Monthly Archives: January 2013

Don’t Bite Without Permission

By Rich Moreland

Much of  Evil Angel’s Voracious is an in-house project. The male leads in order of appearance are Manuel Ferrara, Steve Holmes, Omar Galanti, and Rocco Siffredi. Each actor also directs for the studio.

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“But you are not alive,” Adriana reminds Amira.

Surrounded by a watery motif—the pool outside the house and the Pacific Ocean in the distance—Adriana and Amira talk. Water is the source of life and rebirth, something worth remembering as this saga continues.

Dusk is setting in.

Amira has violated the code, it seems, because the clan must approve any human she wants to bite. Adriana suspects Amira has doubts about the demonic promise of eternal youth.

“You like him because he is human,” Adriana says with a hint of understanding before hurling an admonishment at Amira.

“You need to learn to control yourself.”

Even vampires, like the monks of the Middle Ages, must exist by regulation and self-restraint.

“We leave tomorrow.” Adriana’s tone demonstrates waning patience with Amira’s transgression. Their impending return to the Old World where vampires are legend will present challenges unforeseen by either woman.

The Hunt

Episode2_003This episode, “Now You Are a Blood Slave,” is about the hunt. In black and white grainy footage, Adriana and Amira emerge from the river that runs through the city of Budapest.

The story quickly shifts to a park in this heart of mythical Vampireland. Hookers apparently frequent this scenic little spot and one girl cautiously reminds a passing pair of nubile blondes that it is not a safe place.

Vampires Prey and Play in the Park

Vampires Prey and Play in the Park

The power imbalance between the undead and the living is revealed in speed and metal during this episode. Adriana and Amira arrive in a car and proceed to stalk unaware victims who will supply blood to hungry vampires. Immediately, Dracu, played by Italian star Omar Galanti, appears on a motorcycle with a female passenger who has a nasty bite of her own. They are part of the clan and it’s time to recruit new members, fresh blood, if you will.

Father Zoltan, a role suited to Transylvanian native and porn veteran Steve Holmes, waits within the darkness. He appears to be a savior with his oddly colored red crucifix. But there are doubts as one of the hookers who would not heed the advice offered earlier comes into his presence. Father Zoltan uses his cross to ward off the girl’s pursuer, the female vampire brought by Dracu. To show her appreciation, the hooker, portrayed by European sensation Zorah White, orally satisfies Zoltan before realizing she is the victim of a hoax. Episode2_009In a comment on religion and sexual repression, Stagliano’s camera captures the small silver crucifix that dangles from the priest’s neck as it floats above his erection and the girl’s mouth.

European pornography, especially in early French stag films, occasionally takes a shot at religion. American prudery generally finds such behavior offensive but when in Rome, as they say, . . . permission is given to be a Roman.

Dracu’s passenger, the Vampire Mistress (the lovely Sandra Romain), corners the poor girl and gets the sustenance she needs with a well-placed bite.

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Among the Motorcycles                                 

Dracu and Adriana have a fresh human captive to initiate into the clan, the willowy Hungarian Bibi Noel .

The Lovely Bibi

The Lovely Bibi

But before ritual begins, Adriana slips the word to Dracu that Amira is not what she should be.

“She tried to bite without permission,” Adriana whispers to him, “I think she has doubts about being a vampire.”

Is vampirism a choice and can a girl check out of the clan whenever she wants?

For the second time, a disciplined Amira is cut out of the opportunity to bring in a blood slave. Dracu exiles her to the house and she watches briefly from afar. Director John Stagliano now sets the tone for the rest of the series. Everything is not all dripping red roses in Vampireland.

The sex in this episode is truly fetish oriented with toe and feet sucking, face slapping and lots of anal and sloppy oral. The action between Adriana and Dracu is intense. Pay particular attention to the blood slave transformation of Bibi Noel. She may start off slow, but the pace is perfect at the end right before the feast.

Ah, the feast.  The viewer should know that it’s truly a heartfelt tribute to the great work of Bela Lagosi and Christopher Lee who, had they performed in a different age, would have delighted in this scene.

Adriana and Dracu feast on Bibi

Adriana and Dracu feast on Bibi

Incidentally, the prolific exchange of saliva in these episodes is a reminder that existence, even a vampire’s, is water oriented, though perhaps among the undead it coagulates a touch more.

The predominant image that prepares the meaning of the sex is Dracu’s motorcycle leap arcing across the screen at sunset. The suggestion is a passage between two worlds, the living and the undead. In fact, a similar bridge is formed during the extended physical encounter that is part of the blood slave ritual. It takes place among scores of motorcycles. Adriana, back arched beautifully—a reminder of the satyr statue in the first episode—positions herself so she can fellate Dracu from underneath. Once again she is seeing a reverse world in which the undead are the living. During the action she is orally serviced by Bibi’s blood slave. The shot forms a stairway effect, rising from left to right, that leads the blood slave to her Master, Dracu.

Adriana’s acrobatics introduce another, more sinister, image. Didn’t they break witches on the wheel in 17th century Europe? Adriana hints later that she has been around for five hundred years. Perhaps her position is a tortured part of her past.

As the episode closes questions arise. How strong are the bonds in the clan? Did the chastised Amira go through a similar initiation?  If so, why does she seem so independent minded? Will a power struggle later emerge? And, most important, who’s running this show?

Maybe a few hints will come around in Episode Three.

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Practicing Sadomasochism

By Rich Moreland

This is the first in a series of reviews of Evil Angel’s Voracious, an awarding winning adult film divided into ten episodes. The following is the opening narrative titled, “Learn to Control Yourself.” The other installments will appear soon.  All photos in this series are courtesy of Evil Angel.

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Soft A

If he were writing today, how would Bram Stoker describe Jonathan Harker’s encounter with the female vampires in Dracula’s Transylvania castle? Harker arrives to facilitate a real estate transaction for the count and finds his life turned inside out when he is assaulted by Dracula’s brides.  Stoker’s only option in his classic 1898 novel is the reader’s imagination. Sexually repressed Victorians were unable to abide the details.

But now all is revealed in John Stagliano’s Voracious, a modern version of vampires, sex, love, and conspiracy.

Manuel Batiste, played by porn icon, Manuel Ferrara, visits a hillside home facing the Pacific.  He’s a potential buyer of this for sale property that carries some external wear.Episode1_031

With the last vestiges of twilight vanishing into darkness, Manuel enters the home and immediately sees a statue of a satyr ravishing a young woman whose back is arched in ecstasy. Remember that image, it’s highly charged and is the ticket to get the viewer through a three-way sexual joyride that is worth every penny spent on this film.

Amira, played by the super sexy Brooklyn Lee, appears seemingly out of nowhere to apologize for being late. Stagilano dresses her in a skin-tight outfit that shapes her derriere into a desirable commodity, a trait of a John Stagliano film. As a matter of fact, the Stagliano stamp is all over this production.

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Manuel is an anthropologist and Amira is a fan of his writing. He learns that Amira and a friend, Adrianna (Romania actress Lea Lexis) have been house-sitting for quite some time. The absent owner is in Europe. Amira directs Manuel to go upstairs and look around. He starts up the steps; she pulls out her cell phone.

“Yeah, he’s what we’re looking for,” she tells the other party, her eyes a conflation of lust and evil. Oh, Jonathan Harker, were Dracula’s brides as hot as these two?

Arriving in the master bedroom, Manuel discovers the owner is a collector and most of the artifacts will remain with the property, including a mounted piranha with sharp teeth. Yes, vampires do love the big bite and prianha are the pit bulls of the water.ep1Picture 7

Manuel comments on a wall hanging that displays protruding buttocks. Brazilian, he suggests. Amira mentions an academic article Manuel wrote on a nocturnal tribe in Brazil that “stayed up all night practicing sadomasochism,” she recalls with a seductive eagerness in her voice. Manuel tells her the information came from a local priest. She wants to know if the man of God exaggerated the part about the orgies.

“I don’t know,” Manuel answers, seemingly lost in the direction of the conversation.

“Someone should be practicing sadomasochism at night,” Amira suggests and looks at him with a leering wantonness.

Later, this story will have a priest of its own and he will certainly not frown on orgies.

The scholarly Manuel goes into another room that has a stretching area typical of ballet studios. A shiny wood floor and a wooden bar attached horizontally to the wall dominant one wall. Above the bar is a painting of a woman, head thrown back like the statue downstairs, hair wildly tossed in the throes of ecstasy. Her navel is prominent: the center of the world, the site of birth and rebirth, a rejection of death.  Her hips are broad in a goddess-like sexual expression found in ancient cultures.

The painting will lord over the pure rough sex that is soon to take place.

The omnipresent Adrianna suddenly appears out of nowhere, bending over in a stretch that puts hand on ankles. IMG_8607

She looks at Manuel through her legs, a world turned upside down. Adriana experiences the scene for what it is: a reverse reality, everlasting life in a demonic existence that will stalk Manuel.

Standing in front of an expansive mirror common to ballet studios, the anthropologist sees his reflection and the painting and bar opposite the mirror. He is the only person in the room. As if unable to see clearly, Manuel takes off his glasses and cleans them.

Amira apologizes for the out-of-order lights in the rest of the house, deflecting Manuel’s concerns by commenting that he looks older than the picture on his book’s dust jacket.

“Well, don’t we all get older?” he says. Not in the world vampires, my friend.

Amira drops her eyes and takes his left hand. Visions of the ensuing sex flash across the screen with the haste of an ethereal vampire. Their left-handed clasp becomes more sensual; her fingers knead into his hand as their grip tightens. The left hand in most cultures is related to the functions (pleasures for Freud devotees) of the human anus, a precursor in this case of what will satisfy these undead women.

Amira stares at Manuel with a stalking lust, he’s clearly bewildered. They kiss wantonly, initiating the roller coaster ride of fantasy and reality that is to swirl through a huge sexual orgy.

Adrianna swiftly jumps Manuel; vampires move with lightning speed. Amira circles them on all fours like a lioness preparing her prey.

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Bram Stoker never would have imagined his brides of Dracula would be resurrected in this way.

The sex scene to follow goes full circle. At the beginning the girls use Manuel as a conduit for their sexual pleasure. They dominate him. Later, the power exchange shifts when Manuel gives the orders.  There is breath play as the throat is a continuing image in the orgy. The oral sex is sloppy with copious amounts of saliva dripping and running throughout, an interesting visual contrast to the sleek, sparkling floor of the studio and the minimalist furniture in it.

One moment in the scene is noteworthy because of a cinematic counterpoint that happens later. Manuel is sitting slightly raised above the floor; Adriana is kneeling on the seat of a chair so that her buttocks are positioned in front of his face. Amira climbs behind him on the back of the low standing chair he occupies and reaches for Adrianna’s face. The latter arches her back (remember the satyr?) thrusting her breasts upward. The two women are kissing, positioned above Manuel.  The imagery is the flower of female sexual totality. These vampires lust for Manuel and triumphant over him while enjoying each other equally.

Episode1_057Incidentally, on the back of Manuel’s chair are large brass balls. Amira’s particular penchant for oral play is appropriately nuanced with these images as she positions herself to reach out to Adriana.

During this encounter, Manuel glances to his left into the mirror. He sees himself alone, masturbating. This is fantasy sex with its own unreality, or is it?

Later, the women will kneel in front of and behind Manuel to simultaneously satisfy him orally. This is the reversal of the above scene and the earlier power exchange. Cinematically, Stagliano divides this frame into thirds, as he did the other image, centralizing the sex.

As the orgy of oral and anal sex continues, at one point Adirana is in a cowgirl position and Manuel grabs her breasts, squeezing them in a form of breast bondage, almost lifting her vertically. As she throws her head back, recollections of the nocturnal tribe move into play.

When the scene finishes by circling back to the beginning, the fangs come out. Amira moves to kiss Manuel who is lying on a couch, almost unconscious. He is a double puncture away from immortality, an offering to the ancient succubus of the night.

We will later discover there is a shortage of men in this crazy conspiratorial vampire world.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Adriana shouts.

Amira growls in Adriana’s face, her fangs sharpened. Manuel is languishing in his trance.

Adriana grabs Amira’s throat, taking over the scene. She throws a suddenly alert Manuel his clothes and tells him to get out. He is swift about it.

The viewer may feel the same way, but who can resist the salacious anticipation of what’s to come. The seduction of the second episode is already beginning

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As the Night Settles In

by Rich Moreland, January 2013

Fortune came my way in Las Vegas a couple of weeks ago. I was there to network, pick up a story or two, and visit with industry people I have come to know. Through my connection with Evil Angel’s general manager Christian Mann, I was invited to visit the company’s suite at the Hard Rock Hotel.

It was late afternoon and twilight was fading on this unusually chilly Nevada day.

When I arrived with my photographer Bill and assistant Brandy, I found a familiar image in the suite. A gigantic poster of Bobbi Starr, who got her directorial opportunity with Evil Angel, dominated the space where the company did business during the week. Though she works out of San Francisco now, Bobbi’s presence is a reminder of Evil Angel’s influence in the world of pornography, especially owner John Stagliano’s respect for the women whose hard work helps to garner the profits.

Christian on the left, John Standing, Bobbi on the wall.Photo Courtesy of 3hattergrindhouse

Christian seated, John Standing, Bobbi on the wall.
Photo Courtesy of 3hattergrindhouse

I wanted to talk adult film history with Christian who is a walking encyclopedia on everything adult and an active member of the business’s political entity, the Free Speech Coalition. Never could I have imagined that John Stagliano would join in for over an hour of conversation that covered subjects as varied as BDSM in adult film to the political ramifications of being a pornographer in the 1980s and ‘90s.

At the conclusion of our conversation I received a treasured surprise. Christian gave me a copy of Voracious, John’s award winning epic film. A mega-project shot on location in Los Angeles, Budapest, and Berlin, Voracious is divided into ten episodes. The movie is a boiling cauldron of vampirism and sex, ancient lore that first broke into film with the Dracula movies of the 1920s and ‘30s.

Of course, the sex was implied in those days. The German silent offering, Nosferatu, released in 1927 and Universal’s 1931 Dracula starring Bela Lugosi, alerted moviegoers to neck biting, but showed next to nothing other than Dracula’s hypnotic powers. In Bram Stoker’s original novel published in 1898, Dracula is a dark figure of bisexuality, preying on men and women for their blood and their souls. Every bite is a metaphor for sexual penetration that resided only in the imagination. Victorian women would have fainted in greater numbers than reported had Stoker been explicit.

Incidentally, since he had two fangs perhaps Dracula was the originator of the DP!

Nonetheless, the 1934 Hays Code, the industry’s attempt at moral self-regulation, prevented anything sexual going forward. Christopher Lee’s Dracula in the late 1960s brings the cinematic world a little closer and messier to the real thing. Lee shows up with fangs and blood, significant because it skirted a dying Hays.  Subsequent attempts to popularize the vampire film drama were never legendary; the closest modern version to achieving that level of fame is Francis Ford Coppala’s 1992 Dracula.

Now there is Voracious.  Watching the first installment, I decided a good review would have to be done in segments. My deconstruction of this intriguing film will follow in the days to come.

By the way, the tale is a love story involving a human and a vampire in waiting. The hard driving sex is a Stagliano masterpiece and for those who doubt pornography’s worth in our society, the film has more than its share of artistic merit.

Whose world will triumph in this drama that crosses reality with the undead?

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When we left the Evil Angel suite, Bill and Brandy were curious to see the film. Vampire sex does have an attraction, perhaps a trance-like one that overcomes even the bravest of us as the night and its chilliness settles in.

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