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What seems at first a perfectly innocent lesbian romance turns into naked girls screaming in convents, covered in blood. Such is the fate of characters in 1977's Alucarda, one of the many movies based on Le Fanu's Carmilla. This one has some amazing sets and beautiful girls but becomes overburdened with people screaming and running around.

Tina Romero plays Alucarda, this movie's version of Mircalla/Carmilla, and her first lover/victim is Justine, played by the beautiful Susana Kamini. They're terrific to watch, particularly Romero who infuses her role with reckless teenage passion. Many of the early scenes seem to be borrowed from Hammer's The Vampire Lovers, particularly a funeral scene, but from there the influences seem to be more Satanic nun movies like Mother Joan of the Angels and Ken Russell's Devils as the convent that raised Alucarda is overtaken by hysteria.

The sets are by no means realistic but sort of expressionistically grisly, like they were designed by Goya. It's a fantastic movie to look at but it becomes a bit cacophonous. I kind of like how Alucarda and Justine's pact with Satan means they're in a state of constant psychological torment from then on, so much so they have to constantly scream and writhe, but it does get slightly monotonous.

When honeymooning in Bavaria, be careful not to linger long in counties controlled by vampires, like the unfortunate couple in 1963's The Kiss of the Vampire. One of the few 60s Hammer vampire films not to feature Christopher Lee or Peter Cushing, it's still a nice journey into that unmistakeable Victorian world of saturated colour.

Well, they have a car so I guess it might be Edwardian. Gerald (Edward de Souza) and Marianne (Jennifer Daniel) Harcourt lose their way on vacation and end up out of petrol on some desolate road. The first sign of trouble is when Marianne senses something awful in the woods while she's left to wait like a target on top of the car.

They stay at a local inn where the proprietor (Peter Madden) and his wife (Vera Cook) are friendly but oddly apprehensive. There's also the strange Professor Zimmer (Clifford Evans) who has little to say beyond urging the couple to leave immediately. But before long they're offered the irresistible invitation to dine with the local lord in his lavish manor, a Dr. Ravna (Noel Willman).

Gerald and Marianne are cute and utterly guileless. There's no sinful subtext to their personalities or many layers at all but they're oddly enjoyable to watch, like a pair of gerbils. The vampires don't spring their trap until an impressively creepy masquerade ball, though none of the vampire characters are very well defined and their motivation for not killing some people whose death would really be in the blood suckers' best interests is never clear. Carl (Barry Warren), Dr. Ravna's vampire son, has kind of an intense stare and there's a nice scene where Marianne seems to become entranced by his piano playing.

There's also a young vampire woman named Tania (Isobel Black) whose mischievous facial expressions could have been exploited better. But it's a fun bunch of vamps.