Vampira and Me

With "Vampira & Me" director/producer R.H. Greene has put together quite an interesting documentary spotlighting the patchy acting career of Maila Nurmi (aka. Vampira) who, with her ear-piercing scream and hour-glass figure, became a minor pop-culture icon during the 1950s.

Through vintage film clips, stills, and interviews, we learn how Maila (seeking fame & fortune) moved up from being a cheesecake magazine model in the late 1940s, to doing TV commercials in the early 1950s, to her glory days of becoming Vampira, delightfully hosting her own late-night TV show in the mid-1950s which screened Sci-Fi and Horror films for all the fans.

Known as the "Glamor Ghoul", Maila never ceased to thrill her many fans with the wild combination of her eccentric (and, yes, sexy) make-up, costume and persona.

Sadly enough, by the early 1960s Maila had all but faded away into obscurity and seclusion. She was later discovered waiting tables at a second-rate diner to make ends meet.

In 1997 producer R.H. Greene sought out Maila (who was now 75) and interviewed her for this entertaining and informative documentary. And I'm glad he did.

This intimate and moving portrait of a lost goth icon brought tears to my eyes. It's rare to see a movie and know that it was made with love, but this is a film like that. Director R. H. Greene has excavated pretty much every frame of film featuring Maila Nurmi as her barrier-shattering creation Vampira, the majority of which he personally found and presented here for the first time in over 50 years. In that way, this film is quite a present to pop culture history. But the core of this documentary is the on camera interplay between Greene, the unseen questioner, and Nurmi, the regal, coquettish, gleeful, sad-eyed changeling. You can feel the love, and knowing Nurmi at least got that kind of affection from Greene and others makes the rest of her story--a real Hollywood tragedy--easier to bear. Thoughtful comments by cult comedian Dana Gould stand out, as does the amazing side story of Voluptua, a character created by men to capitalize on Vampira's popularity who proves by her bombshell sex kitten submissiveness just how radically feminist Maila Nurmi as Vampira really was. An amazing story, for horror fans and anyone who cares about the media age.

This intimate and moving portrait of a lost goth icon brought tears to my eyes.

It's rare to see a movie and know that it was made with love, but I would say this is a film like that. Director R. H. Greene has excavated pretty much every frame of film featuring Maila Nurmi as her barrier-shattering goth creation Vampira, the majority of which was found and presented here for the first time in over 50 years. In that way, this film is quite a present to pop culture history.

But the core of this documentary is the on camera interplay between Greene, the unseen questioner, and Nurmi, the regal, coquettish, gleeful, moist-eyed interviewee. Nurmi was clearly bloodied by her adventures in Hollywood as Vampira but she comes across as (mostly) unbowed, or at least willing to make the sacrifices that were required to give the world her creation. Knowing Nurmi at least got respect and affection from Greene and other second and third generation fans makes the rest of her story--a real Hollywood tragedy--easier to bear.

Thoughtful comments by cult comedian Dana Gould stand out, as does the amazing side story of Voluptua, a rip-off character created by men to capitalize on Vampira's popularity. Voluptua proved by her sex kitten submissiveness just how radically feminist the self-sufficient Vampira really was--when men tried to recreate Vampira's success, they created a blow-up doll, where Nurmi created a feminist icon. An amazing story, for horror fans and anyone who cares about radical.depictions of women in the media age.

(IMO) - "Vampira And Me" was a good (but not great) bio-documentary.

This 106-minute presentation takes a close-up look at the patchy career of Maila Nurmi (known as "Vampira") who hosted her own late-night TV show back in the mid-1950s.

Maila died in 2008 at the age of 85.

This film explores everything about the life of Maila Nurmi from her childhood, to the height of her fame, her downfall, her death, her relevance on pop culture, relationship with James Dean, and so much more in all less than 2 hours. Very few details of her life go untouched and it feels like the complete life story on someone who is a very important icon. Most of the film is Maila being interviewed herself so you get to know each detail of her life in her own words. This allows you to feel you're experiencing the events along with her. She is the only one who is seen being interviewed on screen. All of the other interviews are only audio so this film feels like the true, authentic story of Maila's life. Her story is an inspirational one because it showed someone who worked so hard to achieve so much. Yet she was still thrown away like trash, taken advantage of, hurt, betrayed, and overcame all of it to still be an icon to horror/cult film fans, Goths, and a Hollywood legend in general. While she talked about her times of misfortune and fall from grace, she never seemed bitter or resentful; but rather she seemed to be someone who felt lucky to have achieved success and embraced it with gratefulness.

This is a great documentary which captures the life of an icon very well, and also lets you have an idea of what the 1950s were really like and how different Maila was compared to what other women of that time period were expected to be. She was a truly special, unique person who was one of a kind, and you could see that from this documentary. The director was a personal friend of hers and you could tell how much he cared about her from his narration and the fact that he produced such a documentary in memory of her at all. I would recommend this to any fans of Plan 9 From Outer Space (although it surprisingly doesn't get mentioned a whole lot, the documentary shows there is so much more to the person Maila was than just an appearance in a cult movie) and anybody else who wants to know about the mysterious character.