Blood of the Tribades

I spent at least half of Blood of the Tribades thinking the movie is a different genre than it actually is. The film is an overt stylistic homage to European vampire exploitation films such as those by Jean Rollin. Crucially, this homage was made in the 2010’s, shot on digital film and clearly utilized local, American locations. So, I thought it was a parody. It’s not, really. While Blood of the Tribades has a sense of humour, this is a movie that has some weirdly deep lore and is ultimately, not a comedy. Which is sort of disappointing because it doesn’t exactly work as a horror movie.

In Blood of the Tribades, the two genders are religious zealot and vampire. In this world, all women, at least in the fictional town of Bathor are vampires. The men instead worship their deity, Bathor. According to their religion, women are to be subservient. But being straight-up vampires, the women don’t really adhere to this expectation. Then, the men find themselves stricken with an illness. And obviously, this is the women’s fault. So, the already sexist church decides to take decisive action against the vampire women. During all of this, two women named Élisabeth and Fantine discover their forgotten past as lovers and bring that energy into the present.

I love the same things this movie loves. And so, I see and respect all of the references in Blood of the Tribades. I also see and respect the effort it took to make the movie. It’s very impressive that these filmmakers really did take the attitude of, “if you want to see something made, you gotta do it yourself.” These creators really wanted an homage to vampire exploitation films. And they went out to what I can only assume was a local park and made the damn thing. While the film isn’t a comedy, it looks like a really fun film to work on and shoot. Especially because there is such clear passionate creativity without the film taking itself too seriously. I bet this was a blast of a movie to work on. But viewing it? I fear I didn’t have as much fun as the people making it.

The lore in Blood of the Tribades goes harder than it has to for a 78 minute film. While visually a homage, story-wise, it’s got its own thing going. Is it better than the movies it visually references? Not really. Some exploitation movies are run purely on vibes. Especially Jean Rollin films. By contrast, I can see the effort to try and explain all the universal minutiae in Blood of the Tribades. It’s not exactly welcome or necessary. Did we need to create a whole new religion that apes Christianity but isn’t Christianity? Did the metaphor of empowered women as vampires need to collapse into a place where women just are vampires? I’ve got respect that the people behind this story actually thought pretty hard about it. I just think they thought too hard in a way where their response is more interesting to them than the actual viewer.

Blood of the Tribades is free to view on Youtube, I believe by the people who made it. I’m surprised by this only because of the amount of nudity in the film. We’ve got some naked women, sure. But I was more surprised by the amount of male nudity in the film. There’s at least three dicks to see in Blood of the Tribades. Which is three more than most movies, even exploitation films. I think there is actually more male nudity than female nudity which is again, super rare. There should be more male nudity in movies. This might be a surprising opinion from someone who runs a website for lesbian films. But what can I say? I love equality. And to me, equality means tits out, dicks out, and everyone’s gender-neutral butt is out too.

I can’t give Blood of the Tribades a good review. Frankly, the whole time I was watching it, I just wished I was watching an actual vintage vampire exploitation film. I appreciate the film for its passion, creativity and keeping the reference of these movies alive into the modern day. But if you haven’t seen the films this movie takes inspiration from, I don’t think the film will be very good. And if you have seen the films it takes reference from, the film doesn’t measure up to those heights. I think more comedic emphasis might’ve helped because Blood of the Tribades doesn’t have enough at its disposal to achieve the atmosphere needed for an exploitation homage about sexist doctrine in the church. But still, major respect for the creativity, passion, sense of fun and notable presence of male nudity in the movie.

Overall rating: 4.1/10

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