The Fearless Vampire Killers (1967)

Roman Polanski's 1967 gothic spoof arrives from a Central European neverland of wintry forests and crumbling castles, and it carries no modern social baggage whatsoever. The cast is uniformly white. Transylvania here is a stage set for slapstick, and the politics are those of a bawdy folk tale. Sharon Tate's Sarah exists to be ogled, abducted, and rescued. The film's own materials call her a buxom maiden, and the camera agrees with that description at every opportunity. Nobody involved appears to have given the matter a second thought.

Against this backdrop, one element stands apart. Count von Krolock's son Herbert, a foppish aristocrat with a taste for velvet and a wandering eye, is openly homosexual. He pursues Alfred with tireless enthusiasm, corners him for an attempted seduction, and later announces his fondness to his father, who proposes Alfred as a suitable companion for the boy. The portrayal is broad, mincing, and played for nervous laughter. It is also, in 1967, an unmistakably gay character given screen time, dialogue, and a stated desire. We award credit where credit is due, however grudgingly.

That single flourish is the film's entire contribution to the progressive ledger. There is no engagement with race, no environmental sermon, no critique of the Count's aristocratic wealth, no body positivity, no neurodivergence, and no history to revise, since the history on display never happened. The film wants us to laugh at a hunchback and a man stuck in a window. It succeeds often enough. A comedy that sets out to amuse and does so is under no obligation to instruct us, and this one never tries.