Female Vampire

Lore & Background

The film was produced in 1973 but only theatrically distributed in 1975. It was set in Madeira and starred Lina Romay as Countess Irina von Karlstein, a mute woman who needs sex like a vampire needs blood. She hypnotizes victims and lures them into erotic acts, then drains them of their sexual fluids through oral sex until they die. She can also fly using bat-changing abilities. The plot involves a forensic scientist, Dr. Roberts, who consults Dr. Orloff about the vampire, and a female journalist who confronts the countess. A psychic investigator believes he is destined to become her lover and join the immortals.

Reader's Guide

Female Vampire is a key work in Jesús Franco's filmography, marking his shift toward explicit sexual themes after the death of his previous lead actress Soledad Miranda. Franco cast 19-year-old Lina Romay, who was more open about her sexuality, allowing him to focus on sex-based themes. The film exists in three versions: a straight horror (72 minutes), an erotic horror (82 minutes), and a hardcore pornography version (96 minutes). Franco considered the film erotica, not pornography, comparing it to Nagisa Oshima's In the Realm of the Senses. The film's title was changed to Female Vampire for its DVD release, but it was screened as The Bare-Breasted Countess at the 2009 Fantastic Fest, which Franco attended as guest of honor. Reception has been mixed: Kim Newman called it 'one of Franco's better films' and 'a masterpiece' for fans, while Allmovie gave it one and a half stars but praised Romay's performance.

Did You Know?

• The film was shot in three versions: straight horror, horror mixed with sex, and hardcore pornography.
• Franco compared the use of sex in Female Vampire to Nagisa Oshima's In the Realm of the Senses.
• The film was edited by Franco and Ramon Ardid under the pseudonym Pierre Querut.
• The film was screened as The Bare-Breasted Countess at the 2009 Fantastic Fest with Franco and Romay in attendance.

The Mute Countess and Her Victims

The narrative centers on Countess Irina von Karlstein, portrayed by Lina Romay, a vampire who sustains herself not through blood but through sexual acts with both male and female victims. Strikingly, the Countess is mute throughout the film; she communicates her predatory nature through hypnotic suggestion, luring victims into transfixed erotic encounters from which they never recover. Her method involves performing oral sex until her victims die, draining them of their sexual fluids rather than their blood. After each killing, she escapes the scene using her ability to transform into a bat and fly away. The investigation unfolds through forensic scientist Dr. Roberts, who notices a pattern of victims found fatally drained of potency scattered across the town of Madeira. He consults his colleague Dr. Orloff, who confirms the supernatural cause. A female journalist and a small group of others confront the Countess directly, and she openly admits her vampiric nature and her family's ties to the undead. However, few survivors remain to spread the warning. A psychic investigator also enters the story, convinced by fate that he will become her eternal lover and join her among the immortals.

Three Films in One: Franco's Production Philosophy

By 1972, Jesús Franco's filmmaking had shifted decisively toward themes of female sexuality and close-up imagery of the female body. Following the death of his longtime muse Soledad Miranda, he turned to the nineteen-year-old Lina Romay, whose greater comfort with on-screen nudity gave him the freedom to push his erotic vision further. For this project, Franco shot three distinct cuts of the same material: a straight vampire picture called La comtesse noire running seventy-two minutes, a horror-erotic hybrid titled La Comtesse aux seins nus at eighty-two minutes, and a hardcore version named Les avaleuses stretching to ninety-six minutes. Certain vampire scenes were filmed twice—once in a conventional gothic style and once in a far more explicit register. Franco insisted the work was erotica rather than pornography, drawing a direct parallel to Nagisa Oshima's In the Realm of the Senses. He argued that just as a Dracula film must show the act of blood-sucking, his film required the audience to witness the Countess draining her victims, calling it "a very important story." Editing was handled by Franco and Ramon Ardid—Romay's then-husband—under the shared pseudonym Pierre Querut.

A Chameleon of Titles: Release and Distribution

Produced in 1973 but not theatrically distributed until 1975, the film has an unusually convoluted release history. Its French premiere on 7 May 1975 carried the title La Comtesse noire, though producers later appended hardcore scenes to certain international cuts. Over the decades the picture surfaced under a bewildering array of English-language names—Yacula, Jacula, Bare-Breasted Vampire, The Bare Breasted Countess, and Naked Vampire—before landing on the inexplicably generic Female Vampire for its DVD debut. The most poignant moment in the film's afterlife came at the 2009 Fantastic Fest in the United States, where it was screened under Franco's own preferred title, The Bare Breasted Countess. The director attended as guest of honor alongside Lina Romay, a gesture that seemed to honor the original creative intent behind the project. Home-video distribution eventually stabilized: Image Entertainment issued a DVD on 8 August 2000, and Kino International later re-released the film on both DVD and Blu-ray, offering audiences a seventy-one-minute "horror version" and a one-hundred-and-one-minute "erotic version" on the same disc.

Critical Divisions and Lasting Curiosity

Critical responses to the film have been sharply divided, reflecting the difficulty of categorizing a work that straddles horror, erotica, and art-house ambition. David McGillivray of the Monthly Film Bulletin, reviewing a heavily trimmed fifty-nine-minute dubbed cut, found the excisions rendered an already narratively complex story even more bewildering, describing it as "a fragment of a much longer film" whose cuts added "a bizarre new level to a work already wrapped in mystery." He confessed that what the Countess was actually doing to her victims "remains a mind-boggling conundrum." Retrospective critics have been somewhat warmer. Kim Newman called it "one of Franco's better films" while acknowledging the polarized reception: for devoted fans it stands as "a masterpiece," while to casual viewers it reads as "wearisome tat." Allmovie awarded it one and a half stars out of five but singled out Romay's "haunting performance" as the film's saving grace. Franco himself remained unapologetic, maintaining that the explicit material served the narrative in the same essential way a blood-sucking scene serves a traditional vampire picture.

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