Lemora a Childs Tale of the Supernatural Review
USA. 1973.
Lemora: A Child's Tale of the Supernatural is an obscure effort from the 1970s that didn't go much notice when it initially came out just has since gained a small-scale cult reputation. Things are dislocated by the fact that the film exists under several different titles, also as several different cuts that have variously removed and restored sexual content – the original theatrical release ran to 80 minutes, the dvd release in 2004 restored this to 85 minutes only the uncut version is reputed to run to 133 minutes, which means there is nearly a one-half-hour of the film that remains unseen by the general public.
Lemora has an undeniably haunted temper at times. Managing director Richard Blackburn creates something uncanny during Cheryl Smith'southward journeying with she beingness the only person aboard the antiquated bus, the filthy driver (Hy Pyke) giving her warnings about where she is travelling to, and an almost hallucinatory scene where zombie-like creatures suddenly come running out of the woods as the bus passes. The driver is so forced to stop and change the tire whereupon he is attacked by the zombies, which start to smash in through the windows every bit Cheryl Smith manages to become the bus into gear and freewheel it down to the bottom of the hill, only to crash into a tree. Richard Blackburn has conspicuously fatigued more than than a bear upon or two of inspiration from the so-recent cult hit of Night of the Living Dead (1968) during these scenes.
On the minus side, when we arrive at Lemora's place, the pace of the film slows down. In that location is nothing later on that has the aforementioned dream-like hallucinatoriness of the scenes with the attack on the bus. A good bargain of the latter part of the film involves lots of skulking around various sheds, buildings and woods in the nighttime. However, not much happens during these scenes.
Lemora conspicuously falls into the 1970s fad for lesbian vampire films that came out following the success of Hammer's Karnstein trilogy – The Vampire Lovers (1970), Animalism for a Vampire (1971) and Twins of Evil (1971). At that place were a spate of European spinoffs from these with the likes of Vampyros Lesbos (1970), Daughters of Darkness (1971) and The Blood-Spattered Bride (1972). Lemora offers a uniquely unlike approach to these others. In nigh of the films, the vampire is a voluptuous or socially sophisticated adult female who is intent on seducing (and also occasionally drinking the blood) of other young women or frustrated wives.
At quite unlike contrast, Lemora is cast as a gloomy Gothic woman who occasionally shows some sophisticated allure, only also seems to enjoy living in a decaying Southern antebellum mansion. Into the midst of this comes Lila who is of shining purity and virtuousness – she is even introduced singing solo in the church choir. This is something that serves to plunge the lesbian vampire into a Southern Baptist dialectic (fifty-fifty if the motion-picture show was shot in California) where the battle is i betwixt Christian virtue and the festering shadows of The South. The film does reach an interesting point at the end where it suggest that nosotros have been completely wrong in seeing Lila equally an innocent Christian daughter and that she has in fact been seducing all around her, although this aspect is not explored whatsoever more than than that.
On the minus side, the version of the film seen here appears to have had much of the lesbian seduction cut from it. All at that place seems to be is a scene where Lesley Gilb helps Cheryl Smith accept a bath, where there seems to be something seductive going on beneath the seemingly innocent words that Gilb says. Indeed, much of the film operates on a dual level where Richard Blackburn shoots what is happening in an indirect way without quite coming out and maxim annihilation and where what is happening is merely ever suggested.
Nobody involved ever seem to get onto do much again. Manager/writer Richard Blackburn went onto co-write Paul Bartel'south Eating Raoul (1982) merely nix other than directing an episode of Tales from the Darkside (1983-six) and animation voice piece of work. Pb actress Cheryl Smith, aka Rainbeaux Smith, appeared in modest parts in a scattering of exploitation films, including Caged Heat (1974), The Phantom of the Paradise (1974), Massacre at Central High (1976), The Incredible Melting Homo (1977) and Laserblast (1978), was Cinderella in the adult Cinderella (1977), and lead vocaliser with the daughter ring The Runaways, earlier her decease of a heroin overdose in 2002.
Source: https://www.moriareviews.com/horror/lemora-a-childs-tale-of-the-supernatural-1973.htm
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