Vampire Hookers (1978)

...aka: Cemetery Girls
...aka: Ladies of the Night
...aka: Night of the Bloodsuckers
...aka: Sensuous Vampires
...aka: Twice Bitten

Directed by:
Cirio H. Santiago

American sailors Tom Buckley (Bruce Fairbairn) and Terry Wayne (Trey Wilson) are looking for a wild time while on leave in Manila. They get drunk, gets into a bar fight, are tricked into eating unborn duck by some locals, encounter some transvestites in a disco club, try to pick up some hookers and almost get mugged. Another sailor, Taylor (Lex Winter), wanders off with one hooker named Cherish (Karen Stride), and doesn't return. As the two men look into his disappearance, Tom is led to a big cemetery and ends up finding a secret stairway leading to an underground crypt where worldly, Shakespear-quoting vampire count Richmond Reed (John Carradine) resides. Richmond uses his three attractive female vampires; Cherish, Suzy (Lenka Novak) and Marcy (Katie Dolan), to lure men there. His tubby, retarded henchman Pavo (Vic Diaz) also wants to become a vampire but hates the taste of blood and has a bad case of flatulence. Meanwhile, Terry tries to locate his buddy.

Embarrassing, juvenile horror comedy derives most of its humor from terrible dubbing, which admittedly is pretty funny at times. The rest is a series of pea-brained gags, fart jokes, awful one-liners ("Coffins are for being laid to rest... Not for being laid."), hammy overacting and a neverending, slow motion scene where Tom beds down with all three hookers at once. That scene provides plenty of nudity by the female stars, the sets in the vampire lair are pretty good and there's a great theme song ("They're vampire hookers... and blood is not all they suck...") over the end credits, but that's really about it.

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Cirio Santiago had a very long career as a producer and director that lasted over fifty years until his death in 2008. He was involved in the productions of well over 100 films (mostly action; including 20 for Roger Corman) and owned and operated his own movie studio (Premiere Productions) in Manila. Screenwriter Howard R. Cohen went on to make the equally unfunny SATURDAY THE 14TH horror parodies. Emmett Alston, who'd go on to make the awful NEW YEAR'S EVIL (1981) and the very fun DEMON WARP (1987), was the production manager.

Many cheap-looking prints of this one are floating around. Your best bet is going with the 2008 BCI Eclipse release. It's a nice quality print and they've paired it with the Paul Naschy film COUNT DRACULA'S GREAT LOVE (1972).

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