Vampire Ecstasy
Germany | 1973
Directed by Joseph W. Sarno
Starring
Marie Forså
Nadia Henkowa
Ulrike Butz
Color | 103 Min. | Not Rated
Format: DVD | R1 - NTSC
E.I./Retro-Seduction Cinema
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More Joe Sarno erotica on DVD
Review by
Brian Lindsey
 
5
     3   10 = Highest Rating  
American sexploitation auteur Joe Sarno struck box-office gold when he traveled to Sweden and helmed Inga (1968), a huge international hit. With additional Swedish projects under his belt (the inevitable sequel, 1971's The Seduction of Inga, among them), Sarno was approached by distributor Christian Nebe in the early 1970s with the idea of making erotic softcore films in Nebe's native Germany. Nebe would produce, with Sarno handling the writing and directorial duties. The projects would feature European actors but be filmed in English, making them an easier sell to U.S. distributors; in Europe the films would be either subtitled or dubbed for the various markets. (Europeans aren't bothered by subs or dubbing like us pointy-headed Yanks.) The first Sarno-Nebe collaboration was Der Fluch Der Schwarzen Schwestern ("The Curse of the Black Sisters"), a rare venture into the realm of 'horrotica' for the director. It was eventually released in Britain as The Devil's Plaything and in America under the alternate titles Veil of Lust and Veil of Blood. In both countries, the film — although not hardcore porn — was heavily cut prior to exhibition. Now, more than 30 years on, the original version can be seen on Region 1 DVD thanks to Retro-Seduction Cinema... albeit under yet another alternate title, Vampire Ecstasy.
    In the dark of night, weird occult rituals are performed in the bowels of a castle on the Austro-German border — naked women in a trance-like state writhe and cavort to a primal bongo beat. What are they celebrating... or summoning? One day a group of visitors arrives at the spooky old castle. Helga (Marie Forsε) and Monica (Ulrike Butz) have been invited there to determine which of them is the true heir to the estate; along for the ride is Monica's best friend, a fashionable blonde. Later, two more people show up at the castle door, brother and sister Peter and Julia Malenkow (Nico Wolf, Anke Syring), whose car was wrecked on a nearby mountain road. Receiving them all are the castle's strange, black-garbed servants, a quintet of odd women supervised by the chief housekeeper, Wanda (Nadia Henkowa). Julia, who happens to be an anthropologist with expertise in the occult, tells her fellow guests of the legend surrounding the castle, of the 17th Century baroness who was burned at the stake for being a vampire-witch. The question as to who is the rightful heir would seem to be answered by the portrait hanging in the great hall — raven-haired Monica is a spitting image of the infamous noblewoman. Unable to call a garage for assistance (the castle doesn't have electricity, much less a phone) the Malenkows are invited to stay until their situation can be resolved. Julia can't shake a profound feeling of unease...
    I shouldn't have liked this film as much as I did. (Note that I'm still giving it only a middling grade.) It's longer than it has any right to be, and although it starts out interestingly enough — Sarno gets us right to the naked dancing chicks within the first two minutes — not much of anything really happens during the first half. Characters are poorly introduced, then proceed to do illogical things... The Malenkow siblings seem to hang around the castle for a solid week once they're stranded, despite all the weird goings-on; none of the guests — not even Julia, our Van Helsing substitute — bothers to ask Wanda or any of the "black sisters" about the strange bongo music pulsing through the castle each night after midnight. (What's that racket? Is Matthew McConaughey getting high in the basement?) Due to the unfortunate combination of thick European accents and poor live sound recording, key lines of dialog are practically unintelligible. For instance, I could barely understand anything that was said during the scene in which Wanda, standing before the Baroness' portrait with the potential heirs, recounts the noble family's lineage. Because it was filmed in English, the movie would've strongly benefited from post-production looping with clearer-sounding actors voicing some of the performers; it wouldn't have looked dubbed and the audience would have an easier time figuring out what the hell was going on and why. Sarno also squanders the great potential of the film's location — a medieval Alpine castle with a real dungeon — by shooting it mostly in a flat, uninteresting manner. Red gel lighting is eventually used towards the end, when the spirit of the Baroness is resurrected in the body of Monika, but one can only imagine what a more visually astute director would've done with such a setting. (It's a gothic horror flick, Joe... How's about trying to accentuate the mood?) A laughably cheesy attack by a 'swarm' of bats — at first completely invisible, with the victim swatting at nothing, then represented by a couple of papier-mβchι hand puppets — certainly doesn't do the film any favors, either.
    Yet, despite a host of deficiencies, Vampire Ecstasy establishes and successfully maintains an offbeat erotic vibe. Helping Sarno transmit that vibe are Eurobabes Marie Forsε, the teenage "Swedish Sensation" of Sarno-Nebe films Bibi and Butterflies, and Ulrike Butz, a German actress who appeared in a number of sexploitation flicks of the period (such as Schoolgirl Report Vol. #6: What Parents Would Gladly Hush Up). Farm-fresh looking Forsε — barely 18 at the time — enthusiastically partakes in the majority of the sex scenes (if not the nude dancing), getting it on with just about everybody at one point or another, even resorting to self-gratification with a candle when a partner isn't available. It was the voluptuous Butz (no pun intended) that really caught my fancy, however. Pretty much a nonentity for the first hour of the film, once her character is possessed by the Baroness she suddenly morphs into an arrestingly seductive vampire, virtually throbbing with feral carnality. ("Her! I want her!") I'm partial to brunettes anyway (Edwige Fenech and Caroline Munro — yowza!), and Ulrike's got the killer combo of a schoolgirl face and a sex kitten body... Needless to say I was quite smitten with this fetching young fraulein. I'm motivated to see more of her films, no matter how bad they might be. Also of note is Nadia Henkowa, as the leader of the lesbian sex cult which hopes to resurrect the Baroness. With her affected, theatrical line delivery, the Hungarian actress sounds and acts a lot like fellow countryman Bela Lugosi — if one can imagine a female Lugosi shimmying naked to pounding bongo beats, that is!

As of this writing, Retro-Seduction Cinema provides three different ways of obtaining this DVD. The heavily censored R-rated cut, under the Devil's Plaything title (the version most likely to be found in retail stores like Best Buy), comes with a coupon that the purchaser can mail in — along with $3 for postage and handling — to receive a copy of Vampire Ecstasy, complete with new keepcase packaging. Since The Devil's Plaything sells for less than half the price of the Vampire Ecstasy disc this is the most economical way to go, although the fine print on the coupon states that the offer is good "only while supplies last". Vampire Ecstasy is also available as part of the nicely priced multi-disc Girl Meets Girl Trilogy collection, which includes the Sarno-Nebe films Bibi (retitled Girl Meets Girl) and Butterflies plus a soundtrack compilation CD. Finally, the disc can be had in 'stand-alone' form for $30, the edition on which I'm basing my DVD Rating of "3". (In contrast, the Girl Meets Girl Trilogy currently goes for $40 — a much better deal.)
    The film is presented fullscreen although the opening credits state that it was shot in "Eastmancolor Widescreen". While framing isn't radically compromised, a quick comparison with The Devil's Plaything, which is letterboxed at 1.78:1, indicates that Vampire Ecstasy certainly loses visual information at the sides. The print displays minor damage here and there but nothing too distracting; colors appear slightly faded. The main problem is that it's just too damn dark in spots — I had to switch my TV to super-bright 'Sports' mode to see what was going on in a couple of scenes. The digital mono audio track does what it can with the film's haphazard sound recording, which, as mentioned above, is further undermined by the thick accents of some of the actors.
    Extras: Interviews with director Joe Sarno and producer Chris Nebe, along with clips from Vampire Ecstasy, comprise a 7½-minute featurette on the making of the film. The jovial, English-fluent Nebe participates in a full-length audio commentary, ably moderated by Tony Marsiglia, in which he tells more than a few juicy stories about the cast and crew (apparently there was a lot more sex going on behind the scenes than ever showed up on screen); it's an interesting and funny discussion that's unfortunately hampered by much too low sound levels. (I really had to crank the volume to hear it properly.) Finally there's an extensive Sarno trailer vault, as offered on Abigail Leslie is Back in Town and other Sarno-helmed Retro-Seduction releases. 1/27/06

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