Sangre de vírgenes

Buxom blonde Ofelia (Susana Beltrán) is pressured by her family into marrying Eduardo, even though she loves Gustavo (Walter Kliche). What she doesn't know is that the man she really loves is actually a vampire. On Ofelia's wedding night, Gustavo sneaks into the marital bedroom as Eduardo is getting busy with his new wife, stabs the man through the neck with a dagger, and ends Ofelia's life by draining her of blood.

Later, when Ofelia has been buried, Gustavo goes to her grave to see her rise from the dead as a bloodsucker. The pair are reunited. Cue groovy, animated, psychedelic titles…

Titles over, we are introduced to a group of hippies/beatniks who are on holiday, sightseeing, skiing and attending swinging parties where the women take off their clothes to jiggle their bits. While driving down a remote road, the gang's van runs out of fuel, leaving them stranded, cold and miles from their destination. Fortunately, one of the them is familiar with the area and knows of an abandoned lodge not too far away, so the group head for shelter, unaware that vampire Gustavo and his big-breasted 'bride' are lurking nearby, waiting to feed.

Directed by Argentinian Emilio Vieyra, who also gave us the bizarre cult classic The Curious Case of Dr. Humpp (1969), and the rather entertaining oddity The Deadly Organ (1967), Blood of the Virgins is packed with wild visuals, jazzy music, soft-core sex, a smattering of gore, and hot women with large breasts (Vieyra might not be able to tell a seagull from a bat, but his good taste in women is in no doubt—as well as Beltrán, there's also gorgeous brunette Gloria Prat as Laura, one of the vamps' victims), all of which makes it a reasonable time-waster despite the rather routine plot and some atrocious acting.

This is the second horror film I’ve watched from Argentine director Vieyra – the other being the better-known but overrated THE CURIOUS DR. HUMPP (1967/71); I had long considered purchasing Mondo Macabro’s SE DVD but was doubtful about its quality – besides, I recall being bored by HUMPP (even if that one had extraneous footage added to it for export versions). Now that I’ve caught up with this one (acquired from ulterior sources), it’s hardly any more engaging (in fact, the film doesn’t even have a plot to speak of!) – but, at least, the dream-like/lethargic atmosphere throughout is reasonably effective.

That said, the striking pre-credits sequence (including the animation accompanying the titles themselves, curiously presented here in Italian!) is immediately stymied by a lengthy modern-day sequence which, amid numerous psychedelic trappings (such as gaudy fashions and go-go dancing), allows one no chance to get to know the characters – resorting to some rather embarrassing stream-of-consciousness editing instead! Incidentally, the suave head vampire is given little of substance to do here: though he gets to bite a couple of girls, his conflicted lover (who actually regrets her undead existence) – a beautiful blonde whose natural attributes are frequently and gratuitously exploited by the director – is at least as much to the fore and does some enslaving (albeit of a sexual kind) of her own! For what it’s worth, the couple have a manservant roaming about the apparently uninhabited castle looking sinister and generally mysterious and who’s involved in the film’s concluding twist.

Though clearly no more than a footnote in vampire movie lore, as I said, this is a watchable enough effort (and, thankfully, a compact 75 minutes) marked by flashes of eroticism, gore (the film was even banned on its home-turf when originally released!) and weirdness (a particularly nice effect is created by the recurring red-tinted shot of flying seagulls).

South America isn't best known for producing films; but there were a handful of decent horror films coming out of places like Mexico and Brazil in the fifties, sixties and seventies. Argentina is one of the less well known for producing horror; although they did deliver The Curious Dr. Humpp in 1971, and also this film in 1967. Blood of the Virgins (not to be confused with the probably superior Harald Reinl film from the same year) is not a great film by any means and I can certainly understand why it doesn't exactly have a strong fan base as it could have been a lot better, but it is at least a decent way to waste seventy five minutes. The film starts by focusing on two lovers; Ofelia and an eerie stranger named Gustavo. Ofelia is due to be married to a suitor and naturally her lover doesn't take too kindly to that so, being a vampire, he decides to kill the husband and turn Ofelia into a vampire so the pair can spend all eternity together. We then cut to 1960 where a bunch of dumb kids take shelter in an abandoned lodge after breaking down.

The start of the film actually seemed like the opening to a really interesting vampire movie; so it's a real shame that writer and director Emilio Vieyra got lazy and decided to go with the old 'bunch of kids' routine rather than focusing on the far more interesting story of Ofelia and her vampire lover. I guess he figured that the kids would sell better and that's a shame as the film becomes completely routine after the first fifteen minutes. The atmosphere is good at the start of the film too as the director keeps things nicely shrouded in mystery, but this too evaporates after the film moves into its second stage. Naturally, the acting is nothing to write home about and nobody particularly impresses for doing anything over than delivering a camp performance. There's a fair bit of gore, which is nice except for the fact that it all looks very cheap and fake. Overall, I probably would have better things to say about this film if the opening fifteen minutes were stretched out over the seventy five minute running time; but nevertheless, Blood of the Virgins is just about worth a look for horror fans.

Zzzzzzzzzzz

How many ways can you write off yet another foreign vampire film whose main concern seems to be how many girls in gowns, fangs and breasts it can offer during its running time? Hey, this isn't a bad thing in itself -- but nothing else of any substance is happening here, and this is an easily passable snoozer from Argentina that you can use to help you sleep, if need be. The only things saving this from being rated a total BOMB - aside from the aforementioned babes, that is - would be an artsy credits sequence at the beginning and a couple of well executed kill sequences to open one eyelid for in between naps. * out of ****

Obviously, this is not a great movie but it has its charms (several pairs of them actually). It has lots of Argentinean mujeres sin ropas, it has a male vampire who seems to be sucking his blood out of something else on his female victims besides their necks, it has a female vampire in a see-through teddy who becomes so engrossed in softcore sex sessions with her male victims that she often forgets to bite them at all, it has long, strange interludes of topless go-go dancing, it has a recurring red-tinted shots of birds flying for some reason, and it has the old familiar stranded-travelers-in a-haunted-castle plot except that the travelers are all Argentinean hippies and the whole thing is in Spanish! As you might have guessed this is from the same director as the "Curious Dr. Humpp" (aka "The Vengeance of Sex"). It features the same two top-heavy actresses, Gloria Pratt and Susan Beltram, except that they're in color here and naked frequently enough to give their infamous countrywoman Isabela Sarli a run for the money in the sexploitation sweepstakes. It was probably not as good of film as "The Curious Dr. Humpp" originally, but it's in better shape because unlike the earlier film it seems to be in it's original south-of-the-border form and is not heavily padded with American-shot inserts of some truly unattractive Times Square "actresses". Not a great movie, but if you see only one 1960's Argentinean vampire movie this year, make it this one.