Lemora: A Child's Tale of the Supernatural (1975)

A hodge podge of exploitation film types, gangster, hillbilly, vampire, woman in trouble, and with lesbian and pedophilic subtexts no less. The lead character is played by Cheryl Smith, an ill-fated actress later known as Rainbeaux Smith who would become a major starlet in exploitation fair. Smith plays Lila Lee a character who is a suppose to be 13 even though Smith was about twenty when she played her, she does look rather young though, and the makeup and wardrobe choices made for her character add to the effect and are one of many ways in which the film feels kind of dirty. Lila's Lee's father is a notorious gangster in 1920's Georgia, he has just escaped from prison and killed Lola's mother for hooking up with another man while he was in the slammer. Lila doesn't live with her mother however, she has been in the care of a nameless Reverend (played by the films writer and director Richard Blackburn) and has become something of a local celebrity for her beauty and lovely singing voice which she showcases at the Reverends church. Lila is sort of the Reverends pet project and she tries very hard to be good, she is also smitten with the Reverand who knows it and is uncomfortable with it. Lila also doesn't have many friends.

One day Lila receives a letter from a mysterious women named Lemora who tells her that her father is dying and would like to make his peace with her before he goes. In the letter Lemora tells Lila to tell no one and come to a nearby bus station that night to make the trip to the small town of Astaroth, Georgia where her father is staying. Lila stows away in a creepy neighbours car to get to town, then goes to the bus station where the creepy attendant directs her to a creepy old bus and its creepy bus driver. Basically every male Lila meets seems to take a prurient interest in her, they lust but don't act on it. Lila is the only passenger and the bus driver tells her that people rarely go to Astaroth anymore since the town was hit by a mysterious sickness. When they get near town the bus has engine trouble and the driver must stop the vehicle to work on it. He is attacked by vampire, werewolf, zombie things, Lila runs away. She is captured by someone or something and wakes up in something like a small jail, where an old hunch backed women brings her food and tells her to wait. After about a day in there Lila escapes and ends up hiding under the floorboards of a nearby house were she hears her father talking to a mysterious women. This women turns out to be Lemora. Lemora finds Lila and brings her into the house where she lives with the hunch backed women and five young children dressed in pirate costumes. She offers to give Lila a bath before taking her to a ceremony where she will meet her father.

The movie goes on an on in this weird vain, one isn't sure if it really knows where its going is just trying to introduce as many strange and atmospheric plot elements as possible. Lemora is very intersted in Lila and there is a definite lesbian subtext there to go along with the pedophilic air that the male characters seem to extend towards Lila. What happened in the town is never made exactly clear but it appears the Lemora is the queen/leader of a group of vampires who are waring against an infected group of evolutionarily degenerated vampires of whom in the course of the film Lila's father becomes one. While all this is going on the Reverend is desperately trying to find Lila, and it seems he may know something about Astartoth because he ends up there. I was actually pretty impressed with the ending, when the movie starts to show us that its really about a battle in Lila's soul between her Christan aspirations and her baser instincts. The film is low budget, but certainly creative and atmospheric, and there are some great found locations that add to the production value and look of the thing. A strange, creepy, kind of dirty film that stays just this side of the line from being truly debauched. Kind of impressive, but not for everyone. **1/2