In old California, sibling vampires Lord Ruthven (Arthur Roberts) and Diana (Glori-Anne Gilbert) compete for the affections of Roxanne (Kennedy Johnston), but both are destroyed by a local padre (Paul Nachy). Now, Dracula (Tony Clay) sends his daughter (Eyana Barsky) to resurrect his old friend, Ruthven. Upon arising, Ruthven finds that the manner of his “death” stops him from drinking human blood, so he brings his sister back to “un-life” so that she can feed from mortals and he can feed from her. Both feel that Roxanne has been reincarnated, and once again, they both want her.
Martine is the daughter of Dracula, but she states that she is not a countess until her father dies. Dracula isn’t married. So, who is the Countess Dracula of the title, and when is there a blood orgy? This is one of the questions that I was dwelling on during Countess Dracula’s Orgy of Blood, which means I had too much time on my hands.
That doesn’t make this a bad film. It just isn’t a good one. It is yet another entry into the erotic vampire sub-sub-genre, and can be safely labeled softcore. Unlike many of the others, there is a plot, and it’s a pretty good one, but not exactly original since 50% of all vampire movies use it. We’ve got a vampire who is longing for the reborn version of an ancient love. Since it is a simple story, many modern vampire films have padded out the running time with either whining by the vampire, or searching by some vampire hunters. Here the padding is lesbian sex scenes. Beats whining.
Those scenes require an abundance of exquisite females, some with fangs, some without, and most of them lose their tops. Glori-Anne Gilbert, the star even though she’s not a countess of any type, spends much of the film displaying her ample attributes (ample as in: why doesn’t she topple forward?). She ends up fondling both Lolana—an attractive actress who has somehow lost her last name—and Kennedy Johnston, a doe-eyed beauty, multiple times. Others show at least a little skin, and Jana Thompson supplies exotic dances.
But the team of lovelies aren’t always up to their tasks: that includes both performing erotic acts and speaking lines. Ms Gilbert always plays to the camera, making sure we see what she’s doing, but equally making it clear that her partner isn’t getting anything out of the encounter. She tends to stick her tongue out and waggle it, hoping that it might randomly run into the girl she’s with. They all pose, a lot, forgetting that this is a movie, not a magazine shoot.
The males match or surpass the females in poor line readings. I would have been delighted if someone had used a conversational tone. Instead, everyone enunciates, recreating their high school play. It’s a movie, they don’t have to talk to the twenty-seventh row. The camera will go to them. Sure, they are trying to be funny, but sounding like the Count on Sesame Street doesn’t cut it.
The padre appears as a ghost in the latter part of the film, which is neither emotional nor frightening, just annoying. But I sympathize with the filmmakers. They got Paul Nachy to play the part, so wanted it to be more than a cameo. Nachy has dominated Southern European horror for decades, making more werewolf movies than any other man by two or three times. So, if you are a low budget director, and you find yourself with a cult icon, you use him. Too bad there wasn’t a better part.
While the nature of eroticism makes trivial many things that are normally important in film, that doesn’t mean normal storytelling should be tossed out the window. Bad sound is still bad sound, and distracts from the mood of the piece. Also, anything which doesn’t make sense is going to cause problems for the viewer, and there are quite a few things that will leave you scratching your head. For example, the two Ruthven bodies, one with a stake in it, the other with a knife, have been sitting in the same spot, on the ground floor of a pleasant building in L.A., for over a hundred years, and no one noticed. Of course that’s not strange when you compare it to Diana’s obvious breast augmentation in the mid 1800s. She also bought G-strings at the local trading post. That sort of thing provokes giggles, and that not the reaction that anyone should want when a woman takes off her clothes.
Heterosexual males and lesbians should be amused by Countess Dracula’s Orgy of Blood, but not much more. I guess I’m still looking for that elusive, unequivocally good, erotic horror picture.
Supposedly, this movies is a sequel to The Erotic Rites of Countess Dracula, but outside a few repeat actors (and only one playing the same role), there is little to connect them.
