There are those that regard vampires as erotic counterculture figures, and those that see them as a predatory virus. For his 1971 feature, Daughters of Darkness (Les lèvres rouges), Belgian director Harry Kümel disguised his monster as a sexual icon. This gave his tale of American tourists seduced by a descendant of Erzsébet Báthory, the legendary Bloody Countess, an undefinable queasiness. Deliberately channeling Nazi symbolism into the subtext and design, he crafted one of the most unnerving and alluring psychological bloodsucking chillers ever. – Richard Whittaker
