DVDs, 11/1.

When is a horror film not a horror film? One of the interesting aspects of Harry Kümel's 1971 film Daughters of Darkness is that, despite the classification, it appears to have no components that qualify it for the genre. Officially it is a member of that small sub-set of the genre, the lesbian vampire film, one that includes Blood and Roses and The Vampire Lovers, but this one lacks castles, protruding teeth, diaphanous gowns, or last-minute wooden stake or dawn light-ray rescues. Indeed, Daughters of Darkness takes place in a off-season resort hotel and the traditional dark torch-lit hallways of horror film castles are here exchanged for long well-lit Antonioni-esque corridors.

1970s exploitation specialists Blue Underground have released Daughters of Darkness once before, back in 2003, that disc itself a replacement for a 1998 Anchor Bay disc. Back then, DVD Maniacs said of the Blue Underground release that...

this picture is aimed at an older, more sophisticated audience, so don't expect some mindless, exploitative slasher project here. Yes, you'll see ample sex, violence, and gore, but this isn't the usual horror product, the kind of stuff pushed toward teenagers and what not. The premise is solid, with roots in well-known vampiric lore and some nice twists are kicked in, to keep things fresh. If you're squeamish or easily offended, this one is a lock to knock you off the deep end, as Daughters of Darkness is bathed in depraved moments. I hold this movie in high esteem, as it never holds back its own perverse nature. So if you're a fan of horror or exploitation cinema, this new edition is a must own release.

At the same time, DVD Authority also deemed it "a must-have for both Euro genre and horror movie enthusiasts."

The new release is a special two-disc edition, but the second disc consists of another horror film, Vicente Aranda's 1972 The Blood Splattered Bride, which has some contemporary currency by lending snatches of music to Tarantino's Kill Bill. Daughters of Darkness is a modern version of the legend surrounding the Hungarian countess Elizabeth Bathory, while Bride is a loose adaptation of Sheridan Le Fanu's novel Carmilla, transcribed to the screen seven other times. The DVD Journal's Gregory P Dorr rather prefers Bride to Daughters, finding Kümel's film to be "relatively dull" but Aranda's to be "far more entertaining." With its inert pace, Dorr finds Daughters of Darkness, which stars John Karlen (later of Dark Shadows) and Danielle Ouimet as newlyweds, with Delphine Seyrig as the predatory Countess Elizabeth Bathory and Andrea Rau as her companion, to be "incoherent nonsense" with an only "adequate atmosphere of languor and decadence." Bride, on the other hand, transcends its "incoherence amplified by poor technique" with some "inspired moments of faux-perversion."

Rich Rosell of Digitally Obsessed is much more impressed with Daughters of Darkness, asserting that "this isn't your standard issue fang-in-the-neck vamp saga," adding that the "flow of Daughters of Darkness is more about sexual magnetism and control, and damn if it doesn't look good." He is also impressed with the new 1.66:1 anamorphic widescreen transfer which "puts the old Anchor Bay version (as well as the 2003 Blue Underground issue) to shame," and notes that most of the supplementary material concerning Daughters of Darkness appeared first on those earlier discs. Of the second feature of the set, Rosell writes that it is "a bit slow-moving, typical of the period, but it carries a beautifully gothic look to it, and waffles between moody and sensual without being particularly frightening."

Ian Jane over at DVD Talk <><> is also impressed with Daughters of Darkness. While complaining about the story line, Jane still asserts that it is "so well-directed and unfolds with such dreamlike pacing and atmosphere that it's hard not to get sucked into the strange world that Daughters of Darkness lays open in front of us." Jane also reminds us that "this is the full strength uncut version of the film which runs approximately ten minutes longer than butchered counterpart which contained a lot less nudity." The Blood Spattered Bride, on the other hand, is "a pretty twisted film with a lot of nice atmosphere and a considerable amount of weirdness going on." Still, it "makes for a great double feature with Daughters of Darkness as it has a similarly dreamlike atmosphere and a really weird vibe going on."

Posted by dwhudson at November 1, 2006 5:42 AM