Les avaleuses (1973)

Director:

Jesus Franco

Writers:

Gérard Brisseau (writer)
Jesus Franco (writer)

Release Date:

14 April 1978 (West Germany)

Genre:

Adult | Horror

Tagline:

Maailman Kuulu Shokki!

Plot:

A beautiful female vampire lures men to their doom. |

Plot Keywords:

Female Vampire | Vampire | Doctor | Male Nudity | Vulva

Cast

Lina Romay	...	Countess Irina Karlstein
Jack Taylor	...	Baron Von Rathony
Alice Arno	...	Irina´s servant
Monica Swinn	...	Princess de Rochefort
Jesus Franco	...	Dr. Roberts
Luis Barboo	...	Irina's Manservant
Jean-Pierre Bouyxou	...	Dr. Orloff
Raymond Hardy	...	Hotel Masseur
Anna Watican	...	Anna, a journalist

Also Known As:

Bare Breasted Countess (cut version)
Erotic Kill (USA)
Female Vampire
Insatiable Lust (France) (X-rated version)
Jacula
La comtesse aux seins nus
La comtesse noire (cut version)
Sicarius - the Midnight Party
The Black Countess
The Last Thrill
The Loves of Irina (racier version)
Yacula

Runtime:

82 min | Argentina:80 min | Germany:105 min | USA:72 min

Country:

France | Belgium

Language:

French

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Spain:18 | Netherlands:16 | USA:X | Argentina:18 | Australia:Refused Classification | Italy:VM18 | UK:18 | Germany:BPjM Restricted

Filming Locations:

Brussels, Brussels-Capital, Belgium

Company:

Eurociné

Trivia:

According to Lina Romay, Jesus Franco went into production on the film after winning the Christmas Lottery, shooting various pieces of footage before Eurocine came on board.

Goofs:

Revealing mistakes: In the opening shot, Lina Romay literally walks into the camera, bumping her face on the lens.

Quotes:

Countess Irina Karlstein: [voiceover] I earnestly wish an end would come to this bloody race I am forced to run.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Le sexe qui parle (1975)

Still no definitive Director's Cut on DVD

Franco's erotic vampire film stars Lina Romay as a descendant of Count Dracula who - depending on which version you see - needs the blood or the semen of both male and female victims, in order to stay alive.

Franco's personal works are very much an acquired taste. Many people slate him, calling him a hack and dismissing his work as boring garbage. Personally, I think he makes very interesting, highly personal films which can be erotic, entertaining, disturbing and/or very well made.

'Les Avaleuses' was released in the UK by Redemption Video in a heavily censored form under the title "Female Vampire" (cuts were required by the censors). It was this version I first saw on UK television some years ago. Redemption Benelux released the uncut version of the film some years later, and is perhaps the definitive director's cut of Franco's film, but that version doesn't appear to be any longer available. In the US, the film was released on DVD by Image Entertainment - again under the title "Female Vampire" - but unfortunately they decided to censor one of the sex scenes, which included shots of Lina Romay sucking a man's penis, pushing the film into hard core territory...thus spoiling what is probably a very nice release, as this is no longer what the director originally intended (and more to the point, I personally refuse to buy films that are censored in such a way)! This version does contain some alternate footage in its extra's from the "blood sucking" version of the film, however, which may be of some interest.

More recently the film has surfaced on DVD in Germany under the title "Erotikill - Lady Dracula 2" (on screen title 'Lusternde Vampire Im Spermarausch'). Not a particularly good image, but satisfactory all the same, it is an uncut German language version of the film, though still not quite the original director's cut.

As stated above, two versions of the film were shot - a traditional 'blood sucking' version for places where censorship was strict, and for markets that were more relaxed, a more sexually explicit - borderline hard core - 'semen sucking' version. A few years after its initial release, additional full blown hard core sex scenes were shot and inserted into the movie. It is this version that the German DVD offers, with a running time of 105m (PAL).

Always interested in the most extreme version available, I would recommend that, if you don't have a Redemption Benelux video of this, you go for the German disc over the censored Image release: at least until a proper uncensored director's cut is made available on DVD. However, a word of caution: the inserts are pretty naff, with Romay suddenly sporting red finger nails during a cunnilingus scene, and a fellatio sequence being repeated twice during the movie: one being very badly mis-placed, and the second without the snot shot.

Still, its a very rare version of the film and nice to have, but still not what Franco originally intended. Hopefully it won't be too soon until we get to see the proper 'director's cut' of the film.