"What are you thinking about? The same thing you are." The Daughters of Darkness is a movie that has several great ideas and fails at nearly all of them. The movie takes place almost entirely at a hotel, there we follow our newlywed couple: Stefan, and Valerie. They have been married one day and we already see that the relationship is horribly toxic, e.g., Stefan explicitly says he does not love Valerie, and is physically abusive to her. Am I supposed to like this guy? Because I don't. Also, there is more to his story, but it is never made clear at all: it seems like he has hemophobia, and he has a strange relationship with this mother, to the extent that he is actively keeping Valerie from meeting her. Why? Why include it in the story if it serves no purpose? Get that shit out of the screenplay. Next we meet our titular daughters of darkness: Ilona, and The fucking Countess Elizabeth Bathory! Like, wouldn't you think to go by a pseudonym? And it's not as if this is set in a universe where people don't know who she is, there's a scene where she, and Stefan talk about the legend of Bathory. Anyway, this is a very small cast; outside of our four main characters we only have three people... who do nothing. This includes a guy who is set up to be a Van Helsing type, but Bathory hits him with a car, and he never shows up again. So, this movie falls into the sub-genre of lesbian-vampire horror. Trouble is it's light on both: the lesbianism is suggested, but never shown, and there is only one scene of vampirism. The runtime is largely talking, and wife beating. Okay, so there is a fair amount of nudity, not a lot, but enough to be remembered. What Daughters of Darkness really feels like is a Franco or Rollin film, if either had talent. Trouble is with the sleaze dialed back, this is just boring. Truly a toothless vampire movie, and I mean that both literally, and metaphorically. So, why watch this? What Daughters of Darkness gets right is the atmosphere and style. The aforementioned nudity helps, yes, but the locations, the wardrobe, and overall look of our lady vampires is doing most of the heavy lifting. There is far better out there for this niche category, but this is still an important watch regardless.
Review by BronsonBlockedParent2022-06-19T06:19:27Z
"What are you thinking about? The same thing you are."
The Daughters of Darkness is a movie that has several great ideas and fails at nearly all of them. The movie takes place almost entirely at a hotel, there we follow our newlywed couple: Stefan, and Valerie. They have been married one day and we already see that the relationship is horribly toxic, e.g., Stefan explicitly says he does not love Valerie, and is physically abusive to her. Am I supposed to like this guy? Because I don't. Also, there is more to his story, but it is never made clear at all: it seems like he has hemophobia, and he has a strange relationship with this mother, to the extent that he is actively keeping Valerie from meeting her. Why? Why include it in the story if it serves no purpose? Get that shit out of the screenplay.
Next we meet our titular daughters of darkness: Ilona, and The fucking Countess Elizabeth Bathory! Like, wouldn't you think to go by a pseudonym? And it's not as if this is set in a universe where people don't know who she is, there's a scene where she, and Stefan talk about the legend of Bathory.
Anyway, this is a very small cast; outside of our four main characters we only have three people... who do nothing. This includes a guy who is set up to be a Van Helsing type, but Bathory hits him with a car, and he never shows up again.
So, this movie falls into the sub-genre of lesbian-vampire horror. Trouble is it's light on both: the lesbianism is suggested, but never shown, and there is only one scene of vampirism. The runtime is largely talking, and wife beating.
Okay, so there is a fair amount of nudity, not a lot, but enough to be remembered. What Daughters of Darkness really feels like is a Franco or Rollin film, if either had talent. Trouble is with the sleaze dialed back, this is just boring. Truly a toothless vampire movie, and I mean that both literally, and metaphorically.
So, why watch this? What Daughters of Darkness gets right is the atmosphere and style. The aforementioned nudity helps, yes, but the locations, the wardrobe, and overall look of our lady vampires is doing most of the heavy lifting.
There is far better out there for this niche category, but this is still an important watch regardless.