The Velvet Vampire

Synopsis

Sleepy-eyed nice guy Lee Ritter (Michael Blodgett) and his vapid, but pretty wife, Susan (Sherry Miles) accept the invitation of mysterious vixen Diane LeFanu (Celeste Yarnall) to visit her in her secluded desert estate. Tensions arise when the couple, unaware at first that Diane is in reality a centuries-old vampire, realize that they are both objects of the pale temptress' seductions.

Cast

Production

The film was Stephanie Rothman's follow up to her 1970 hit The Student Nurses. She and her husband Charles Swartz had written a script, The Student Teachers but producer Larry Woolner wanted to make a vampire film after the success of Daughters of Darkness (1970). Rothman and Swartz came up with a present-day vampire story originally entitled Through the Looking Glass. Rothman said she was interested in making a vampire female where a female was the protagonist rather than the victim. The character name "Diane Le Fanu" was a reference to author Sheridan Le Fanu, writer of Carmilla.

The script was written over three months. Rothman deliberately put a lot of comedy into it in order to make it different.

Blues artist Johnny Shines appeared in the movie and performed his self-penned song "Evil Hearted Woman."

The movie was shot in February 1971.

Reception

Roger Corman later claimed he was disappointed with the final product and released it on a double bill with an Italian horror movie, Scream of the Demon Lover.

Stephanie Rothman admitted the film's commercial reception was disappointing. She thought the problem may have been the movie:

Fell between two stools. It's not a traditional horror film nor a hard-core exploitation movie. In some places it was booked into art theatres. In others it had one week saturation release in drive ins and hard top theatres. There was no consistent distribution pattern for it because people responded differently to it and I think that may be part of the problem. Also it was an independent producer. There were a lot of other competing vampire movies at the time with star names... But the film has not been forgotten. It keeps popping up at festivals and retrospectives which is interesting because it did not draw attention to itself upon how well it did at the box office.