The Karnsteins
- What exactly is Carmilla's relationship to the Count and Countess? If she's their daughter, it seems odd that they've waited 120 years after she died to raise her as a vampire. If she's not their daughter, and they've just raised her from the dead as a vampire to cause some evil mayhem and impress Satan, then who are they to her?
- The innkeeper's backstory explanation to Lestrange claims that the Karnsteins are known vampires who return to this castle every 40 years to feed on the locals. So again, why did they wait so long to raise Carmilla as a vampire when they had two or three opportunities to do that in the past? Are the Count and Countess even the same Karnsteins that the local villages tell stories about?
- Did Carmilla really love Lestrange? It certainly seems that she did. In a film where characters seem to fall in love with others at the drop of a hat, her attraction to and feelings for Lestrange appear real. She refuses to feed on him when they make love, can't bring herself to deny that she loves him even when a white lie would serve to protect him from the Countess, and when she sees him enter the burning castle at the end her reaction is all about ensuring his safety, right up until the Count uses his mesmerism to turn her into a lascivious predator. One read that fits with everything we're shown is that Carmilla herself is just a normal girl with genuine emotions, but the 'Mircalla' who is raised from the dead as a vampire is a creature of chaotic evil, and it takes the Count's deliberate intervention to ensure that, where Lestrange is concerned, Mircalla wins out over Carmilla.
How are vampires made?
- The only new vampire we see is Carmilla/Mircalla herself, and she’s raised from the dead in a Satanic ritual. She bites and kills at least three people (we don’t see what happens to the girl Carmilla is feeding on in bed), but none of them return from the grave as a vampire and none of the other characters (including the vampires) seem to expect them to. The only conclusion is that this strain of Karnsteins only pass on their vampiric curse through necromancy and blood sacrifice, and that their bite is purely a method of feeding.
- This matches up with the strain of vampirism seen in The Vampire Lovers (itself also a loose – but not as loose as this film – retelling of Le Fanu’s 'Carmilla') where that film’s Marcilla/Mircalla likewise feeds but does not turn anyone, but is different from the strain seen in the next Karnstein trilogy film, Twins of Evil, where those drained to death stay dead while those just bitten turn vampire within moments.
- Interestingly the method of vampiric resurrection used on Carmilla/Mircalla in this film has an echo in the unofficial 4th film in the Karnstein Trilogy, Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter, where the Karnstein descendant has to study for years before she is able to resurrect her own dead husband as a vampire, while her ability to almost instantly turn people she bites but does not drain (of blood or life energy) into vampires mirrors the Twins of Evil strain.
