Friday, January 13, 2023

JANUA-RAY: THE MAD LOVE LIFE OF A HOT VAMPIRE (1971) **

Once again, we see Ray Dennis Steckler has a knack for coming up with memorable titles, even when he’s working in the adult film world.  Steckler’s wife, Carolyn Brandt stars as Dracula’s wife, who acts as our narrator.  Dracula (Jim Parker) is awakened by his hunchbacked servant (Jason Wayne) so he can watch him get it on with three of Dracula’s love slaves.  Drac then sends his babes out to search for blood.  And by “search for blood” I mean, “have sex with a bunch of dudes and suck their blood out of their dick”.  Eventually, it’s up to Van Helsing (Will Long) to stop Dracula’s reign of terror.  

Parker, who kind of resembles John Astin, really hams it up as Dracula, and it often looks like the other actors are about a second away from cracking up at his antics.    Wayne barely showed a sign of a pulse in Blood Shack, but he gamely chews the scenery this time out as the hysterical hunchback.  It's Brandt who is the most memorable though.  She looks sexy as the vampire bride, staring directly into the camera and saying shit like, “Dracula is groovy!”  Too bad we only get to see her from the neck up. 

Steckler’s handling of the sex scenes is clumsy at best.  None of them are particularly hot, but that’s part of the charm.  Even though the actors have trouble staying hard, the actresses seem to really be into their roles.  Unfortunately, the sex scenes go on forever and quickly wear out their welcome.  Even at fifty minutes, it feels way too long.  At least the scenes where the vampire brides bite their lovers’ peckers with dime store vampire fangs are good for a laugh. 

As far as Steckler’s Stock Player Round-Up goes, Brandt, of course was in a ton of his films.  Wayne was also in Blood Shack, Parker went on to have a small role in The Hollywood Strangler Meets the Skid Row Slasher, and Long appeared in a few of his X-rated flicks.  There isn’t any of the director’s shameless self-promotion here (which makes sense since he was using his Sven Christian alias) nor are there any of his signatures on display, unless you count the use of psychedelic light, which is kind of like Sinthia:  The Devil’s Doll.  

AKA:  Hot Vampire.  AKA:  Love Life of a Red Hot Vampire. 

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