Taglines: An erotic nightmare of vampire lust.
Daughters of Darkness movie storyline. A chic, good-looking and suitably 70’s couple arrive at an extravagant and deserted seaside hotel after eloping. Stefan is wealthy and happily English, with a hidden streak of sadism, while Valarie is intelligent but of inferior (Swedish) blood. To keep her with him at the eerie hotel he lies consistantly about his relationship with his mother and his plans to tell her of their marriage.
Meanwhile he has mysterious phone conversations with an older, dominant and pampered sissy. Two fresh guests arrive; the Hungarian countess, Elizabeth Bathory and her voluptuous protege, Ilona. Virgin corpses begin showing up about the city drained of their blood. A wary detective lurks around the hotel taunting his only suspect, the Countess.
Daughters of Darkness (in France, Les Lèvres Rouges, in Belgium, Le Rouge aux Lèvres (the former literally translated as The Red Lips and the latter as The Red on the Lips) and in the Netherlands, Dorst Naar Bloed (meaning Thirst for Blood) is a 1971 English-language Belgian horror film directed by Harry Kümel and starring Delphine Seyrig, Danielle Ouimet, John Karlen, and Andrea Rau. It is an erotic vampire film.
Director Kumel, interviewed by Mark Gatiss for the BBC documentary Horror Europa said that he deliberately styled Delphine Seyrig’s character after Marlene Dietrich and Andrea Rau’s after Louise Brooks to deepen the intertextual resonance. Because the vampire character of Elizabeth Bathory is also a demagogue, Kumel dressed her in the Nazi colours of black, white and red. In commenting on both the film’s mordant sense of humour and the director’s painterly eye in the composition of several scenes, Gatiss drew forth the comment from Kumel that he considers the film very Belgian, especially due to the influence of Surrealism and Expressionism.
Extensive external shooting was done at the Royal Galleries of Ostend, a seaside neoclassical arcade on the beach at Ostend (especially at the luxury Grand Hotel des Thermes, which sits atop the central section of the arcade). The interior shooting was done at the Hotel Astoria, Brussels and other exteriors at the Tropical Gardens, Meise.
Daughters of Darkness (1972)
Directed by: Harry Kümel
Starring: Delphine Seyrig, Danielle Ouimet, John Karlen, Andrea Rau, Paul Esser, Georges Jamin, Joris Collet, Fons Rademakers
Screenplay by: Harry Kümel, J.J. Amiel, Pierre Drouot
Production Design by: Jean-Marie Bertrand
Cinematography by: Eduard van der Enden
Film Editing by: Denis Bonan, Gust Verschueren
Art Direction by: Françoise Hardy
Music by: François de Roubaix
MPAA Rating: None.
Distributed by: Gemini-Maron
Release Date: October 22, 1971 (United States)
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