rather than her ability—and one wonders what dynamism might have resulted in the scenes between Lemora and Lila had someone authentically dark and imperious, like Martine Beswicke, been cast in the part. Whereas Midnight’s version


Cheryl Smith displays Lemora’s goodnight kiss in LEMORA—THE LADY DRACULA.


throughout an illness that is nearing its end, asking her to come to the town of Astaroth and accept her father’s plea for forgiveness. Too Christian to reject the dangerous invitation, Lila boards a bus to Astaroth and seems to cross more than a state border. She soon finds herself in the midst of a vast wilderness of the subconscious, hiding from flesh-eating zom­ bies and werewolves, until she is intercepted by Lemora (Lesley Gilb) herself, a Victorian appari­ tion who fills all of Lila’s needs— being at once Mother, Sister and Lover—until she spies her, unseen, feeding on the blood of other children. Made at a time when horror


was moving rapidly in the direc­ tion of taboo-breaking works like THE EXORCIST and ANDY WAR­HOL’S FRANKENSTEIN, Black­ burn’s low-budget film is distinctly outside its own period; it is— despite its gruesome and wacky- sounding synopsis—a quiet, lingering terror fable that recalls the whispering chill of Val Lew- ton’s RKO classics and the work of Curtis Harrington. Narrated by


the priest, and told from the per­ spective of innocent Lila, the film suggests a great deal about can­ nibalism, incest, child abuse and child psychology, even lesbian­ ism; but there’s a marvelously tenuous sense of not quite un­ derstanding them (in Lila’s case), or refusing to understand them on principle (in the case of the Reverend, who comes to Astaroth to rescue her). It’s another pleasure of the film that the strict simplicity of the art di­ rection, the color lighting (limited to amber and blue), and the ubiq­ uity of such womb-like hiding places as vehicles, closets and empty cells, make it hard to iden­ tify definitively as a waking or dreaming experience. The freckle-faced, vulner­


able-looking Smith (who used the name “Rainbeaux Smith” when her roles required nudity, as in Jonathan Demme’s CAGED HEAT) gives the only strong performance, with the other actors swirling around her in a kind of barnstorming over­ sell. Gilb is miscast in the cru­ cial role of Lemora—she was obviously cast for her “look”


is directly culled from an out-of- print Japanese video release, the Moore version is apparently authorized by Blackburn him­ self. (Included with the Moore tape is a homemade Blackburn documentary called CONFES­SIONS OF LEMORA, which wasn’t included with our screen­ ing copy.) Moore’s has an obvi­ ous edge in terms of picture quality—the colors are brilliant, and you can see every pore on Lemora’s face!—but its sound­ track suffers from producer Michael D. Moore’s overzealous experiment with synthesized stereo-surround gentrification, which subjects the original mono track to a wider distribu­ tion it cannot support, and thus leavens the sound with hollows and hiss. (Reduced to a single TV speaker, it sounds just fine.) The Moore version also takes advantage of an early pre-cred­ its blackout, over which impor­ tant dialogue is heard, to fill the screen with hyperbole about the tape at hand. Therefore, purists are directed to the Midnight tape, which leaves the shot black (aside from Japanese subtitles!), and preserves the drama of this mood-setting sequence. Also known as THE LEGENDARY CURSE OF LEMORA, the print used by both releases bears Blackburn’s original (subver­ sive) title, LEMORA—A CHILD’S TALE OF THE SUPERNATURAL. The Moore Video tapes can


be ordered by sending $39.95, plus $3.00 P&H, to Moore Video, P.O. Box 5703, Richmond VA 23220, or phone or FAX (804) 745-9785. —TL


17

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