Customer Reviews

The Velvet Vampire

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

The Film: The Velvet Vampire
Year Made: 1971

Overview: Diane, a beautiful woman with a thirst for something red lives in a place that no other vampire has ever been known to live. She invites a couple to come visit her at her tranquil desert estate. Slowly she seduces them into her web of death. Why does she stay in the desert of all places? Is she really a vampire or is it all a illusion? Who will escape the bite of the Velvet Vampire!

The Package: 4 Stars. The graphics on this DVD holder is really cool and it just has this spooky, bloody, vampire phycodelic feel to it. It really is cool just to look at. Inside the case there is no inlay which was a let down, the disc itself holds very nicely into the holder and is easy to pop out at the same time. On the disc itself is a picture graphic of the eyes/face of Diane (The Velvet Vampire) which is really cool. It's a letdown that the trailer for the film is not included but their are some really nice extras. The company that put out this version is called cheezy flicks entertainment. There is a extras section on the disc that has all kinds of "cheezy" old trailers for films as well as old TV commercials that most anyone would really love who appreciates older low budget films and ads. I really loved that and can't wait to buy more films from cheezy entertainment to see even more of these extras I hope.

Spook Meter: 3 Stars. First off, I LOVED this film. It's not a overly scary film by any means, but as I watched it, I found my own imagination running wild as scenes popped up like the velvet vampire looking up out of her late husbands grave in the heat of the desert, while she reached out to grab her next victim. I really enjoyed the fact that this was not your "normal" vampire film. How many vampires live in the desert and drive a dune buggy?? The dream scenes, the dry eerie desert scenes, along with the music and 70s phycodelic feel throughout the film really is what made me fall in love with this gem. I happen to see the name of this film and bought it just based on that, I'm so glad I did.

Gore/Violence Meter: 2 Stars. This is not very gory at all. There is some blood, and there is some violence throughout though. Scenes of blood where a knife goes into someone, blood is shown after someone is bit on the neck and a few other Simi violent parts but where no blood is shown. The film is not super mild on the gore meter, but will be acceptable for most anyone who enjoys horror with slight gore and violence.

Profanity Meter: 3 Stars. Their is a fair amount of bad language throughout the velvet vampire and was one part that I found to be a bit of a letdown. Viewers be warned.

Sexual Meter: 4 Stars. There is quite a few make out scenes in this film. Woman's breasts are shown quite a few times and a mans naked butt is shown. Nothing else is shown below the waist; however it's quite a bit on the sexual side of things for a horror film so I give the sexual meter pretty high marks as an early warning to all viewers.

Final Thoughts: The velvet vampire is a very special and unique film to watch. It's got a lot of twists to it that after your done watching you will be left pondering over was if this and what if that. It's very well done, kind of spooky and will keep you glued to the screen until the credits are shown. If you can appreciate low budget films and want something that is truly a fun, one of a kind vampire experience, then the velvet vampire will be one that you will be proud to own as I am.

After years of floating about on bootleg dvd, this psychedelic 70's vampire masterpiece is finally available in a semi-professional format. It was actually out on LD many years back, which was the source for the bootleg dvd.

Celeste Yarnell wanders through the Southern California desert as the mysterious Diane LeFanu. After inviting a swinging couple (Michael Blodgett & Sherry Miles) to her desert home for a weekend, the couple are soon pulled into Diane's bizarre psychedelic bloodsucking world. The music and visuals are amazing for this low budget drive-in genre film.

Sherry Miles' character of Susan Ritter is the typical dumb California blond of the period, rather annoying and stereotypical. Blodgett is in his usual form as the sexy seventies shirtless hunk.

Ironically, Celeste Yarnell, who sits around eating raw liver in the movie and asking "ever noticed that people feed their cats raw liver?" went on years later to receive a veterinary degree and wrote a book on holistic cat care based on a diet of raw meats and natural foods.

Viewers will recognize Michael Blodgett from his famous role as Lance Rocke in "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls." Sadly, Blodgett recently passed away on November 14th (07) from a heart attack at the age of 67.

This is a piece of early 70's cinemagic long overdue for any DVD release. The print is no better than a videotape, but making the film available at all is a step in the right direction.
A dune buggy drivin' vampire seductress is not your standard Dracula fair, so don't come looking for a cape and pointy teeth. The music is hypnotic, cycling around a repeated dream sequence that feels like a cross between "El Topo" & "Let's Scare Jessica to Death". "The Velvet Vampire" shares more similarities with "Daughters of Darkness" than Hammer vampire stories; Diane LeFanu is more a product of the American landscape than the Carpathian Mountains.
Enjoy.

THE VELVET VAMPIRE is one of the better 70s vampire movies. If you enjoy stuff like COUNT YORGA 1 and 2, DEATHMASTER, or LET'S SCARE JESSICA TO DEATH, you'll absolutely love TVV! Loads of dreamy, topless, neck-nipping fun! Dianne LeFanu (Celeste Yarnall) is the perrrrfect seductress / hungering throat-sucker. Her pale frame is exquisite to say the least! Who could resist her vampiric charms? Not me...

Psychedelic vampire film from the director of "Terminal Island" comes this mod vampire story. More or less a 1970 updating of the Dracula story, sultry Diane LeFanu (Celeste Yarnell) meets a young couple (California blond Sherry Miles and "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls" star Michael Blodgett) and invites them to her pad in the desert...

Is she a vampire? And who does she have her fangs set on? Shot the same year as Jess Franco's similar themed "Vampyros Lesbos", the somewhat stilted acting and dated hippy dialogue is salvaged by the director's excellent dream-like photography.

This is the third time I've purchased this cult vampire classic, and I can finally watch it without all the problems associated with illegitimate dubs. If you must have pristine video quality, you probably won't be interested in this movie in the first place. For those of you who appreciate lower budget seventies-era films, this edition is everything you'd desire.

Personally I found this movie more than a little wanting. I love vampire movies and have a fairly large collection of them and I bought this one to add to them but am sad for doing so now. I found the acting to be equal to a late night TV movie and the story line that falls just short of poor. I don't need a lot of blood or gore in a movie to make it good but a little bit of terror comes in handy when talking about vampires. I would have to say that if your looking for a movie to kill time with this movie might be ok but if you are looking for a good vampire movie save your money.The Velvet Vampire

When I was a kid, I loved monster movies. I loved the old Universal classics and I loved the lusty, bloody Hammer films from England with Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing and lots of smokin' hot girls as gypsies, vampires, whatever. Ingrid Pitt still holds a Hottest Vampire spot for COUNTESS DRACULA and THE VAMPIRE LOVERS (available on a double-feature DVD with her commentary, btw).

Back then, I'd always heard about two extremely erotic vampire films (for that time) but could never find them. One was VAMPYRES, which has been released on DVD, and now, finally, we can get THE VELVET VAMPIRE. Great cinema? Not really. Pioneering erotic horror? You betcha.

Celeste Yarnell, a Sixties hottie, plays the vampire here--and she's worth getting this DVD. Her credits include a Star Trek episode and a scene with Elvis in LIVE A LITTLE, LOVE A LITTLE (she's the babe he's luring from a party while singing "A Little Less Conversation"--a song that would reach #1 in Britian and the USA as a remix in 2001!). She's incredibly sexy in this role, which is a major eye-opener for anyone who wondered how she looked "au natural" after all of her previous mainstream stuff.

This film is very much a product of its time (and its eroticism was very much ahead of its time) so it holds a lot of charm and nostalgia for anyone who either lived then or has an interest in that period of horror filmmaking.

I love old campy, sleazy, cheesy '70s horror movies. I've got a ton of them. And I think I might have liked this movie if "Cheezy Flicks" had done an even amateur rate job at transferring the film to DVD. As it stands... I wonder if this is even a legitimate release, or a bootleg? The film is presented in Standard Mode, and if you watch it on a screen bigger than a 19-inch tube, it looks like hell. I played it on my Blu-Ray player on a 65-inch TV, and it's like watching a really old VHS tape exploded to a big screen -- all of the features on the actors and actresses faces are fuzzy and blurred, and the film grainy. I'd guess that Cheezy simply transferred an old VHS tape to DVD and is trying to sell the horrible quality result as "a lost classic." If they really own the rights to this film, why didn't they go back to the original film stock and do a proper transfer? As it is... they might as well have been videotaping a TV with a camcorder from 10 yards back.

Despite all that, there is some charm inherent in this movie for those who like horror-exploitation cinema of the '70s and I'd personally give it another shot if I could see a true transfer of the film someday where the actors' faces were distinct. I would probably have rated this movie three stars if I could have SEEN more of it. I gave it two stars because there seems to be some amusing kitsch inherent in the story, even if the film transfer itself gets 1-star. Then again, maybe if I could have seen the film clearly, I would have really thought it was even worse... who knows?

The Seventies bred many variations on the Vampire theme with many countries all trying their hand in creating unique twists on Vampire lore and sexuality. This 1971 release was made for Roger Corman's New World Pictures and released through American International Pictures at the same time when their other hit , Bob Kelljan's 'COUNT YORGA, VAMPIRE' was released. This film shows our Vampire living in the desert with no fear of the sun and not a fang in sight. The erotically charged Celeste Yarnall plays Diane Le Fanu, a centuries old vampire who makes the mistake of asking a young couple back to her mansion. Director Stephanie Rothman directs with dreamlike intensity whether casually showing our vampire draped seductively on a sofa eating raw livers from a plate or seducing the viewer with beautiful sexual encounters. It also has a wonderful acoustic guitar music score by Roger Dollarhide and an impressive Blues song 'EVIL HEARTED WOMAN' written and sung by Clancy B. Grass III which sets the tone of the film beautifully. This release from Cheezy Flicks is probably the best I have seen on DVD and it looks like it was transferred from a laser disc which had a pristine negative. The transfer is slightly light and fuzzy but adequate for Horror fans. For lovers of unusual Vampire films , Rothman's 'THE VELVET VAMPIRE' deserves its release from obscurity for its surreal imagery and compelling beauty.