Review of Female Vampire (aka Bare Breasted Countess)

Introduction

Jess Franco has a name as one of the real oo-er directors of European horror cinema during the 1970`s, being an almost one-man Hammer Films operation turning out softcore exploitation horror films.

Female Vampire is Franco`s take on the lesbian vampire subgenre (see The Vampire Lovers, Lust For A Vampire or Twins Of Evil in the Hamer catalogue). The result fails to be terribly scary, but in terms of full frontal nudity and gratuitous rumpy-pumpy makes the Hammer product look positively restrained.

Video

This is a dodgy `seventies Eurohorror, so the pictures are suitably dodgy. There`s a fair old amount of wear and tear on the source material, and - at least on my machine - the picture tended to pixellate if fast-forwarded.

Audio

Dodgy. Mono. And dodgy mono at that...

Features

There`s a director`s filmography, an original Spanish trailer, some deleted scenes, an "alternative opening sequence" which turns out to be identical to the one in the film except the titles are slightly different, and the Arrow DVD catalogue.

Conclusion

This picture deserves its 18 rating, being full of vampires with no clothes on and being extremely friendly to one another. This is a movie to watch with the lads over a curry and a six-pack.