Sex and the Single Vampire (1970)

Directed by:
"Modunk Phreezer"

Possibly the very first vampire porno film, this awful X-rated "comedy" has been released in both uncut hardcore and heavily cut softcore versions. The latter is reduced down to as little as 27 minutes, but the full version runs just 55 minutes. Something Weird released both versions. 300-year-old bloodsucker Count Spatula (John Holmes) awakens from his coffin complaining about his rheumatism. If that's not getting you in the mood for some lovin', keep in mind that Holmes - not a very attractive man to begin with - has his hair streaked grey, is wearing blue eye shadow, bright red lipstick and pink press on nails (!) in this one. He sets out some rat traps to catch the large rodents infesting his home and then goes to clean all of the empty blood bottles out his refrigerator. He's in need of some fresh blood and, whadda ya know, three couples and an additional woman all show up at the home. Supposedly one guy has just inherited the place from his Hungarian uncle, who's rumored to have been a vampire. After a few lame jokes ("scared stiff," anyone?) some of the couples decide to go upstairs to check out the bedrooms. One couple stays behind so they can "... get out of it and into it."

Just what you think goes on upstairs in the bedrooms. Holmes' vampire watches everyone from behind curtains, makes goofy faces, bites his nails, makes asides directly to the camera, accidentally steps on the mouse traps he has set up and gets electrocuted while messing around with the fuse box. One girl lets another know what a "magnificent set" she has before the obligatory lesbian scene and a guy who can't get it up blames his girlfriend, who complains "it's like trying to force a marshmellow into a piggy bank!" Another guy finds a cold cola in the kitchen and becomes suspicious, but is strangled, bit and tied up before he can do much else. After a group number, everyone realizes their friend is missing out on the "groovy action" and the two other guys go looking for him. They're both knocked unconscious and tied up by the Count, who then has four women to keep him busy. So busy he forgets to drink their blood. And so busy he's up until the morning. Oops. Thank you writer "Wolfgang Klutzman" for helping me reach my quota of double entendre "suck" jokes until about 2020.

No one seems to know who director "Modunk Phreezer" is, and it's doubtful we ever will. The cast includes prolific sex film star Sandy Dempsey (SEX PSYCHO), Kathy Hilton (no, not Paris Hilton's mother) and John Dullaghan, who went on to a career in theater productions, TV and in R-rated films after this, such as GARDEN OF THE DEAD (1972) and THE THING WITH TWO HEADS (1972). Other vampire movies with hardcore sex include Ray Dennis Steckler's awful THE HORNY VAMPIRE (1971) and THE MAD LOVE LIFE OF A HOT VAMPIRE (1971), COUNT EROTICO - VAMPIRE (1975), DRACULA SUCKS (1978), DRACULA EXOTICA (1981) and the all-male GAYRACULA (1983).

★

Dracula (The Dirty Old Man) (1969)

... aka: Dracula, the Dirty Old Man

Directed by:
William Edwards

Opening credits featuring a blood-dripping cartoon breast should clue you in to what you're in store for here. A soft-core sex flick. Mmm hmm. Then the appallingly unfunny opening narration ("I saw a blue mountain back behind a blue mountain back behind another blue mountain and then I knew that I was in... the land of the blue mountains.") should clue you in to what else you're in store for. Mind-numbingly awful comedy. Yup yup. As the Townsend's in Al Adamson's BLOOD OF DRACULA'S CASTLE (1969) can already attest, the desert isn't the best place in the world for a vampire to live, but that's just where the bearded Count Alucard (Vince Kelley) resides. His cave lair consists of a coffin on the ground, a couple of tiki torches and some racks. Yes indeedy, Mr. Alucard, you do need an interior decorator. Maybe ask your "old bat" of a mother rubber bat on a string to help ya out there. Alucard eventually wanders into town just in time to catch Ann (Ann Hollis) underdressing and massaging her breasts in front the bedroom mirror while fantacizing about her date Mike Waters (Bill Whitton). Alucard would like to "take her home for supper" but settles for transforming into a bat and flying off instead.

Both Mike and Ann work as reporters. Mike's boss sends him off to meet Mr. Alucard, who claims to want to reopen some old mines. Upon arriving, Mike is quickly hypnotized by the vampire's necklace. The vampire then renames him Irving Jackalman and instructs him to bring him three women on the next full moon. But if there are any "leftovers" he's welcome to them. Mike / Jackalman ends up transforming into a ridiculous-looking monster that looks like a mix between a werewolf and a teddy bear. He grabs some girl leaving a bar and she's zapped back to the vampire's lair, tied to a cross, stripped naked and then has her breast bitten. After her boyfriend gets his throat ripped out, a second woman (whom the vampire deems "a little better than the first") is transported to the lair for more of the same. Jackal shows up at a third woman's home, kills her husband, strips her clothes off, rapes her on the floor, kills her and then continues having sex with her corpse. Having killed her, he's back on the hunt for Alucard's next victim.

A woman's car breaks down so Jackalman follows her to a service station and ends up kidnapping a completely different woman leaving the restroom. Even though Alucard is dissatisfied with this one having small breasts, he promotes Jackalman and allows him to rape and kill her. The film then cuts to a scene that seems to have been grafted on at a later junction. Young Susan (Adarainne) and Bob (Ron Scott), who looks old enough to be her father, start messing around. She loses her top, pushes him off of her and tells him he just doesn't do it for her. Bob: "You make me sick!" Susan: "Kiss my ass, bastard!" After Bob leaves, Susan starts pleasuring herself, but then a hairy monster shows up and strangles her. Mike (in human form) then takes Ann on a drive-in theater date, transforms into Jackalman and takes her back to the count. The two get in a fight over her and she runs off naked into the cave but is captured again. Alucard and Jackalman keep fighting and fighting into the wee hours of morning, which can't be too good for our Count.

Either shot with no audio or the original audio track got scrapped at some point, all of the narration and dialogue (which hardly ever matches the lips) in this was added in later. I'm not quite sure if the original film was intended to be taken seriously or not, but whoever ended up dubbing it certainly didn't! This thing is virtually MST3K'd before they even had a chance to do it. There are perhaps a couple of chuckles poking fun of the original film but most of this is painfully unfunny and incredibly irritating... and the characters never seem to shut up. Even when doing simple things like walking, driving or looking in windows, we're treated to the characters telling us they're walking, driving or looking in windows. It runs just 69 minutes. I will promote you to a Second Class Jackalman if you make it all the way to the end!

Director Edwards also wrote and produced THE MUMMY AND THE CURSE OF THE JACKAL (1969). Ted V. Mikels regular Chuck Alford is credited as the "Reproduction Manager" (?) Something Weird DVD double-billed this with GUESS WHAT HAPPENED TO COUNT DRACULA? (1970). Truncated versions of the hardcore porn films SEX AND SINGLE VAMPIRE (1970) and Dracula and the Dirty Old Witch (aka THE BRIDE'S INITIATION) (1976) are part of the package.

★

Confessional, The (1976)

... aka: Confessional: House of Mortal Sin, The
... aka: Confessional Murders, The
... aka: House of Mortal Sin
... aka: Mortal Confessions

Directed by:
Pete Walker

Director Walker claims that some of his films were "a deliberate attempt to try and get some controversy." Such was clearly the case with this one, which uses the premise of a deranged, degenerate priest as a platform to point a finger at the hypocrisies and secretive nature of the Catholic church. Jenny Welsh (Susan Penhaligon) is a modern, independent young woman who shares a flat with - and works for - her older sister Vanessa (Stephanie Beacham), who owns a small London boutique. Jenny's relationship with her unfaithful, no-good boyfriend Terry (Stewart Bevan) is on the rocks and he decides to move on and move out. Distraught and desperately needing someone to talk to, Jenny wanders into the Church of the Sacred Heart and into confessional looking for a priest friend of hers. Instead, she ends up confessing some secrets to Father Xavier Meldrum (Anthony Sharp), including having had an abortion several months earlier. Meldrum seems a little too interested in Jenny's sex life which creeps her out and has her scurrying for the exit. In a rush, she drops her keys in the booth.

Jenny invites her friend Robert (Ian Yule) over to listen to records and have a chat. When she leaves to go get a pack of cigarettes, someone sneaks inside and throws a kettle of hot tea in Robert's face. He's rushed off to the hospital, unable to speak (at least for the time being) and the attack is blamed on the kettle exploding. The following day, Jenny gets a call about her missing keys and heads to Father Meldrum's home to retrieve them. Once there, she discovers that Meldrum in completely out of his mind. He's recorded her confession and plans on using it as blackmail to "help" her. While he claims he has been put on Earth to comabt sin, in actuality he really has more romantic designs on the poor girl. Jenny high tails it out of there but finds shaking off the disturbed priest isn't quite so easy ("You cannot survive without me!") as he begins stalking her and murdering any man he thinks may be corrupting her or threatens to expose him. Meanwhile, another priest, Father Bernard Cutler (Norman Eshley) ends up moving into Vanessa and Jenny's home. He and Vanessa end up falling in love with each other, which has Father Cutler doubting his chosen profession and if there's a real need for the Catholic church's dated celibacy policy.

When Terry (who weasels his way back into Jenny's life) tries to confront Father Meldrum about the audio recording of his girlfriend's confession, he gets beat to death and buried in an open plot in the cemetery. More victims will soon follow suit. Mrs. Davey (Julia McCarthy), whose pregnant daughter had leaped to her death after dealing with Meldrum, is off in the background quietly plotting her revenge and the always-wonderful Sheila Keith has a memorable supporting role as sadistic, one-eyed matronly housekeeper Miss Brabazon, who gets her jollies torturing Meldrum's elderly, bedridden mother (Hilda Barry), who cannot speak or move because of a bad stroke. Brabazon pours hot tea down the old woman's throat, refuses to feed her for days on end and plays records just to annoy her. She has secretly been in love with Meldrum for thirty years and blames his mother for destroying their budding relationship. Some of the religious-themed murders include strangulation with a rosary and being fed a poison communion wafer.

While Walker may shrug off the presence of meaningful content in his own films, writer David McGillivray clearly knows the inner workings of the Catholic church well, as most of his commentary is dead on and remains accurate and relevant today. No one seems to believe Jenny's story about Father Meldrum - even her own sister has doubts - and she's labeled mentally unstable simply because of everyone's blind devotion to the church. Same goes for Mrs. Davey, who was shrugged off by the police when she told them what the priest had done to her daughter. And it's all made quite clear no one wants to stir up trouble when it comes to the precious church. Ironically, things haven't changed at all since this movie was made. If anything, they've gotten worse. The church is still powerful, still believes it is above the law and still thinks that rules that apply to everyone else in this world do not apply to them. They're still highly secretive, find ways to justify their lies and are still able to successfully cover up various crimes committed by their priests while many politicians, law enforcement officials and members of their own congregations prove to be no better by either contributing to the madness or turning a blind eye to it. This movie weaves its insights about the corrupt nature of powerful organized religions into the horror in an intelligent and thought-provoking way.

The Confessional, which was originally released in the UK as House of Mortal Sin, is not for every viewer out there. It's slow-moving, minimal on blood and action and, despite the subject matter, not overly exploitative. It is however a smart horror film for those who enjoy drawing parallels between the fictional horrors depicted on screen with ones that take place in real life. The performances from the entire cast are solid and the inclusion of a sincere, well-meaning priest to contrast the psychotic one makes a nice balance. One could even say Father Cutler represents the *potentially* positive nature of the church and organized religion while Father Meldrum represents the *reality* of the church and organized religion. The film ends on a downbeat note and no question is left to which side ends up winning out. Naturally, a cover up is involved.

The Anchor Bay DVD, part of the Pete Walker Collection, contains a nearly-40 minute Walker documentary titled Courting Controversy, which covers most of Walker's films and features interviews with Walker, McGillivray, actor Paul Greenwood (from FRIGHTMARE), Graham Duff (a Walker fan and writer for Dr. Terrible's House of Horrible) and others. There's also a 13-minute mini-doc on co-star Sheila Keith titled Sheila Keith: A Nice Old Lady?, as well as a photo gallery, film notes and trailers for other Walker films.

★★★

Mr. Sardonicus (1961)

... aka: A Máscara do Horror (A Mask of Horror)

... aka: Der unheimliche Mr. Sardonicus (The Scary Mr. Sardonicus)

... aka: El barón Sardonicus (Baron Sardonicus)

... aka: Sardonicus

Directed by:
William Castle

"It's good to see you again, my homicidal fiends!" Director William Castle opens the film with an amusing prologue to let us know we're in for "...an old-fashioned story, full of gallantry and graciousness and ghouls!" Things begin in a very hazy London circa 1880, where a strange, one-eyed man drops off an important letter for brilliant young doctor Sir Robert Cargrave (Ronald Lewis). The urgent letter asks him to return to a (fictional) Central European town called Gorslava. Since it was written by his lost love Maude (Audrey Dalton), who was forced into an arranged marriage to the very wealthy, much older nobleman Baron Sardonicus (Guy Rolfe) by her father years earlier, Robert decides to cancel all of his appointments indefinitely, postpone being one of the first to make use of a brand new invention (the hypodermic needle) and boards a train toward Gorslava. Upon arrival, Robert is met by at the station by the one-eyed man who dropped off the letter - gruff slow-wit Krull (Oscar Homolka), a faithful servant of the Baron's - and heads to the castle to find out why he's been summoned there.

As soon as he enters the castle doors, Robert is greeted with the sight of the leech-covered maid tied down to a chair, or as Krull refers to her, a "guinea pig." Empty frames adorn the castle walls, no mirrors are to be found anywhere in the castle, there's a special padlocked room the servant refer to as "The Chamber of Horrors" and all of the vegetation outside is dead. Robert is soon reunited with his old flame Maude and confesses to her that he's had no other woman since her and has immersed himself in his studies and work instead. He also meets up with the Baron, whose face is covered with an expressionless waxen mask. The Baron doesn't mind flaunting his infidelities in front of his wife and has his trusty servant gather together five village girls, promising them food, wine and gold for their services. He selects the fairest of them all, but she makes the mistake of removing his mask. Mr. Sardonicus also wants his wife to persuade Robert to help him in his schemes, even if means seducing him.

Sardonicus relates a flashback to explain his current predicament. He was once a peasant named Marik Toleslawski, whose father (Vladimir Sokoloff) had given him a lottery ticket right before passing on. Eventually, Marik and his demanding wife Elenka (Erika Peters) discovered that they have the winning ticket. The problem? It was in the pocket of a vest the father was buried in. Elenka coerces Marik to dig up the grave and, in doing so, Marik emerges with the same ghastly permanent grin as the his father's corpse. It may be punishment from God, a hellish curse or just the psychological effects of a terrible shock, but either way, Sardonicus is sick of feeling like a freak and wants Robert to restore his face. Robert spends all day using heated damp towels and massage, but to no avail. All he has left are untried, experimental techniques, which he refuses to do for any amount of money. Sardonicus threatens to disfigure Maude's face unless he complies with his wishes, so Robert cooks up a clever scheme utilizing the poison of a rare, powerful plant that's said to permanently relax muscles...

After a plot twist at the end, Castle shows up again to introduce his patented interactive gimmick. This time it's the "Punishment Poll," a small glow-in-the-dark card that was handed out to viewers with a Thumb's Up and Thumb's Down picture. If audiences thought Sardonicus had suffered enough up to that point, they do a Thumb's Down for Mercy, but if they think he deserves even more punishment that he has received, it's a Thumb's Up for No Mercy. Castle knew his audience well enough to know that he didn't even have to bother shooting the "merciful" ending!

It's a fun enough minor, set-bound Gothic tale with lots of fog and appropriate costuming, black-and-white-photography and art direction. The cast is quite good, with Lewis just fine in the lead and Rolfe a suitably arrogant and loathsome dashing villain. Best of the lot though is Homolka as the sometimes sadistic, sometimes pitiful and always hilarious disfigured servant. The Sardonicus make-up design by Ben Lane is excellent and was clearly influenced by Conrad Veidt's character in the silent classic THE MAN WHO LAUGHS (1928). It was based on a novella by Ray Russell, which had previously been published in Playboy magazine.

The DVD comes with a 7-minute mini-documentary called Taking the Punishment Poll, which features interviews with film historian David Del Valle, Columbia Pictures rep Michael Schlesinger, director and film historian Donald F. Glut, monster enthusiast Bob Burns and director Fred Olen Ray.

★★1/2