"Made by grapes trampled by the feet of a peasant..."
This isn't a well-known film, particularly. It has no stars, and makes do with Edward de Souza as leading man. It is essentially a collection of set pieces based around predictable horror film tropes which gradually reveas itself as a neighbourhood which exists to trap visting couples into surrendering the female of the pair, as a kind of droit de seigneur siruation, to the local lord, who happens to be a sexually magnetic vampire in the mould of Dracula- an aspect many films miss.
The tropes come thick and fast- the coupe, in their charming Edwardian roadster, break down in a sinister rutal area where the only buildings are sinister-looking edifices. The only local hoteliers are extremely sinister and mysterious. A bearded figure warns them to leave the area and ask no questions. This is a great film for horror film tropes bingo.
The twist is clever, though; the whole set-up is a cuning trap, and I love the scene where Gerald is gaslighted into believing, or nearly believing, that there never was a fancy dress ball (another trope), and that he came alone, without his wife. Gerald, an Englishman finding his wife seduced by some dastardly Mittel European foreigner, is fortunate to find that the bearded bloke is a kind of Van Helsing archetype, so they're able to defeat the vampire lord and his comical cult- with a chalk circle and vampire bats, naturally.
This film is delightfully bonkers.
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