playaway.

It's been a helluvah week here what with all three of the unholy trio on college holidays and me desperately trying to keep my autie-ness in check whilst I plan to sue all of Glasgow.

Well, bits of it.

Luckily I have the whole 31 days of horror thing to keep me sane.

Or at least I would if I could be bothered.

You're welcome.

The Devil's Plaything (AKA Veil of Blood, Das Schloss der schwarzen Hexen, Den pornografiske jungfrun, Plaything of the Devil, The Curse of the Black Sisters, Vampire Ecstasy and probably dozens more. 1973)
Dir: Joseph W. Sarno.
Cast: Marie Forså, Nadia Henkowa, Anke Syring, Ulrike Butz, Nico Wolf, Flavia Keyt, Irina Kant and a few other folk with even higher Scrabble scoring names.

“The hour of the wampire draws closer.”

Opening - as all good Eurohorror does - with shots of a shadowy and  foreboding castle somewhere in deepest darkest Europe (I'm thinking Germany by the size of the lady gardens on show) and to the trippy sounds of a conga beat to boot, we find ourselves privy to a groovy girls night-in being held in a cosy dungeon where a busty bevy of wobbly arsed women are undulating sexily - in a kind of mums drunk way - to the tribal rhythms.

Leading the festivities is a big of hip, poppy of eyes and scarily simian faced woman named Wanda (Henkowa from the classic Bibi: Confessions of Sweet Sixteen and the not so classic Baby Tramp) whose idea of a good time seems to involve aggressively touching up women and shoving her ample arse into the camera at any given opportunity.

Fair enough.

The party reaches it's climax with the announcement of the evenings raffle draw and after yanking the winning ticket from between a black lasses buttocks, Wanda fetches the winner (a dirty - in both senses of the word - blonde named Brenda) and lays her on the dining table before forcing her to masturbate herself silly with a big black dildo.

And all this before the opening titles.

I've no idea how they're going to top that but with the introduction of  the council estate Marlene Dietrich-alike Monika (the yumsome Butz, star of Love in 3D and What Schoolgirls Don't Tell) you can kinda guess where they're heading.

And it's not toward another Scottish independence referendum.

 

"Excuse me, I farted."

Wouldn't you know it but it turns out that this gorgeous (I use that word cautiously) pair are descendants of a lusty lesbian vampire cum posh bird Danielle Varga and our sexy strumpets are in line to inherit all her wealth.

Kerching.

But in order to collect their inheritance Helga and Monika must live in Varga’s spooky castle for a year, thus giving wicked Wanda plenty of time to seduce Monika and complete her plan of placing the revived spirit of Danielle Vaga inside the poor girls body.

What could possibly go wrong?

Well apart from Monika being completely straight and there being absolutely no hot girl on girl action in the next ninety minutes?

Yeah right.

"Is it in yet?"

Before we get a chance to think on this further, a battered old jalopy breaks down right outside the castles gates, I mean come on what are the chances of that?

Turns out that the car belongs to the local doctor (and expert in supernatural activities) Julia Malenkow (big haired Syring from Sexy Susan Sins Again) and her hunkily funky sideburned brother Peter (Confessions of a Sexy Photographer star and ex-Gladiator - possibly - Wolf) who decide, after a wee bit of uncomfortable flirting, to see if the castle has a phone that they can use.

Upon opening the door Wanda, now wearing a harsh school ma'am bun and a centre parting that looks like it's been burnt into her skull thereby revealing even more of her frightening monkey face introduces herself as the castles 'housekeeper' and invites the siblings inside to meet the house-mates and enjoy a nice bit of tea and toast.

Yum.

However, behind the smile (well grimace) Wanda is worried as to the real reason that a doctor of spookiness has turned up at the castle at the moment she's about to put her lesbian resurrection plan into operation so during supper she subtly asks Julia if she's just on holiday or if she's visiting because she think there's a bit of kinky vampirism afoot?

Julia, scoffing another Mini-Roll responds (rather enigmatically) by saying “I'm here to study the superstitious beliefs of the villagers.”

Wanda raises an eyebrow before deciding that Julia actually isn't too bad looking and she might enjoy a wee bit of the Sapphic action too.

A sly wink from Wanda is all that's needed for the local lesbian vampire coven (remember the pre-credits?) to begin seducing the house guests via the medium of modern dance and vaguely rude sounding German phrases.

"Juliet Bravo!"

As the disco seduction continues and the guests become much sweatier and much much more husky, Wanda's powers of persuasion become stronger.

But not strong enough to seduce Julia.

Tho' she has started to rub her brothers inner thigh whilst licking her lips, which is nice.

By this time our heroine has begun to notice something is amiss - the fact that everyone else has begun mounting candlesticks and anything remotely cock shaped was probably enough to give her cause for concern - and takes the precaution of hanging a huge necklace of garlic around her brothers big thick neck before taking to stalking the castle grounds waving a crucifix around like some harsh faced middle-aged Buffy The Vampire Slayer.

On crack.

Less Buffy The Vampire Slayer more Buffet The Snack Destroyer.

Will Julia be able to resist her brother's yummy manliness?

Will Wanda's plan succeed?

Will the all girl vampire dance troupe decide to enter Britain's Got Talent?

Will Monika fix her make-up?

And more importantly will anyone watching actually stop getting the blonde bucktoothed bimbette Helga (Forså, whose performance as Lajla the girl in aquarium in the smash hit Sex in Sweden is still talked about in hushed tones on the internet to this day) and Julia mixed up?

Seriously I only re-watched this last night and am still getting them confused.

From the mind of 60's sex-ploitation legend Joseph Sarno, The Devil's Plaything takes the vampire genre by the scruff of it's neck whilst tugging hard on it's genitalia to produce a warm and sticky mix of sex, horror, more sex and dancing.

The more appropriate title of Vampire Ecstasy suits the movie's tone better tho' given the distinct lack of neck biting on show, replacing as it does the usual vampire bloodlust with an ability to control their victims minds via the power of pure sexual arousal.

And copious amounts of front bums.

She'll catch her death going out like that.

Which shouldn't come as any real surprise seeing as the movie is really just one big lesbian porn film masquerading as a horror flick so as to not embarrass the producers parents.

This doesn't mean that the film isn't fairly enjoyable - and sometimes even for the reasons the makers intended - but let's be honest, it's heady mix of obligatory stilted dialogue, none too subtle phallic imagery and desperate attempt to appeal to both the art and porn crowd is more likely to raise more giggles than erections.

Tho' scarily there are a group of chin stroking movie critiquing no-hopers that harp on about how similar (and in some ways much more successful) Joseph W. Sarno's masterpiece is when compared to the works of Ingmar Bergman.

It's true, I've met some of them.

And yes before you ask, none of them have girlfriends.

Monica hadn't really gotten the hang of YMCA.

Sweaty, sleazy and a wee bit queasy, The Devil's Plaything comes across as a better made, (slightly) bigger budgeted version of any Jean Rollin movie you care to choose but populated by far less attractive actresses wearing the type of nightmarish Bri-Nylon fashions that even your Gran wouldn't be seen dead in.

Damning with faint praise?

Well it is what I do best.