1971@50: DAUGHTERS OF DARKNESS

Stefan and Valerie, two eloping newlyweds avoid parental disinheritance by faffing about Europe in the off season, settling on a guest free hotel in Ostend. Hey, the place to themselves, hot and cold running room service, not a bad honeymoon at that. There is an unsettled edge to their relationship in Stefan's itchy violence. It takes him to nearby Bruges where the couple rubberneck around some recent ghastly murder sites before getting the jolly bus back to the hotel. 

When they get back they find they have company. A platinum blonde Countess Barthory, a kind of Dietrich at her peak but a vampire and her young and beautiful companion Ilona. The concierge has already nutted out the Countess' identity and danger and tries through her glamour to send this message to the newlyweds who only see sophistication and style. Sounds like a holiday worth at least one good postcard. What can go wrong does and that's this movie.

Daughters of Darkness is a chapter in Belgian director Harry Kumel's bridge from documentary to feature films. At first glance it might remind the Eurogenre fan of the likes of Jess Franco or Jean Rollin with its lush visuals and confident erotica. While there is the Sadism of both and the melancholy of the latter, this stands out from both as an entry in the lesbian vampire side genre (sound like a joke but it's true). The seduction at the centre of the film is not just a path to the actors shedding their kit as much as a fable of the violence or parasitism of the act. A scene in which the Countess literally massages an account from Stefan or the ugly deeds of the ancestral Countess Barthory shows her tasting and savouring Stefan's violence while his new bride screams for them to stop the story. And her reaction is not just for the details to end but the clear carnality in the telling: she's furiously jealous.

And this is not that generic a genre piece as becomes clear as soon as we realise that we won't be seeing how they do the fang thang. There is more trauma in the call Stefan makes to his ex and it is made of deadly conversation. As a battle of wills or good and evil there's less goth on screen than personal politics: it's less Count Yorga and more Knife in the Water. And while ploit details might seem sparse here I won't go further than I have with them. In any case the strength of this horror of manners piece is the atmosphere that allows the multilingual cast to perform capably in English.Around them is the freezing beach and the big, hibernating resort they are in. It might even be an exhausted Europe. A long direct look by the Countess later in the film straight into the camera and into us suggests that her own bloodied immortality might be weighing a little too heavily, like a supermodel or a rockstar who has heard one too many nitpicks about her advancing years taking her from her trade.

This film sits comfortably beside a reef of arthouse horror from its time that steered a reckless course between cinephilia and exploitation. The best of these are easy to rewatch and the worst are forgettable but for a good decade filmmakers in that niche of Europe were staging a gentle stylistic coup. Compare and contrast the past fifteen years of the belly slashing and skin flaying screams of the New French Extremity. Those ones pretty much never get (or need) a second view. Meanwhile there's a swag of these, as beautiful as they are troubling which never stops being a flavoursome mix.