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Germany
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1973
Directed by Joseph W. Sarno
Starring
Marie Forså
Nadia Henkowa
Ulrike Butz
Color
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103 Min.
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Not Rated
Format:
DVD
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R1 - NTSC
E.I./Retro-Seduction
Cinema
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The
GIRL MEETS GIRL TRILOGY
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5
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10
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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
Forså) 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. 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-mâché 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 Forså, the teenage
"Swedish Sensation" of Sarno-Nebe films Bibi
and Butterflies,
and Ulrike Butz, a German actress who appeared
in a number of those Schulemädchenreport
flicks of the period. Farm-fresh looking Forså
—
only 17 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.
(Sadly, Butz died of a drug overdose less than
two years after Vampire
Ecstasy was shot.) 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!
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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 $36
— 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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