Conspirators of Pleasure
⋆ Blood Hunger: The Films of José Larraz: Whirlpool, Denmark/UK, 1970; Vampyres, UK/Spain, 1974; The Coming of Sin, Spain, 1978; Arrow Video
KNOWN IN HIS NATIVE SPAIN FOR HIS FORAY INTO THE S-RATED films of the late 1970s and early 1980s—a burst of erotic cinema that celebrated the end of the Franco regime—José Ramón Larraz has earned an international cult following due to his earlier expressive incursions into British horror, as evidenced by two of the three works included in the Arrow Films Blu-ray set suitably titled “Blood Hunger.”
Larraz’s first feature, 1970’s —shot when the director was already 40—fashions a playful cinephile mash-up, in which a young photographer (Karl Lanchbury, a doppelgänger of ’s David Hemmings) shares a gothic house by the lake, and certain intimacies, with his “aunt” (Pia Andersson). The duo are paid a visit by a stunning young model called-like memories of an old lover and some –ish perversions. Larraz’s interest here in pastiche is reflected elsewhere in his prolific and referential work as a transnational comic-book artist: in Spain he gave his first illustrated hero the face of Gary Cooper, adapted Kipling’s for , and drew inspiration from for his stint at the legendary Belgian magazine .
