Vampyros Lesbos – UltraHD – review

Director: Jess Franco

Release date: 1971 (UK disc 2026)

Contains spoilers

I have previously reviewed this Jess Franco film and this is specifically the review of the Severin UK UHD release of the film. As such the score is going to be different to that for the film in and of itself. I have a complicated relationship with the film, and Franco generally. Drawn to his films (and my favourites are a couple of his De Sade films), I do find them perhaps less impressive as some in a cinema sense (and certainly a lot less then those involved in the commentaries on this disc); it is a circle difficult to square. Severin, however, I am most definitely a fan of and deem them as one of the (if not the) best purveyors of physical movies currently in operation.

Linda and the Countess

So, the film looks gorgeous – it is not going to look any better methinks. It has been scanned in 4K from the original camera negative and is presented in German – which was the fuller cut, the Spanish version edited on release and later restored but I understand dialogue was changed. I mention in my original review the soundtrack and it sounds great on this presentation. The set comes with a slipcase and both a UHD and standard Blu-Ray disc. Both carry the full range of extras.

blood spattered

The extras include a short archival interview with Franco, an interview with Stephen Thrower – who has written on Franco – and an interview with Amy Brown who is a Soledad Miranda historian. It has in the Land of Franco part 12 – a series over several Severin Franco releases, German trailer and opening title sequence and a career appreciation by Sean Baker. There are two commentaries, one by Kat Ellinger and the other featuring Aaron AuBuchon, John Dickson and Will Morris.

the sun worshipping vampire

I doubt any of the commentators would be impressed with my review of the film, but they have a much less complicated relationship with his films than I. Both commentaries recognise that, in many respects, Franco creates a flipped version of Dracula; in a gender sense Countess Carody (Soledad Miranda, Count Dracula) is Dracula (though Dracula, within the story, turned her), Linda Westinghouse (Ewa Strömberg) is a solicitor travelling to her client and so Harker, and Agra (Heidrun Kussin) can be read as Renfield. However other inversions (from the filmic tradition as well as the novel) are the fact that the film is a sun-drenched affair with the Countess a sunbather, who definitely reflects in the mirror and the method of vampire killing is achieved by giving the brain a deadly blow rather than a stake to the heart (perhaps cerebral rather than emotional). The commentators explore the transgressive nature of the text and, whilst I think that both assign happy accidents in filmmaking to deliberate decisions (and I recognise it is likely a case of column A and B), both were really worth listening to.

strange shooting angle

You are not going to get a better-looking print of the film, plus there are plenty of extras with much to pick through for the student of media studies, and aficionados of both Franco films and vampire films more generally. For the set, 8 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

On UHD Blu-Ray @ Amazon US

On UHD Blu-Ray @ Amazon UK