Blood of the Tribades is a dark, artsy, retro flick, with a modern aesthetic. It’s also incredibly weird.
The story follows the descendants of Bathor the vampire, two thousand years after the establishment of the village of Bathory. Over the course of that two thousand years, the men and women vampires have split into two separate groups. The women have become complacent, and believe that the best way to honor Bathor is to sing and dance the days away. The men have become cultish zealots, plagued by an unnatural disease that they blame on the women for creating. They are led by a despot named Grando (Seth Chatfield), who conveniently seems to be the only male unafflicted by the disease.
Grando is obsessed with the vulgar sins of the women, and sees their sexuality as something shameful that should be destroyed. He orders his hunters to find and kill the women vampires in hopes of “curing their disease.” His hunters follow his word as law, and if they ever disappoint him, they are subjected to various tortures, such as being whipped by rose brambles, forced to walk across glass, and in one of the best scenes of the movie, having both eyes sliced open with rose thorns in an extreme close-up shot.
The hunters are devout believers in Grando’s vision of how best to serve Bathor, and constantly quote his mantra: “The Blood is the Life,” yet they are frequently tempted by the naked flesh of the women, and in multiple instances attempt to pleasure themselves before taking a kill shot. Some of these scenes are exceedingly creepy, as they usually involve an ugly bearded man leering at a naked woman through a window for just a little too long, before whipping it out, and then shooting her with a very dainty looking crossbow. I think there’s some intentional symbolism here.
The middle of Blood of the Tribades is the only place that lulls, while the hunters are picking off the women one by one. Once we’re past that, the story shifts focus to two female vamps, Elisabeth (Chloe Cunha) and Fantine (Mary Widow) and their own unique goals. Many of the scenes involving these two are done in French, with subtitles, and greatly accentuate the storyline. Both of these ladies did an outstanding job and they were definitely the standout performers of the film.
I talked about a few of the more memorable scenes from Blood of the Tribades above, but I need to make clear that this film has almost zero gore, and probably the bare minimum amount of blood necessary to be coined a vampire film. It had a lot of nudity, both male and female in it though. I personally prefer a little more blood and gore in my horror films, but this one is more artsy than most of the stuff I watch.
The writing/directing duo of Sophia Cacciola and Michael J. Epstein have certainly created something interesting here, although I don’t believe it will appeal to everyone. My favorite things about the movie were the incredibly beautiful cinematography, which was so much better than what’s typically seen in similar low-budget films, and the music (Night Kisses, Catherine Capozzi & Michael J. Epstein). I truly loved the music. It was beautiful and haunting, and created an atmosphere that left a lasting impression.
Overall, I enjoyed Blood of the Tribades. It’s weird, dark, and full of social and political subtext, but it also mostly succeeds at being something I’ve never seen before. If you love 70’s European-style Vamp flicks and weird, artsy films, I think you’ll like it.
