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The Vampire Happening
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Wikipedia article
{{Infobox film
| name = The Vampire Happening
| image = Vampire-happening-poster.jpg
| alt =
| caption = German film poster for 'The Vampire Happening'
| director = Freddie Francis
| producer = Pier A. Caminnecci
| writer = August Rieger
Karl-Heinz Hummel
| screenplay =
| story =
| based_on =
| narrator =
| starring =
| music = Jerry van Rooyen
| cinematography = Gerard Vandenberg
| editing = Alfred Srp
| studio =
| distributor =
| released =
| runtime = 102 minutes
| country = West Germany
| language = German
| budget =
| gross =
}}
'The Vampire Happening' (, 'They only bite at night') is a 1971 West German comedy and horror film directed by Freddie Francis.
Plot
An American actress inherits a castle in Transylvania. What she does not know is that her ancestor, the Baroness Catali, was in actuality a vampire countess, and emerges from her tomb to ravage the nearby village and Catholic seminary.
Cast
*Pia Degermark as Betty Williams, Clarimonde
*Thomas Hunter as Jens Larsen
*Yvor Murillo as Josef
*Ingrid van Bergen as Miss Niessen
*Joachim Kemmer as Martin
*Oskar Wegrostek as Abt
*Ferdy Mayne as Count Dracula
*Lyvia Bauer as Gabrielle
*Daria Damar as Kirsten
*Kay Williams
*Michael Janisch
*Toni Wagner
*Raoul Retzer
Production
In the early 1970s, Italian producer Pier A. Caminnecci was looking for a film for his wife Pia Degermark whose previous film 'Elvira Madigan' (1967) was a critical and financial success. Caminnecci set up an international production for her in West Germany directed by British director Freddie Francis and written by German screenwriters August Rieger and Karl-Heinz Hummel The script features a sub-plot based on Theophile Gautier's short story "La Morte Amoureuse."
Francis later stated:
I was aware from the start of the difficulties in shooting a horror parody. I really believed that I was working with normal people in the movie industry, and thought I could have made a decent film. With time, I became aware that the producer was an imbecile who treated the project like a home movie. He wanted to do the casting, make cameos in the film, and wanted his wife as an actress. It was a disaster which I can't say anything serious about.Zatterin, M., [http://www.fanta-festival.it/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/CatalogoFantafestival1986.pdf "Carreras, Francis, Guest, Lester"], Fantafestival, 1986.
Reception
The film was not well received. Allmovie gave the film one and a half stars out of five, stating that it is "not considered to be one of the crown jewels of the genre" In his book 'Comedy-Horror Films:A Chronological History', author Bruce G. Hallenbeck referred to the film as "sort of a ripoff of Polanski's 'The Fearless Vampire Killers'" and "doesn't come within lightyears of Polanski's vision"
See also
*List of comedy films of the 1970s
*List of horror films of 1971
*List of German films: 1970s
References
Works cited
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