Carmilla

A lonely, innocent teenager (Ione Skye) discovers that her new best friend is a vampire. Originally shown on cable’s “Nightmare Classics” series. Carmilla: Meg Tilly. Inspector: Roddy McDowall. Leo: Roy Dotrice. Miss Hodgett: Armelia McQueen. Directed by Gabrielle Beaumont., Sheridan Le Fanu’s erotic horror tale — the inspiration for Hammer Films’ bosom-heaving “Karnstein Trilogy” and Roger Vadim’s Blood and Roses — is given a bit of whitewash in this tepid episode of Shelley Duvall’s made-for-cable “Nightmare Classics” series. Inexplicably relocated to the American Deep South in the 19th century, this transposes the tale of a young woman (Ione Skye) who falls under the spell of the enigmatic and beautiful Carmilla (Meg Tilly), a lesbian vampire whose lust for women includes a hunger for female blood. Tame when compared to the blood-and-breasts quotient of Hammer’s Lust for a Vampire, this Southern Gothic variant nevertheless contains a few shocking scenes, particularly one character’s horrific “surprise” death.