[Demdike@Cult Labs]

The Vampire Lovers (1970)

The first entry in Hammer's Karnstein trilogy based on Le Fanu's vampire novel Carmilla sees Ingrid Pitt play the lusty Mircalla who ends up living at George Cole's manor house and seducing his daughter as played by Madeline Smith.

Probably Hammer's most sensuous film and featuring lashings of now mild nudity and eroticism which at the time was considered especially daring for the studio. The production design is sumptuous and full of rich colours which look especially vibrant on Blu-ray.

Pitt is excellent as the vampire seductress with good turns from Smith and Kate O' Mara alongside her whilst Peter Cushing brings class to proceedings with what is basically an elongated cameo at the front and back of the film.

Terrific stuff.


Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers (1989)

Rather lacking in comparison to the fourth installment especially as we lose Ellie Cornell, who has now been written as a generic ditzy blonde rather than the classy heroine from part 4, in the first half an hour leaving us with Donald Pleasence's Loomis who now appears to be more deranged than Michael Myers.

More of a run of the mill slasher with a loony finale than the haunting menace originally created by John Carpenter. However one or two of the kills are good fun courtesy of KNB FX and it remains an enjoyable and undemanding 90 odd minutes but could someone please explain to me why each time we see the two cops we get goofy music accompanying them. It's really daft and doesn't work at all.