Blackern Films, 1973
starring: Lesley Gilb, Cheryl Smith, William Whitton and Richard Blackburn
written and directed by: Richard Blackburn

the plot: Sweet young Lila Lee (Smith) is sent to live with a pious reverend (Blackburn) after her father, the vicious gangster Alvin Lee (Whitton) shoots and kills his wife and her lover. Lila is beautiful and pious, a singer in the church choir and the object of the reverend’s often less-than-holy affections. But all that changes one night when Lila receives a strange letter from a mysterious woman named Lemora (Gilb). In the letter, Lemora claims to be caring for Lila’s fugitive father, and asks the young girl to visit her father and forgive him for his past misdeeds. Lila’s journey is fraught with peril—the cities of the Prohibition-era deep South are no place for a little girl—but, by the time she’s on the road to Lemora’s house, Lila finds she has worse things to fear. Grotesque monsters prowl the woods around Lemora’s home and attack without provocation. Worse still is Lemora, a bizarre, seductive woman who alternately makes Lila feel loved and afraid. Lila quickly learns that Lemora has done something terrible to her father. She tries to get away, but the price for escaping Lemora’s sinister clutches may be total damnation.

why it’s good: If you’re looking for a deliciously weird Southern Gothic horror film with lesbian overtones, look no further than “Lemora.” Atmospheric, creepy and, at times, dream-like and hallucinatory, the film, like the title character, slowly weaves a spell around viewers, drawing you in with what seems to be a classic vampire story only to morph into a sexually-charged tale about emerging adolescence. Much of the credit for that goes to Cheryl Smith, who goes from a naïve Christian girl to a frightened teenager to a sexually confident woman all in the span of 90 minutes. It’s a heady mixture of religion and sex—Satanic rituals, lesbian seduction, possible pedophilia (the character of Lila Lee is only 13 or 14, though Smith was 18 when she took the role) and so on—all of which led the Catholic League of Decency to “ban” the film in the 1970s, helping to push “Lemora” into obscurity for many years. Blackburn and co-writer Richard Fern fill the film with plenty of odd characters and unsettling atmosphere. Lila’s journey through the cities and towns of the deep South feels like a trip through a sideshow filled with lecherous men and broken-down hookers, and the scenes in Lemora’s home are only weirder, with werewolves, vampire children and cackling old ladies running around, giggling, snarling and singing, respectively. For all the loitering monsters and ghouls, Blackburn and Fern hold back on the gore, instead relying on suspense and psychological shocks to creep out the viewer.

why you should own it: Vampire flick devotees and fans of fairy tale-inspired horror films such as “In the Company of Wolves” should definitely add “Lemora” to their libraries. Synapse Films dragged “Lemora” out of obscurity with its 2004 DVD release of the film. Special features include commentary by Blackburn, Fern and Gilb, as well as behind the scenes stills and the film’s shooting script.