiful, twentysomething stud. A must-see item for cult movie fans, an amusing curio for everyone else, VAMPYRES is an acquired taste. Watch out for Bessie Love, star of the silent era, in a brief cameo at the end of the movie. Originally released on DVD by Anchor Bay in incomplete form (29 seconds of carnage were accidentally omitted from one of the climactic sequences), Blue Underground's definitive disc - beautifully presented and packaged - restores all the missing footage to its rightful place. Picture quality is as good as the low-budget film stock will allow, though it's still a little grainy in places, and the mono sound is adequate. Extras include trailers, interviews with Morris and Anulka (both are older and wiser, yet still radiant), and a lively audio commentary with Larraz and producer Brian Smedley-Aston, along with an unexpurgated version of Tim Greaves' much-admired booklet 'Vampyres - A Tribute to the Ultimate in Erotic Horror Cinema', here presented in DVD-ROM format which this writer was unable to access. NB. Blue Underground's DVD includes an insert which replicates vivid artwork for an Italian release print (OSSESSIONE CARNALE), featuring a prominent Techniscope credit. However, the movie wasn't photographed in any kind of scope format, and viewers are assured the disc's 1.85:1 ratio is correct. 87m 29s
1.85:1 / Anamorphically enhanced
Mono 2.0
Optical mono [theatrical]
No captions or subtitles
All regions
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