The Velvet Vampire

The Velvet Vampire follows Lee Ritter and his wife Susan, an artist and his spouse who accept an invitation from the enigmatic Diane LeFanu to stay at her isolated estate in the desert. What begins as a retreat soon turns uneasy: tension builds between the couple as both husband and wife become the focus of Diane's attention. They gradually come to understand that their host is not what she appears to be, and that she has singled out each of them for reasons of her own. A sunny, lonely landscape and a growing sense of unreality surround their stay.

The film is a horror feature from the United States, produced by New World Pictures and running about eighty minutes. Stephanie Rothman directed it from a screenplay she wrote with Maurice Jules and Charles S. Swartz, who also produced. It was the first of the two features she is credited with directing, followed by The Working Girls in 1974. The cast includes Michael Blodgett as Lee Ritter, Sherry E. DeBoer as Susan Ritter, Celeste Yarnall as Diane LeFanu, Gene Shane as Carl Stoker, Jerry Daniels as Juan and Sandy Ward as Amos.

Released in October 1971, the film holds an IMDb rating of 5.3 from roughly 2,100 votes and a TMDB rating of 4.6 from a much smaller number of votes, indicating a modest and mixed response across the two audiences.