When Countess Irina Karlstein (Lina Romay, COUNTESS PERVERSE) returns to the her ancestral home on the Portuguese island of Madeira, a series of murders of men and women drained of their life fluids attracts the attention of forensic scientist Dr. Roberts (director Jess Franco), occultist Dr. Orloff (Jean-Pierre Bouyxou, LIVING DEAD GIRL), and (separately) metaphysical poet Baron Rathony (Jack Taylor, PIECES). As Irina consumes more victims - among them a journalist (Anna Watican, DEMONIAQUES), a hotel masseur (Ramon Ardid, DORIANA GRAY), and an aristocratic dominatrix (Monica Swinn, THE DUKE OF BURGUNDY) - she becomes more despairing of her cursed existence until Rathony asks her to take him "behind the mists" which may result in his own death. After his orthodox adaptation of Bram Stoker's COUNT DRACULA and his more psychedelic improvisation VAMPYROS LESBOS which showcased the presence of muse Soledad Miranda (whose life was cut short by an accident on the Costa do Sol highway just as her career was about to take off), Franco paid his first cineamtic tribute to new muse Romay (who had already appeared in a number of smaller roles in Franco's films starting with THE SINISTER EYES OF DR. ORLOFF) with FEMALE VAMPIRE - also known as LA COMTESSE NOIRE, LES AVALEUSES (THE SWALLOWERS), and THE BARE BREASTED COUNTESS among other titles - a seminal film in Franco's and Romay's filmographies. Too uneven to be a masterpiece thanks to its endless sex scenes (of varying explicitude depending on the territory of release), the film is buoyed by Romay's mute performance as she wanders through the ghostly Portuguese landscapes (to which American ex-pat actor Taylor would return for a prominent role in Roman Polanski's THE NINTH GATE) to the mournful strains of Daniel White's theme music. The film was produced in two principal versions: a softcore/hardcore version in which Irina drinks the sexual secretions of her victims (the softcore cut of which was released to tape in the United States in an unauthorized version titled THE LOVES OF IRINA), and a "horror" version in which Irina bites the necks of her victims and drinks blood (released to tape in the US as EROTIKILL). The film also features Franco regular Alice Arno (HOW TO SEDUCE A VIRGIN) and Luis Barboo (THE EROTIC RITES OF FRANKENSTEIN) appears as Irina's mute servant.