Lemora: A Child's Tale of the Supernatural (1973)

Sadly Over-hyped

hyped garbage

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

I vaguely remembered this movie from watching Elvira ( Mistress of the Dark) back in the early 80's. So this movie must have been categorized as a low-budget amateur production for being featured as a relic on Elvira. But it did strike a chord with me since I remember the creepy villain, Lemora, and her prurient obsession with this nubile girl. Perhaps it was the sexual innuendo that drew my attention. But I was only a teenager at the time so I was undergoing the early stages of my sexual awakening and couldn't form my thoughts about this theme.Fast-forward 30 plus years later and I notice this movie on Youtube under some 1970's Horror video of some sort. It was then I had to watch this movie to satisfy that vague memory that left me latently curious. I have to say that the overall idea of the Vampire lesbian was enticing. The atmosphere, as noted numerous times by other reviewers, is remarkable considering the production's meagre budget. But the plot has a couple of problems that don't follow through with the initial setting. The gangster fugitive never gets resolved. It only serves as a premise to lead our nubile character, Lila Lee, into an inexplicable and random world of evil and witchcraft. The zombie characters that roam the forest and attack readily are unclear to me. Are they helpers of the Vampire Lemora or are they just wandering mutants to serve as haunting background? I understand that this is a morality tale that shows how the holy are tempted into sin and that evil can ruin anyone's salvation, but the meandering pace and deliberate tempo seemed to drag. The standout of the film is the presence and performance of Lesley Taplin, Lemora. She has a truly unnerving and frightening presence. Her skeletal features, deep-set eyes and black coif are enough to affect the most unshakable viewers. Watching her overpower and seduce the fragile Lila is curiously sinister and uncanny. Her purpose is to make this young and angelic girl her bitch and transform her into one of her everlasting victims. The set designs, lighting and camera angles are quite effective as well. The sound effects are horrifying and chilling, if not a bit over the top. Cheryl Smith's performance is adequate if not totally bland. But she is too pale and thin to pass off as some sexually enticing dish. Sorry, but this was a miscast. The finale was just a ridiculous mess. It simply didn't work. Watching those vampires, dawned in black cloaks and brim hats, bounding over church goers in slow motion didn't make sense on a logical or even a symbolic level.

Lila Lee (Smith) is a 13 year old girl who is being raised by a Reverend (Blackburn) of a church who has made her a choir angel. Her mother was murdered by her father Alvin (Whitton) who is taken in by a mysterious group of strangers in an abandoned town. Lila gets a message from her father and longing to forgive him, she sneaks away from the Minister and begins a journey to see him. After a terrifying Bus ride in which creatures attack her bus she arrives at a mansion being run by Lemora (Gilb), a mysterious woman in black whom everyone listens to. Lila is kept captive for awhile until eventually Lemora wins her over. It is soon revealed that Lemora and her minions are Vampires and want Lila to join them. This cult movie was banned by the legion of decency and the Catholic Church and remained unavailable for the longest time other than late night edited TV showings. All though only having a 'PG' rating Lemora does test correctness in putting the 13 year old Lila in some inappropriate situations that wouldn't be aloud today. Still, this films value is in its bizarre story telling. It plays like a demented fairy tale. The monsters that attack the bus are Vampires from the clan that mutated into these creatures. Intense lighting and mood is created, and there are some scary sequences. Make up is a highlight, and the creatures along with the Witch like servant of Lemora are very good. The story is easy to follow, just odd with weird beats and the pacing seems to wander at times. Hardly the classic it is being called today, Lemora still has a nightmare feel to it that should be seen.

Returning to her hometown to tend to her father's death, a young woman finds the area overrun by a vampiric cult of witchcraft practitioners and their zombified slaves and forcing her to find a way out of town alive.This turned out to be an interesting if severely flawed effort that has some good stuff going for it but is ultimately overrun by it's flaws. One of it's biggest flaws is the absolutely irritating inability to understand what's going on through it all since the entire film's dream-like atmosphere and pacing make it impossible to know if we're in a dream world or reality, and as nothing really prescribes to an established set of rules or preconceptions it makes for a hard time getting into this one, especially since there's a lot of time spent where nothing happens and we follow her around doing absolutely nothing. This makes it pretty hard to understand the villains motives and purposes since they never really explain them, and as a whole it's pretty hard to make anything out in here. That said, the positives are really good, as the dream-like atmosphere here is perfectly played and creates a rather haunting quality that makes this imminently watchable. Also, the sheer creativeness of it all, incorporating a virgin-like heroine with vampires, witches and zombies in a decrepit town makes for a real blast, and overall it's generally good parts are found when those are being utilized, especially the climax where the vampires appear as hallucinogenic fragments of her imagination and begin launching a vicious attack on her that makes for a really rousing time. Still, though, they're not enough to make this overcome it's flaws.Rated R: Violence, Language and Brief Nudity.

As noted, there's a lot to like about Lemora. The cinematography in places is shockingly good, some of the night exteriors in particular. Robert Caramico, who shot it, was already a blooded professional, his first credit being Orgy of the Dead, and he went on to another dozen and a half movies before his untimely death. The low budget is apparent from time to time: note that at some point Caramico set up on a hillside overlooking a roadway at night, took the same shot half a dozen times of every vehicle used in the production passing by beneath, and then Blackburn scattered them throughout the picture. Anyway, the problem is the Big Finish, where vampires leap on churchgoers and vice versa. It sucks. It means nothing. You can watch the film a dozen times and it still makes no sense whatsoever. You want to know why a terrific little flick like Lemora isn't on everybody's top-ten list of cult masterpieces? The ending. Boo. Hiss. The little snapper at the finish, which you could see coming a mile away with its brights on, gives Cheryl Smith a chance to be a hot babe for about two minutes, after a marvelous, utterly believable performance as a simpering virgin 2/3 her real age. But boy that ending. As clear a failure of a scriptwriter's ability to produce as the ending of Blazing Saddles.