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Vampire Ecstasy (1973)

* (out of 4)

The beautiful Helga (Marie Forsa) arrives at a mysterious castle with a dark past and soon she is being seduced by the lesbian vampire (Nadia Henkowa) who was put to death four-hundred years earlier.

Director Joseph W. Sarno made a handful of films in Germany and this here is one of them. I haven't seen too many of Sarno's films but I've enjoyed what I've seen but sadly that's not the case here as I found this film to be quite horrid. It's also known as VEIL OF BLOOD, THE DEVIL'S PLAYTHING and several other titles and it's also available in a shorter 85-minute version as well as the 104-minute version, which is what I watched.

There are all sorts of problems with this film and the running time is certainly the major one. Whenever a film is this slow and boring an extended running time is never what you want to see and sadly this film really does seem like it's longer than THE GODFATHER trilogy. This thing just drags and drags and then drags some more and not once does anything make any sense. Obviously there a lesbian cult looking for new members but the scenes never add up to anything and they just last too long.

Another problem is that the pacing is awful and I can't help but think the shorter version must have played better. Forsa would appear in a couple other Sarno pictures and she's certainly the best thing about the film and keeps it from being a BOMB. The film offers up plenty of softcore sex and lots of beautiful women but even this grows boring after a while. The castle does look beautiful and the locations are also terrific to look at but overall this film is really bad.

... than this has a lot of Horror in it! Like almost way too much of it. Full frontal and everything. There is no explicit intercourse being shown, but other than that it feels like at least 50% of the movie plays in the nude. A lot of women who may not be able to convince you of their characters motivation, but seem to be able to convince others to obey them (through singing as is suggested and their bare bodies).

I wonder if some thought: who needs Viagra, when you can chant and make people horny just like that. Of course Viagra was not a thing back then. But Horror movies were. Not that there is much evidence of that here. I mean it get eerie from time to time, but this puts the Horror mantle on to let you watch a soft-core movie and not feel bad about it. Here's the thing: you can have fun with this, because it's so bad it gets entertaining. You can't be prude (I think I thoroughly established that) and don't expect too much Horror out of it ... Fancy an ... old castle with hot women dying to get into your pants? (on a serious note: the best thing is the location itself, really puts value to the whole thing)

This masterpiece of lesbian horror comes from exploitation master Joseph W.Sarno.It features plenty of soft core sex,really hot lesbian sequences plus a lot of naked women.The acting is pretty good and the film is quite atmospheric and well-made.Marie Forsa is one of the hottest chicks I have ever seen in a horror movie-it's a visual pleasure to see her wonderful body.Sarno really knows how to pick up hot looking ladies.A must see for fans of sexploitation!

Well the story is a little hard to follow the first time, but that's only because of all the bare breasted '70s painted-up vampire/witches dancing to the bongo drums. This of course interrupted by a few vampiric orgies. And there are some very interesting candles and uses for them. And for girl on girl action, vampiric or not...this movie just rocks!!!

I bought "The Devil's Plaything" under the alternative title "Vampire Ecstasy" uncut on British DVD release, set in a German castle it is a tale of vampires, rituals and lots of sex. I won't beat about the bush (pun intended, ha, ha!) but this is a soft core skin flick dressed up as a horror movie. Erotic horror if you like, director Joseph Sarno was apparently one of the pioneers of this sub genre. The Gothic castle is set amongst beautiful German mountain scenery, impressive but the female vampires seem immune to sunlight (though not garlic or crosses), and there's not a set of fangs in sight. Barely any blood either. The cast consists of European actors who appear to have been speaking in English. If this were the case then credit to them for doing this, however their performances do come across as very wooden and would probably have been better filmed in German with English subtitles or dubbed into English. Apart from a disfigured, creepy male servant all of the cast get naked and this probably makes up about half of the move's running time. The sexy female vampires perform rituals in the castle's dungeon, gyrating to a repetitive drumbeat and doing suggestive things with phallic shaped candles! There are also several sex scenes though nothing of the hardcore variety. My problem is that after a while this just became very repetitive and lost its eroticism, not helped by a running time of 103 minutes. As a horror movie this is lame, as a European sexploitation flick then it's worth a look.