Stevieboy666 A newly wed young couple are heading to England via the ferry but stop the night at an out of season hotel in Ostend. They are the only guests until a striking middle aged looking woman called Countess Bathory and her young female companion arrive. Now anybody with a half decent knowledge of vampirism will recognised the name Bathory as the real life murdering, sadistic & bloody Hungarian countess from the 16th/17th centuries. Filmed in Belgium but English language, this is simply a beautiful work of art. Every frame is sumptuous, fantastic use of colour and in my opinion is up there with Polanski's Dance of the Vampires as one of the best looking vampire films ever made. It may prove too slow for horror fans looking for regular amounts of blood but for those who appreciate finer things allow yourself to become immersed in this, late at night with the lights out. Nudity and lesbianism had become popular in the genre at this time and this film has it's share of erotica, but it's integral to the story rather than just showing flesh for the sake of it.

moonmonday Daughters of Darkness is one of those films where the viewer can generally be sure of what will happen from one moment to the next, but it's still interesting enough to keep watching. It's fairly predictable, up until the last second, which unfortunately you find yourself wishing that perhaps you're wrong...and finding out you were right all along.It's a good enough story, though, with characters boasting many facets and many levels of depth, although unfortunately the surface is barely scratched with most of them. That's also kind of a disappointment since the cast of characters is so small, it's not like they couldn't have explored deeper. The actors were most all up to the task, so why does it seem so shallow in so many ways?The direction, the cinematography, the hair, the makeup, the costumes -- all of it is splendid. Unfortunately by the last half-hour, it's all started to spin its wheels, and the experience has begun to sour. By the last shot, you're done with the movie and more than slightly irritated that you were asked to invest 100 minutes into something that really didn't deserve them.But the Countess was so seductive and interesting, and the young couple were so strange and intriguing, and you knew the story like any old tale, but you hoped that familiarity wouldn't spoil you on it. And when it did anyway, you felt betrayed, as betrayed as you should, yet you still took away a particular feeling from it, something you did like, even if it was ultimately not an overwhelmingly positive experience.This is a film with far more style than substance, and what substance there is remains mostly untapped. There's far too much time-wasting and actor-wasting, too many scenes that don't add up to anything, and an ending that will literally make you angry.Is it worth watching? Once. And only once.Don't make the mistake of going down that road again: it presents far more than it can back up, and that perhaps is the most unfortunate quality of all in this film. It is, at its heart, even flimsier than the shallowest Hammer vampire number, and not nearly as fun as any of them, ultimately. It could have been much better. If only it had bothered to make a good ending of itself. But a bad ending can ruin even a good story, and this was just barely adequate, struggling to breach the surface of mediocrity and pastiche.There is a visual splendour to it, and it is enjoyable to watch and digest as a piece of art. The characters are not all so superficial as they may appear, but any depth remains sadly unexplored, perhaps tragically, by the resolution or lack thereof. Some plot threads are completely dropped, others misappropriated, and all in all this ends up an unsatisfying mess by the last fade to red.If you like unconventional vampire films, give it a try. It won't have any secrets for you, and it won't have any surprises, but it might be amusing for a couple of hours. Don't expect it to become a favourite though.

davidacting Stay with this film, it is incredible. Great acting, cinematography, direction. The lead actress isn't great, but the actress who plays Erzebet Bathory is phenomenal. Bizaar sets, and strange milieu really add to this film's strange portrayal of vampires and how they deal with the living. I really loved this film. Of course, today, everything happens at the speed of light. Back in 1970, they took their time with building the film and really letting it sink in before hitting you with the shocks. This one has plenty of shocking moments and some really great inventive scenes that add to the history of the vampire film. Unfortunately, today we now have 'Twilight', a disgusting parody of the genre that hopefully audiences will someday say, 'What the hell were we thinking?'.

Boba_Fett1138 From an '70's flick involving female characters you would of course expect an exploitation flick, with cheap scares and gore and a bunch of lesbian vampires in some tame sex sequences. "Les lèvres rouges" is being way more classy than that. It's an almost artistically told movie, with a slow pace and not so much horror or gore as you would expect from a genre movie.It's a movie that creates a good mood and atmosphere. It's being mysterious with its story and characters, which turns the movie also often in a more sensual one. Yes it's a real vampire movie but the movie manages to be one without featuring all of the usual clichés. It's an original movie, made in European movie style.The style of the movie overall reminds of a French movie, though the director was Belgian. The movie was still a French, Belgian and German co-production and also features cast and crew members as well, originating from those countries. The movie itself is being set mostly in Belgium. Not really that movies around that are set in Belgium, even though it has some of the same qualities as France in it.The pace of the movie is not always being pleasant though. Sometimes the movie just feels a bit overlong with some of its sequences but there also is a shorter version of the movie around that has cut some of its sequences down in running time. Perhaps that version of the movie works out better but I haven't seen that one.Even though it has an international cast, the language that gets spoken in this movie is still English. It means that the movie has some obvious accents in it but nevertheless this does not go at the expenses of the actors their performances really. Especially Delphine Seyrig was really great in her role.A great, different, more European take on the vampire genre.7/10http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/