- Year
- 1970
- Country
- UK
- Runtime
- 91 min
- Director
- Roy Ward Baker
- Updated
- 9 Aug 2026
- Obscurity
- known (24/100)
The Vampire Lovers
Hammer clocks that the censors have loosened and sends Ingrid Pitt to make the most of it.
Hammer noticed that British censorship had relaxed and answered with Le Fanu's Carmilla, sending Ingrid Pitt through the bedrooms of the local gentry as the Karnstein vampire who seduces their daughters before she drains them. It is the studio's first film to make the lesbian subtext plain text, franker in nudity and appetite than anything it had done, with Peter Cushing on hand to drive the stake. It launched the Karnstein trilogy and the permissive last phase of Hammer horror.
The missing Hammer vein, and the one where the studio stopped pretending.
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