Epilogue

Daughters of Darkness
Kat Ellinger

Print publication date: 2020

Print ISBN-13: 9781800348295
Published to Liverpool Scholarship Online: January 2022
DOI: 10.3828/liverpool/9781800348295.001.0001

Epilogue
Kat Ellinger

DOI:10.3828/liverpool/9781800348295.003.0006

Abstract and Keywords

This concluding chapter provides further quotes from director Harry Kümel, which illuminate
the prospect of a contemporary sequel to his original 1971 film. It also expounds on the sense of
pessimism and cynicism rife in vampire cinema of the 1970s. Daughters of Darkness has an
allegiance to many of these films in the way in which it channels the cultural climate of the
period and gives vampirism a modern slant. Furthermore, the film's heritage angle directly links
to a trend evident in some of the other genre cinema of the period, especially that which
critiqued capitalist and class-driven facets of society. The chapter also includes a brief analysis
on the lesbian vampire films that followed much later on, into the 1980s and beyond.

Keywords: Harry Kümel, vampire cinema, 1980s, 1970s, genre cinema, lesbian vampire films, Daughters of
Darkness, vampirism

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Epilogue

By the seventies the landscape of vampire film was changing radically. Daughters of Darkness
fits neatly into this shift. In 1975 Stephen King would publish Salem’s Lot, a contemporary
American Gothic novel which he described as ‘Peyton Place meets vampires’ (King, 2005: 4).
King wanted to remove what he felt were Stoker’s ‘optimistic’ elements from the Dracula myth,
and bring the story to a modern setting, to instead reflect the cynical atmosphere of his own
time. The author, who started the novel in 1972, just a year after Daughters of Darkness was
released, explains, ‘mine was a world that had begun to choke on its own effluent, that had
hooked itself through the bag on diminishing energy resources, and had to deal not only with
nuclear weapons but nuclear proliferation’ (ibid.). In King’s novel, the vampire becomes the
destructive antihero, and it could be argued that this followed a trend partially set by Kümel’s
film.

This sense of pessimism and cynicism runs rife throughout seventies vampire film. Even
Hammer horror got in on the act with The Satanic Rites of Dracula (1973), bringing the vampire
into a contemporary setting and making him an overlord of capitalism. Other (p.94) films, such
as Hanno Cambiato Faccia or Thirst, discussed in Chapter Three, employed a similar metaphor.
In addition, many critics have argued Cronenberg’s ultra-modern take on vampirism, Rabid
(1975), used the figure as a reference to venereal disease. George A. Romero’s Martin (1977)
delved into the notion of masculinity and sexuality in a rapidly changing cultural climate, from
the point of view of a socially isolated, and possibility psychotic, young man.

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Epilogue

Daughters of Darkness has an allegiance to many of these films in the way in which it channels
the cultural climate of the period and gives vampirism a modern slant. As shown in this book,
the film’s heritage angle directly links to a trend evident in some of the other genre cinema of
the period, especially that which critiqued capitalist and class-driven facets of society. However,
as much as Daughters of Darkness shares a kinship to films like Thirst, and is also influenced by
the cultural malaise of the decade, it is also unique in its status as a progenitor of what Camille
Paglia termed ‘psychological high Gothic’, which, according to Paglia at least, can be defined as
‘A classy genre of vampire film’ (1990: 268).

Although Paglia rejects Tony Scott’s The Hunger on the basis that its central vampire is too
animalistic, the film does have its place in the story of Daughters of Darkness’ legacy. Catherine
Deneuve’s sophisticated cultured queen vampire Miriam (Deneuve, like Seyrig, is an actress also
heavily associated with French arthouse cinema) shares many of the same traits that Countess
Bathory displays: a love for the finer things in life, proclivity for female companionship, a
manipulative personality compelled to force others into becoming her companion to fulfil her
need to be adored, despite the fact it will cause suffering to those who are chosen. Similarly,
Miriam is shown to groom her disciples, as does Bathory, and uses the same mother/lover means
of exploitation to get what she wants.

In the decades that followed, while it was not a huge trend, more psychological high Gothic
began to appear on the scene. In recent years intellectual, or so called ‘elavated’ vampire films
such as Kiss of the Damned (2012) and Only Lovers Left Alive (2013) appear to draw from the
spirit of Kümel’s original feature, while 2008’s We Are the Night combines the energy of
millennium action/horror cross-over films like Blade (1998), with a framework concerning classy
lesbian vampires. That particular film focuses on (p.95) a tough, streetwise young woman
forced to use crime as a means to survive, who is then groomed by a trio of vampire women
wholly decadent in their behaviour and lifestyle. Once again we see the emergence of an older
matriarchal vampire figure who is glamorous, intelligent, calculating and cruel, in line with the
tradition started in a large part by Kümel.

When reflecting on the legacy of his film, and its position in the arthouse bracket, Kümel finds
the acclaim of Daughters of Darkness somewhat ironic:

It was not an arthouse film, it played on 42nd Street at that time in New York. And you
know what 42nd Street was in the seventies, it was one of the worst parts of New York. It’s
not like it is nowadays. And it played in erotic cinemas and people took it at face value.
Nowadays, well there were people who considered it already at that time, I remember I
was shooting Malpertius, and the great actress who was in Malpertuis said, ‘Ohh, it’s
marvellous, the film, the colours!’. When it was shown at the MOMA [Museum of Modern
Art] in New York, later, they were raving about it. But it was far from being an artistic
movie. It made millions in France, played everywhere, in seventy countries, which for a
Belgian movie is unheard of. It is was done without one cent of official money.

It seems Kümel has not has his last word on Countess Bathory yet, and intends to add another
piece to the legacy himself by producing another film, although he is quick to add it is ‘not a
sequel, but a revamp’. All he will say on this matter at the time of writing this book is,

It will be Bathory of course, another actress, and it will have the same set of characters
more or less, but completely changed, but it has the same kind of inspiration. It will be
filmed on a ferry going from Belgium to Britain and then the main part will take place in

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Epilogue

Bradford, in Yorkshire. The only tip of the veil I can lift for you is that in Bradford is the
Midlands Hotel, and in the Midlands Hotel the great British actor Henry Irving in 1905
died. And the manager of Henry Irving was none other than Bram Stoker, the writer of
Dracula, who was also a theatre manager. In the confusion of the death Bram Stoker
abandoned his luggage at the hotel. I was invited to go to Media Museum of Bradford,
which no longer exists, and I saw that luggage and I thought ahh, that is perhaps the
trigger for a new movie… voila!

(p.96)

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