Lemora: A Child's Tale of the Supernatural

Lemora: A Child's Tale of the Supernatural is the perfect example of the pure raison d’être of a repertory theatre. Lemora is so rare a film that up until the recent discovery of a 35mm print,  director Richard Blackburn would show the film around horror film conventions on a video master. 

Lemora is a fascinating, low budget horror film with an intelligent script, inventive visuals and sound, and strong performances. Although it is far from perfect, it strangely enough succeeds at  more levels than it has any right to. It functions as both an atmospheric and genuinely frightening  horror film, with enough subtext to keep any Freudian happily writing. The film begins with a  1930’s fedora capped gangster smashing into a room and shooting his wife and lover dead in  gangland style. The scene cuts to a Baptist church meeting, with a reverend (played by director Blackburn) giving his sermon of the day. The subject of his sermon is contemporary good and evil, evidenced in the daughter of the man in the opening scene, Lila Lee, a beautiful 13-year old blond girl who sings in his church. Given her bad pedigree, her faith and innocence is, the reverend claims, a testament to goodness in the face of evil (her father). The film effectively recreates the 1930’s, with a genuinely creepy Southern, bog atmosphere and even a few effective startle effects.  (As an added curio note Jean-Pierre Gueuns, who gets credit for “additional camera,” is a name I  have been familiar with from the academic side of things, with his excellent essay on the steadicam "Visuality and Power: The Work of the Steadicam,” Film Quarterly 47/2, Winter 1993-94, 8-17 and his recent book, Film Production Theory.) 

The film is reminiscent of Jacques Tourneur’s 1943 I Walked with a Zombie (scenes of a woman walking through isolated backwoods area, zombie-filled woods, tenebrous lighting) and Bob Clarke's 1972 Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things (pasty-faced zombies, use of slow motion), while doing what Eyes Wide Shut tried to do but more successfully: a character walking through their own sexualized dreamscape. The film is full of subtext, and can be read, along with a straight ahead cracker of a horror film, as an adult Little Red Riding Hood, or Freudian tale of a girl’s coming of sexual age. The lead character, 13-year old Lila Lee (Cheryl Smith), opens the film singing “Rock of Ages” in a Baptist Church. According to the reverend’s sermon about good and evil Lila Lee, offspring to an ‘evil’ father, remains a pure symbol of goodness. But is she? Lila gets a letter from a lady named Lemora (Leslie Gilb), telling her that her father is with her in a town called Asteroth and that he wants to see her before he dies. She leaves the ministry on her own in search of her father. She gets there by way of an eerie bus ride where she is the only passenger and a harried, unkempt driver alternates between being her protector and aggressor. Blackburn emphasizes Lee’s sense of isolation with great depth of field shots of the driver in the right foreground and Lila in the left background of bus. From this point on she encounters a series of sexual encounters or scenes of sexual overtone. Everyone seems to want a piece of Lee’s virgin body, first the reverend, then a man she attempts to hitch a ride with, the bus ticket vendor, the bus driver, and ultimately, Lemora. In one of the best and most sexually charged scenes, Lemora, who eventually vampirizes Lila, gives her a bath while contemplating Lee’s crucifix bearing neck. 

The film has echoes of a Mario Bava film, especially the girl, who is a dead ringer for the blond devil girl from Kill Baby Kill. Other Bava touches include the freeze frames, the harsh reds and greens, the shots of Lee framed from behind a window, the uncanny depiction of children, and the extensive scenes of a woman being pursued. After finding her way through a zombie filled woods, Lee is abducted by an old hag, which leads to a great scene of the hag trying to scare her in song, with the scene cutting between circular moving close-up’s of the hag and Lila. For most of the film Lee is dressed in a nightgown and spends the time barely eluding zombies and vampires by climbing trees, hiding under stairs and porches, etc., as if in a dream. The finale tries to inject a sense of climax by quickly cutting between the present (Lila observing an apocalyptic battle between the zombies and vampires) and the past (revisiting earlier moments). Included are the scenes at the Baptist church. The film ends back at the church, which suggests one of two things: that the middle bulk of the film was an extended flashback, and she was already ‘vampirized’ at the beginning. Or she has returned as a vampire to soon prey on the villagers. As the film finished and the lights were slowly turning up and people leaving their seats, I overheard a couple sitting behind me discussing how much they enjoyed the film. At one point I heard the man rhetorically ask his partner, “Boy, how come I never heard of this film!” That, my good reader, is the raison d’être of a repertory theatre.  

Independently produced and poorly distributed open initial release, LEMORA, A CHILD'S TALE OF THE SUPERNATURAL is one of the best vampire movies of the 70s, plain and simple. Director/co-screenwriter/star Richard Blackburn was inspired by the writings of H.P. Lovecraft, and knowing that COUNT YORGA, VAMPIRE made a killing at the box office, decided that a vampire movie would be the route to go for his maiden low budget effort. This was often thought of a "lost" film, but it actually played frequently on television, at least here in New York in the late 70s and early 80s (under the chic title LEMORA, LADY DRACULA). I think it wasn't a matter of it being lost but rather seeing a decent print of the film, and even a semi-official video release from Moore Video (in the early 90s) didn't do the film justice. Needless to say, the saga of Lemora can now be viewed in a flawless-looking DVD released by Synapse Films, and the cliché "never looked better" has actually never been more appropriate. 

Lila Lee (drive-in queen Cheryl Smith, later also known as Rainbeaux Smith) is the 13-year old daughter of butchering gangster, Alvin Lee (William Whitton), who murders her mother and the mother's lover in the opening scene. Reverend Mueller (Blackburn) now takes care of the girl who is a singer in his Baptist church, but she gets a letter from a woman named Lemora (Lesley Gilb) who requests that she comes to her isolated town to see and forgive her dying father. Lila takes off late at night, leaving a letter for the good reverend, and after witnessing the seedier side of town, she eventually boards an empty old bus driven by a creepy eccentric (wonderfully overplayed by Hy Pyke) who takes her to the abnormal town of Asteroth, where Lemora resides. When the bus breaks down in the woods, a number of grotesque beast-like men attack, and Lila eventually makes it to the home of Lemora. First held prisoner by a batty old lady in a nearby shack, the impressionable teen is then welcomed into Lemora's home where she snacks on raw meat, drinks blood from a goblet, and sings before a group of pale, peculiarly dressed children. Lila also forms an unlikely bond with the daunting Lemora, and the monstrous state of her dad is just one of the horrors to be found in her nightmarish journey. 

First-time director Blackburn and first time producer Richard Fern (both who met at UCLA) created a dark "fairy tale for adults" that will most likely continue to attract new fans. Setting the film in backwoods 1930s America was an ambitious idea, and all the settings are appropriately atmospheric and set a mood not often seen in films of this sort. At the time that LEMORA was released, the late Cheryl Smith had already been seen in a number of exploitation-type roles, but she is very convincing playing a good girl much younger in years, whose innocence is challenged by the horrors and perversions brought upon her. Leslie Gilb's memorable vampire queen, with her hair up in a bun, and heavy black wardrobe is somewhat reminiscent of Gloria Holden in DRACULA'S DAUGHTER. The effective make-up by Byrd Holland depicts two races of vampires, one who are more civilized (in top hats and cloaks) and the other hairy and ghoul-like, and the haunting music score by Dan Neufeld, as well as some unearthly noises on the soundtrack all contribute to the level of eeriness.