MovieChat Forums > The Vampire Lovers (1970) Discussion > Who is the Specter on horse back

Who is the Specter on horse back


Who is the man on horseback they keep cutting back to men Carmilla attacks?

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I believe he's Count Karnstein who will become the lead nemesis in "Twins of Evil" (the third installment in the so called "Karnstein Trilogy" following the enigmatic "Vampire Lovers" and dismal "Lust for a Vampire").

If only you could see what I have seen with your eyes.

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He can't be the same Count Karnstein from Twins as that count was human when the film started but he could be the same Vampire from Lust!

Shut the door, Mary...

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Got me there. Thanks, well spotted.

If only you could see what I have seen with your eyes.

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Satan!

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He maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good... St. Matthew 5:45

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He can't be the same Count Karnstein from "Twins of Evil" as that count was human when the film started but he could be the same "Vampire from Lust"!


Yes, he can since "Twins of Evil" (1971) is considered a prequel clearly set earlier in time than "The Vampire Lovers" (1970) and "Lust for a Vampire" (1971): The film depicts the Karnstein family as living, not undead, and the sets and costumes indicate an earlier century (I'm assuming the 1500s).

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I always thought that it was a version of Dracula. After all, he was supposedly the first vampire from which all others flowed.

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Bear in mind that vampire lore is totally subject to the whim of the writer. Dracula is as ancient as you please or Dracula was invented by Bram Stoker in 1897. What is certain is that Carmilla was written about a quarter of a century before Dracula, so she as well as Varney (Varney the Vampire -1840s) and Lord Ruthven (The Vampyre - 1819) have precedence...if a writer cares to look at it that way.

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thingsmakersback - Yes, I do understand that Dracula was not the first vampire story ever written, but everything I have read over the years concerning Dracula and vampire lore, which obviously varies depending on the writer, leads me to think that Dracula was the first.
There are hints in what I have read and seen in film that, according to legend, Dracula was actually Judas Iscariot.

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I don't think the Judas/Dracula thing ever came up before Dracula 2000 (which I barely remember--I may not have seen all of it). Thing is that reconning a history for Dracula is something anybody can do, and it will never mean more than Richard Matheson writing in Mina as a reincarnation of Dracula's great love or my own unsupported conjecture that Dracula may have been the “Baron Ferenczy” in Transylvania, mentioned in HPL's The Case of Charles Dexter Ward.

Dracula has been gifted with various histories and considerable significance by being the most popular vampire ever written.

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That is very true.

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