Electric Blue 36 (1986)

... aka: Electric Blue '36'
... aka: Electric Blue 36: Young Vampires in Love
... aka: Electric Blue Presents Young Vampires in Love

Directed by:
Robert Veze

Holly (Krista Pflanzer) has bigger aspirations than shaking her ass at a sleazy strip club run by demanding owner Danny. She plans to finally "make it" with her all-female band "The Topless Teasers." All he's interested in is her making it back in time for the midnight show when a big time Hollywood agent will be showing up to listen to her demo tape. But first, Holly and her girls - including drummer Boomer (Tami White), airhead guitarist Bubbles (Candie Evans) and another one whose character name is as unknown as the actress portraying her - are going to check out their new digs. The girls have rented "The Old Carter Place;" an abandoned, run down house out in the middle of the sticks that's a perfect place for the band to practice. They can make as much noise as they want without bothering the neighbors... because there are no neighbors. They find the place a dirty, dark, cobweb-strewn wreck but soon will have bigger problems on their hands when their commotion accidentally awakens a couple of centuries-old vampires in the basement.

The vampires are a cranky old Jewish codger named Victor Von Jugular (who comes off like a really bad second stage Vegas lounge act) and his whiny nephew Boris (who is played by the same blonde guy who played "Homer" in Electric Blue 32). After resting for a hundred years, Victor is ready to revitalize himself with some fresh blood while Boris is bored with the traditional vampire lifestyle and wants a "human experience" like romance with a beautiful woman. The uncle rages, "You're five thousand years old! When are you going to grow up?" but the two soon come to an agreement. As they spy on one of the band's topless jam sessions, Boris agrees to let his uncle have the three other girls if he can have Holly.

Boris trails Holly to the strip club, where he watches her and some other strippers (porno gals Krista Lane and Tami Lee Curtis) dance and then keeps getting interrupted trying to bite her. Boris finds himself falling in love with her "beautiful neck and great gazongas" while the big Hollywood talent agent Holly rushed back to the club to meet turns out to be a sleazy shyster. Meanwhile, the older vampire runs into all kinds of problems with the airhead band mates, first of which being they're all kinky and insist he let them tie him up and whip him. After he runs away from them he tries to attack a girl (Careena Collins) on a park bench but flees when her boyfriend threatens to knock out his teeth and then meets a horny gay man and runs off again in terror. Will Boris find true love? Will Holly's band "make it?" Will Victor ever get to eat?

As usual, in between the framing story we get a bunch of vignettes. "Allegro" is set at an exclusive European ballet academy and features a buff guy (who looks about as much like a male ballet dancer as Arnold Schwarzenegger) fantasizing about one of the dancers (Olga Behr). "Electric Blue Reports" covers American "video fever" and a new service called "The Video X Project" that allows paying customers to hire adult film performers to star in their own specialty videotaped fantasies. Investigative reporter Mad Max (Scott Baker) decides to do an expose on the service and gets involved in casting, costume selection and even directing the scene. He hires Marc Stevens and Danielle Martin to "star" in his little opus but gets so excited during the filming process that he does his own scene with a crew girl (Siobhan Hunter).

We also get "Critic's Corner" reviews for the adult films Coming of Angels 2 and Some Kind of Woman (both 1985 releases), "Winter Winds" featuring a montage of various winter sports like ice sailing, bobsledding and ski jumping all set to Bohemian Rhapsody, "Off White" involving a female painter having a fantasy about one of her handsome Beverly Hills clients and "Fantasy Woman" which purports showing female exhibitionists (including a briefly seen Gail Harris) in action but is clearly filmed in front of a green screen.

Well folks, this is what it is. Silly / bad comedy (including more bad vampire puns than you can shake a stake at) and gratuitous nudity mostly provided by 80s porn stars who typically showed more elsewhere. Personally, I'd have preferred they cast more obscure centerfold models like Pflanzer, who you usually don't see much of, instead of all the hardcore performers with hundreds of titles under their belt but I'm sure this boiled down to getting girls willing to disrobe who also had a little experience in front of the camera. The lackluster main story is lifted somewhat by a few of the better vignettes, especially the "Video X Project" one, which should have been expanded upon and made into the main story of one of these tapes.

Also need to point out that this is a review for the American version of Electric Blue 36, not the UK version, which was subtitled "Twin Peeks" and features different scenes and models. The U.S. #36 played only on the satellite Playboy Channel and was never released to home video. I already did a brief run down of the differences between the UK and U.S. versions of this series on my review for ELECTRIC BLUE 32, so go there for more info.

★★

Lanetli Kadinlar (1986)

... aka: Bloody Mansion Death
... aka: Bloody Mansion of Death
... aka: Cursed Women
... aka: Lanetli Kadınlar

Directed by:
Kadir Akgün

A bubbly model (Silver Türk) whose lingerie photo session is cut short by the mailman. A belly dancer (Ayla Tuncer) who can't stop gyrating long enough to read her mail. A scowling woman (Ayşin Soylu) who relates a flashback to weeping after banging an elderly man as she menacingly grabs a knife. A glamorous housewife (Hicran). An snooty actress (Hülya Konuk). A young thing (Figen Aydoğdu) best described as personality deficient. And an older lady (BRUTAL STORM star Nur İncegül) who looks like she just wandered off the set of Dynasty and spits a hocker on a photo of the same elderly man woman #3 was screwing. What do these women all have in common? I mean, aside from their affinity for massive shoulder pads and causing untold damage to the Ozone layer with their aerosol abuse? Well, they've just received what they think is good news: a letter from their lover, a wealthy banker, promising them all a big surprise.

One by one, the woman are transported by boat to an island mansion where we find out that some of them know each other, they all hate each other and they were all doing the same old guy. The eldest of the group was even his wife at one point. Unbeknownst to them, their geriatric sugar daddy has already been murdered and his body hidden behind some bushes near a school so he wasn't the one who actually invited them there. The ladies bicker, chain smoke, drink and even get into a couple of hair-pulling cat fights before changing into lingerie and lounging around in their silk robes and baby doll nighties. The model makes a pass at several of them while the others continue to act catty and argue, or just look bored out of their minds. Just like in the same director's GIRL'S CAMP (1987), where the actresses changed into new bikinis every other scene for no good reason, the actresses here also change into different undies from one scene to the next.

Rather conveniently, a TV news broadcast the gals just happen to be watching reveals that the banker has been murdered and then the lights go out. When they come back on, a threatening letter written in blood ("Hepiniz Oleceksiniz" / "You are all going to die!") is left behind. Seeing how the film is already halfway over at this point, my initial reaction was "OK! GET ON WITH IT ALREADY!" But it takes another ten minutes to get to the first murder, where the least attractive woman is found in bed with a knife in her back. The rest arm themselves with shovels and head outside. I initially thought they were going to try to leave or find a boat like most people would, but instead they look around for a minute, laugh and then go back inside and get back into their lingerie.

The killer then decides to hit these ladies where it really hurts: Putting poison in their precious liquor. One dies. And then another is choked out in her sleep. And then someone poisons another's dinner. And then someone is strangled with a neck tie. And then there's a shooting and a stabbing, but for a movie whose English language title is generally "Bloody Mansion of Death," these murders sure do lack, ya know, blood. Once a body turns up, the survivors merely drag it off into another room and cover it with a sheet then return to being idiots who keep wandering off by themselves and refuse to lock their bedroom doors.

Kind of cross between Ten Little Indians and one of those Slumber / Sorority Massacre movies... only not nearly as entertaining as that sounds. The writing, direction, editing and 16mm photography are terrible, the music is all stolen from other films, the overacting is hilarious and, despite the fact the female cast is scantily clad throughout, there's almost no nudity. The sole exception is a long sequence of the belly dancer showering, someone approaching her with a knife as Jaws music plays (!) and then it turning out to be the lezbo model sneaking into the shower with her. Since this movie fails to deliver on pretty much any front, even this scene goes nowhere.

As for the release year, I've seen it listed as 1982, 1983, 1985, 1986, 1988 and 1990 on various websites. Based on the aesthetics, I'd say 1985 or 1986 is the correct year of production. Aside from Turkey, this also made its way onto VHS in Greece and the two releases have some notable differences. For starters, the music scores are different. Secondly, the shower scene and the killer POV shot prowling around the mansion with a knife scene have been removed in their entirety from the Turkish print for some reason.

★