PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: (1) *fair,* (2) *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical*
Though Joe Sarno's Euro-horror VAMPIRE ECSTACY is primarily just a T&A fest with a lesbian vampire angle, it's generally worth watching on the level of simple divertissement. I've seen numerous other sexy-vampire romps that have far less creativity than this outing, so I could tolerate its slack pacing and repetitive setups just because it remains, shall we say, visually interesting most of the time.
All of the action takes place at a German castle in the 1970s. The occupants of this domain are an all-female vampire-witch cult led by one Wanda, and the cult's purpose is to reincarnate the spirit of a long dead vampire witch into the body of a descendant, To this end Wanda invites a young woman named Monika to the castle for the reading of a will, and Monika comes, bringing along a girlfriend. Yet at the same time Monika arrives, two other strangers show up seeking shelter. They are supernatural expert Julia Malenkow (Anke Syring) and her dimbulb brother Peter. Will Julia's expertise in vampire lore-- like her ability to repel the undead with "garlic crosses"-- pose a threat to Wanda's vision? You betcha.
Amid all the sexy stuff-- which includes the revelation that Julia harbors a thing for her brother, while he's keen on a sweet young thing named Helga-- there's some indication that writer-director Sarno was having a little irreverent fun with the genre. The lethal ladies cast spells and dance their rituals to the tune of bongo drums (!). But they barely ever do anything vampiric, though at one point they call up bats to tear off Julia's clothing-- bats who are quite obviously paper cut-outs being wielded by offscreen stagehands. There's the odd revelation that Julia and Peter may ALSO be related to the dead countess-- so are they there by coincidence, or not? But Sarno probably just raised the question to burn up a little screen time, not because he wanted to enhance the plot. However, if a vampire-fan had no objections to copious T&A, I can think of worse ways to waste viewing time-- though at an hour and forty minutes, ECSTASY is much too long.
But anything's better than BLOOD OF THE VIRGINS, the first Argentinian vampire-film. This flick starts off adequately, as an undead medieval count woos Ofelia, a living woman. The woman's father doesn't approve and makes another match for her. However, the count shows up on Ofelia's wedding night, stabs her new husband to death, and makes her an undead like himself. Then they go hang out at his mansion until the 20th century.
Then the director has a bunch of modern youths show up at the castle-- and I could swear that almost NOTHING happens thereafter. I mean, the undead woman gets it on with one of the guys, and I think the undead count comes after a modern girl. But there were so many deadly-dull time-killing scenes-- people driving or slowly walking from one place to another-- that I found myself unable to remember what I'd seen after I saw it. Rarely has a movie assembled such a quantity of characters without settling on at least one who has at least some vague personality.
I know nothing about this production or the people behind it, but next to this one even the worst Jess Franco starts looking good.
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