A Bell Tolls

by Rich Moreland, February 2013

This episode is about the attempted seduction of Manuel into the clan. Amira demonstrates an inner resolve that has not been seen up to this point. John Stagliano’s script and visualization of the sex in this segment of Voracious is superb and that is saying much considering the scenes that have come before it. This episode is titled “Who Is This Guy?”

*          *          *           *           *

Adriana meets Manuel in the train station to take him ostensibly to see Amira.

Manuel Meets Adriana Again

Manuel Meets Adriana Again

When they arrive at the warehouse where the vampires are camped out, the ever-present Dracu rides up on his motorcycle and stares at Manuel.

“Who is this guy?” he growls, directing his comment to Adriana.

Dracu Wants to Know Who Manuel Is

Dracu Wants to Know Who Manuel Is

“I told you we needed more men,” she answers sweetly and without a hint of deference in her voice. “Let’s go,” she says to Manuel, walking briskly away from a curious Dracu.

Dracu is annoyed and somewhat suspicious about Adriana’s motives. The viewer now realizes she is typical of the female vampires in the clan. They pull no punches when they voice their demands and have little time for Dracu’s bullying. Once again, John Stagliano shows that women are a powerful force in an Evil Angel film.

From here the scene takes on a host of images and meanings. Manuel enters the room where the action of this episode takes place where Amira is waiting in a black bikini styled for BDSM lovers. Fleeting moments of past sexual encounters flash on the screen.

The Vampires Prepare to Move Manuel

The Vampires Prepare to Move in on Manuel

Manuel is surrounded by female vampires: the Vampire Mistress, Ivana Sugar’s newly anointed vampire, Adriana, and Amira who exists in a sort of vampire purgatory. It’s a replay of his first encounter in the L.A. house.

This time there will be more profound implications that move past an introduction into the vampire world.

A Test for Amira

The seduction begins with the grainy black and white quality reminiscent of the stag films of yesteryear. Once more the music is rhythmical with a dreamlike tonality. The scene is shrouded in darkness similar to the night in the park that first introduced Father Zoltan. Having served as an emissary and suspiciously active as a conspirator, Adriana withdraws. Amira is again cut out of the action. While the vampires lustfully gaze at Manuel, Amria’s face is blanketed with apprehension and uncertainty.

Episode9_008

Through the flashbacks, John Stagliano will bring together the previous episodes allowing the viewer to peek into the minds of the characters.

Sometimes in modern pornography, the sex becomes tediously repetitive. Not so in this Evil Angel epic. Stagliano offers enough freshness with each filmed sequence to keep his audience entertained.

Intermingling Before an Ancient Philosophy

Intermingling

The remainder of this episode is a test for Amira who watches Manuel’s seduction.

She enters, exits, and reenters the room but does not participate in the three-way scene. At one point she glides in and sits on the couch where the action is taking place. With hesitancy she reaches out to touch Manuel’s foot. He is unaware of her presence, but she is very cognizant of the potential loss she confronts.

Amira Reaches Out

Amira Reaches Out

Her movements in and out of the scene are instantaneous, a reminder that the undead occupy an ethereal existence beyond humans.

Whenever Amira is present, a series of flashbacks pop up. Her plea to Vlad to see the sun super cedes all the others in its intensity. Manuel’s sweat soaked face as he is orally stimulated in real time is superimposed over a cum filled Amria’s as she grovels before Vlad. Later images of Amira and Manuel, faces nuzzling, appear on screen. The flashbacks are visually filmy and fragile, memories alive with feeling but questionable in their authenticity. Vampire seduction takes place in an unreal world, doesn’t it?

That will shape the dramatic ending to this episode.

The sex acted out here brings to bear a philosophical conundrum. John Stagliano has a way of reinforcing his script with visual comments that give the viewer a deeper understanding of his message. He selects images, like the Victory Column, the steel ladder in front of the coffins, and the priest’s red crucifix, to persuade the audience to watch the film in a more profound way. In this case, a new image is on tap: the face of a magnificent ebony Buddha, a passive monitor positioned behind the couch where the sex takes place. In this episode, faces express the story.

Voracious reinforces that porn often crosses over into art.

The Bhudda Watches

The Buddha Watches

An ancient philosophy, Buddhism teaches that desire causes suffering and when desire is conquered, enlightenment is achieved. The vampires suffer because of their blood lust and the unrelenting and never ending pursuit to satisfy it. Doomed to an existence of frustration and an insatiable carnality that consumes them, the vampires will never be freed of physical need. Their existence is in a reverse reality where any hope of paradise will elude them forever; their immortality is dark, haunting, and hungry.

As Buddha believed, to be is a cycle of birth, death, and rebirth with torment and anguish to be endured before the cycle comes again. It is cleansing process that leads down the path of enlightenment. Vampires are indeed reborn, but into a black, heinous eternity that floats between the joys and vagaries of humanity and paradise. They can finally die, by sunlight or a stake through heart in traditional tales, or Vlad’s wrath in this story. But rebirth to eventual perfection is not in the cards, an undisturbed peace is their only hope.

So John Stagliano presents the viewer with a paradoxical and insoluble problem that cannot be solved. He lets us know that a vampire’s fate is condemnation in the Christian doctrine and a failure to achieve perfection in Buddha’s teaching. But angels do prevail . . . sometimes . . . as Voracious wants us to consider.

After Manuel is sated and exhausted, the Vampire Mistress moves in for the kill. The fangs come out and soon he will not see the sun. Now Amira’s test steps to the forefront.

Manuel Is Under the Bite

Manuel Is Under the Bite

Manuel’s seduction is hard-hitting and the scene closes with a powerful image. The Vampire Mistress is visually captured with the Buddha behind her, lording over the most dramatic and artistic scene in the film. Proof positive that John Stagliano is a filmmaker first who has chosen pornography as his artistic venue.

Bhudda Challenges the Vampire Mistress

Buddha Challenges the Vampire Mistress

As we know, sex is accompanied by sound and in this case it brings closure to an emotional episode. A bell, like those found in village churches, tolls in the background, but for whom?

2 Comments

Filed under Uncategorized

You’ve Been Playing with Vampires

by Rich Moreland, February 2013

This episode, “It’s a Dangerous Game,” is a dramatic encounter between Adriana and Father Zoltan. There is discontent within the vampire universe. It seems Vlad is making a female vampire’s existence miserable by killing off all of the men. Adriana, in particular, is angry.

She turns to the priest for assistance, at first schmoozing him through praise, then thanking him for protecting “this” clan, as she puts it. Apparently there are others.

Vlad’s patriarchal control of her hometown clan is supremely aggravating for Adriana and the time to act is now.

“I’ve been putting up with these motherfuckers for five hundred years,” she says with palatable annoyance. “It’s my time to take over.” She wants Zoltan involved in this planned vampireland coup.

The scene underlines director John Stagliano’s support for powerful women. Adriana will persuade Zoltan to become a part of the conspiracy she is weaving. She demonstrates her forceful nature by grabbing his throat and pulling him up out of his chair to look her in the eye. She challenges him with, “you always wanted to be a vampire.”

Not to be outdone, he responds by squeezing her breasts, tit for tat if you must.

Episode8_002

Of course, with Vald’s intentions revealed, vampirism may not be so attractive now for any man.

Adriana is the take-charge type, a noticeable contrast to the weaker Amira. Yet she achieves it in a manner that does not diminish her male counterpart. She wants to encourage Zoltan, not demean him.

She mentions that the “foolish human” and his “true love,” as Adriana describes Manuel and Amira, are unwitting players in this plan.

“With your help, no more Vlad,” she tells the priest.

“I know it’s dangerous,” he says.

Adriana counters with a devilish smile. “When have you ever been afraid of danger? You’ve been playing with vampires.”

Episode8_013

The sex in this episode is different from the others so far. There is no visual background to lend meaning or drama to its purpose. Adriana and Zoltan are in a darkened room. A limited amount of light defines their bodies specifically for the camera in a way that keeps the atmosphere menacingly spooky.

John Stagliano’s presentation of explicit sex is always embraced with sound, slurping and guttural moans predominant, especially in oral scenes. Filmed sex has not been silent since the early stag film days. When videotape broke onto the scene, the audio was little more than cheesy music and faked voiceover moans looped repeatedly as the shoot progressed. A Stagliano film is a far cry from that production paradigm. In this scene, the music highlights percussion instruments that give it a tribal or primitive flavor. At one point, the background drumming falls into the rhythm of Zoltan’s thrusting into Adriana, and from there dictates the pace of the action. There is a barbaric feel that is devilish and savage, something that would fascinate an anthropologist like Manuel Batiste.

A final note on the sex presented here. The physical pleasure between Zoltan and Adriana is equalized, unlike the priest’s earlier scene with the park hooker and later with Amira in front of the Victory Column. He was the patriarch in those encounters. Not so with Adriana because this sexual interlude reflects her status within the vampire community.

Adriana’s character recalls the ancient Hebrew Lilith, Adam’s first wife, who was abandoned because she insisted on equality. She demanded to be on top in history’s first cowgirl. Exiled, Lilith becomes vampire like, the succubus, haunting men at night and seeking the flesh of babies through the ages.

Lilith’s grip on the body of men is everlasting and she is punished, relegated to become the pornographic.

Condemnation, however, does not cause the flesh to turn from its desires.

“Do you worship the vampire body?” Adriana asks Zoltan, speaking with Lilith’s voice. “Are you ready to become a vampire?”

Episode8_026“Yes, I am,” he responds.

The Church’s mighty task to erase Lilith in favor of a much more docile view of womanhood is never ending. The proof is in the fascination with this tale of vampire sex?

Leave a comment

Filed under Uncategorized

A Shortage of Playmates

By Rich Moreland, Febraury 2013

Rather than move the story forward in dramatic fashion, this episode, called “You’re Going to Bring Another Whore Into This Clan,” is a set-up piece for the remainder of the film.

*          *          *          *          *

Once again the opening image is the Victory Column as seen from Manuel’s hotel room. The anthropologist is doing some academic work searching the internet for vampire lore, especially the ancient tale of returning a vampire to humanity.

He finds a website that fulfills his search and discovers the deed can be done. The predominant image on the webpage is a girl floating face up in water. No surprise here, water and life are conflated again. The recipe calls for holly water (a variant of holy water) and a priest.

Reenter Father Zoltan who warns Manuel that such attempt is risky and could cost Amira her life. He suggests Manuel consider becoming a vampire and there is a hint of recruitment here that will be shortly revealed.

“But that’s her choice,” Manuel says.

Clearly John Stagliano, who is well-known for promoting the careers female performers and directors, uses this moment to make a political statement about the right of a woman to own her sexuality and to determine her future.

Father Zoltan is on board to give it a try, but there is a feeling, if ever so vague, that there is a trap to be sprung.

We Want More Men

The scene shifts to the vampire house and the room where Amira experienced her sexual chastisement at the hands of the Vampire Mistress. Sandra Romain’s Mistress role is back and she is playing with two other female vampires. What makes this warm-up with the trio interesting is Stagliano’s use of neon tones and day glow paint to give the scene a surreal quality that recollects the psychedelic days of yesteryear.

There’s a lot here for viewers who have a foot fetish and at one point the colors become fiery and hellish, certainly an image that fits the film. In a brief moment the glass of the enclosed area becomes a barrier between the Vampire Mistress and the girl she wants to kiss, who is masturbating on the other side.  A sense of frustration invades the room. The Vampire Mistress and Ivana Sugar’s newly “christened” (pardon the pun) vampire are left to playing among themselves.

Episode7_001

Boredom Strikes Hungary Vampires

Boredom Strikes Hungry Vampires

Shortly, Dracu enters with what porn people love the call the “new girl.” Though he sports an devilish grin, Dracu does not get the welcome he anticipated.

Dracu Brings a New Girl

Dracu Brings a New Girl

One of the vampires vents her anger at him. He is delivering another whore into the clan when what they really need are men.

“We want more men!” the Vampire Mistress shouts.

She slaps Dracu’s face and demands to know if he understands.

Playtime is Over

Playtime

Certainly he does, but does he care?

The three frustrated vampires leave the room and Dracu has his way with this latest whore who incidentally is played by Alice Romain, Sandra’s little sister.

The sex between Dracu and the blood slave is some of the best in the film. Alice Romain deserves high praise. Needless to say, the day glow paint, which is smeared everywhere like a child’s finger painting compliments the psychedelic feeling of the shoot.

*          *          *          *          *

By now, the suggestion to Manuel that he become a vampire is well-founded. If he did make the move, likely he’d have plenty of playmates for centuries to come.

Yet, there is a hint of trouble ahead. Even among the undead, drudgery, the same recipe over again, produces unhappiness. Is there a workers’ strike in the making in Vampireland?

2 Comments

Filed under Uncategorized

Where is the Angel?

by Rich Moreland, February 2013

This episode, “You Are Not a Man of God,” is about the column, the angel, and mankind’s confrontation with the sacred feminine, a concept that reaches far into the past before the birth of a Christian Church that silenced it.

*          *          *          *          *

A shot of the golden, gleaming angel opens this brief episode. The priest is waiting on the street. Adriana approaches with a meek and passive Amira in tow.

Zoltan Waits to do His Duty

Zoltan Waits to do His Duty

“Here she is. The vampire I was telling you about,” Adriana says.

Amira eyes express her submissiveness. Zoltan takes her behind a wall that separates them from the busy street. They are across from the plaza where the Victory Column stands. It will loom over this scene.

The priest challenges Amira asking her if she thinks she has a choice to become human again. Amira is lost in what she wants and knows little of who she is.

Can You Face the Wrath of God?

Can You Face the Wrath of God?

Zoltan tells her it is possible to become human but it is not an easy task. Amira brightens, if only for a moment.

“You have to withstand God and the angels,” he says. “You think you can do that?”

Desperation overcomes Amira’s face. “I can’t live like this forever,” she says.

With anger Zoltan flashes his red crucifix in Amira’s direction. “Do you think you can stand this?” he utters. Like Vlad, Zoltan must discipline and punish Amira.

The Crucifix Inflicts its Pain

The Crucifix Inflicts its Pain

Amira turns away in agony and collapses on her knees, once more defeat growls at her.

“Open your eyes!” Zoltan orders and he thrusts his erection into her mouth, pressing her head against the wall. Amira will now service the man of the cloth.

“Please help me,” she sobs between his forceful thrusting into her mouth.

The sex in this scene is all oral, as it is in the previous episode. However, this shoot is immersed in images and messages that heighten the drama. The wall is low enough to reveal the street activity during the scene. Cars whiz by; a jogger and cyclist pass a few feet away.

Amira is below the wall’s level, not visible from the street. This is important because when Manuel arrives, he sees Zoltan, but not her.

The shot is framed so that the column is the predominant image on the left, the street with its traffic and numerous streetlights cut a swath across the entire picture. Predictably, Amira is minimized on the screen’s lower right.

She interrupts her oral work and looks at Zoltan.

“You’re not a man of God. You’re nothing but a fucking pervert!” she sobs defiantly.

At that moment the camera tilts so that Zoltan’s standing body becomes horizontal and the position of Amira’s head is equal to his, a verification of her assertion. It’s a revelation that equalizes them.

Zoltan will have none of this. He grasps her mouth and drops the crucifix that hangs around his neck into it. She screams and steam rises from her mouth, just as the medieval Europeans would have expected from a witch, the playmate of Satan.

Voracious makes a strong statement in this episode about the moral corruption within the Church, especially in the Middle Ages. Church leaders, including the Popes, often had concubines and mistresses while minimizing the role of women in society. Using women for pleasure while considering their sexuality the work of the devil is the message Father Zoltan sends the viewer.

Amira’s indictment of Zoltan’s unholiness while withstanding his abuse is a microcosm of a religiously-driven society’s attitude toward women.

 *          *          *          *          *

Manuel arrives, fulfilling his appointment to meet with Zoltan. The priest moves his body in front of Amira so she can perform orally on his anus. Tales of witches kissing the devil’s genitals and buttocks go back to twelfth century Europe and are recalled in this scene. In those times, such accusations could mean public execution.

See Your Beloved Vampire?

See Your Beloved Vampire?

Zoltan challenges Manuel to see what is happening and Adriana pops up suddenly to make sure Manuel faces the truth. Amira is reduced to a whimpering, beaten child as the scene rolls toward its end.

A confused and overcome Manuel promises her he will find a path through this demonic morass.

Passion

Passion

Everyone is gone, Amira is alone. At this moment the telling image steps onto the stage. The Victory Column’s enormity occupies the screen’s left, Amira is on the right. She is not minimized now, her adversaries are gone; she has survived.

The camera lops off the top of the column, sending a visual message that angel’s presence has shifted in the scene. Amira, which means princess in Arabic and Hebrew, suffers from her ordeal. Tears flow down her cheeks and the ejaculate of perversity smears her face, but she remains whole. Will this princess of the dark ever see daylight?

The Angel Suffers

The Angel Suffers

Leave a comment

Filed under Uncategorized

Are You a Real Vampire?

by Rich Moreland, February 2013

This is the fifth episode of Voracious. It’s titled “I Want to See the Sun” for good reason. The encounter between Amira and Vlad is most intense and I am told it captivated the crew as it was filmed. Brooklyn Lee’s performance takes the viewer beyond the premise that this is a pornographic movie. Her emotional conflict and expression of her desires in the face of Vlad’s carefully orchestrated wrath is a filming coup that rarely occurs in the studios of the Other Hollywood.

                                            *          *          *          *          *

Through his contacts with Father Zoltan, Manuel Batiste arranges to go to Berlin to meet up with Amira. Before leaving, he gives instructions to his secretary Karen to look after things. He adds that he will need her help with research.

Karen (former adult actress Tricia Deveraux) replies, “Vampires?”

“No, folklore,” Manuel says. Does he really believe in vampires?

Arriving in Berlin, Manuel arranges to meet Father Zoltan in front of Charlottenburg Castle. The structure is built in the Baroque style, a tribute to the Catholic Church. Like many European landmarks of the 16th and 17th centuries, the castle has a vast stone courtyard that extends to the street. What better place to meet a connection to the vampire clan than a monument to a religious age in European history.

Father Zoltan is to the point. Manuel’s interest in Amira sparks a curiosity for him and he wants an explanation.

“I have my reasons,” Manuel replies.

Zoltan is humorless. “Tomorrow, 10 p. m. at the Golden Angel, she’ll be there.”

“Good,” Manuel says, “I’ll see you then.”

Manuel's conversation with the Priest is Finished

Manuel’s Conversation with the Priest is Finished

As Manuel departs, Adriana watches a distance away.

Adriana has Plans

Adriana has Plans

“He shows up, I see,” she says to the priest.

“He’s going to be very useful,” Zoltan’s voice is firm.

“I agree.” Her wicked smile portends things to come.

 

The Victory Column and the Posture Collar

From his hotel room window, Manuel stares at the Victory Column, a Berlin landmark and a central image in the film.

The column was constructed in mid-nineteenth century during the struggle for German unification. The century was also the age of vampire lore. Later the column was symbolic of the Nazi rise to power in the 1930s, a time when demonic forces possessed an entire nation. Ironically, from a psychological perspective it has a Jewish connection; the column is a Freudian phallic symbol. When seen from a distance the angel atop the column is a visual metaphor of power. Angels come in various forms and can be good or bad. They are born out of imagination, desire, sexuality, and fear. Are vampires among the ranks?

The Angel

The Angel

John Stagliano swirls these ideas into this chapter of the saga. The viewer is reminded of the column motif and its greater power over the story.

*          *          *          *           *

The scene shifts to a warehouse. The interior is in disarray as one might find unkempt storage spaces. A steel structure that resembles a very broad ladder is positioned in front of two coffins, those of Dracu and Vald.

The Vampires Await the Darkness

The Vampires Await the Darkness

Hanging upside down on the ladder is a nude Amira. She is the column in a reverse world. Her hands are folded over her breasts. She is bat-like guarding the vampires. Dracu arises out of his coffin, reborn of the darkness. He approaches the ladder and arouses Amira’s body with his steel tipped fingernails. Her eyes pop open sharply.

Amira wears a posture collar, a popular accoutrement in the BDSM community. The collar is long and confining and has the purpose of keeping a sexual submissive’s neck straight and restricted. In Amira’s case, it is a symbol of control, preventing her from looking elsewhere to break the spell of the darkness.

The scene, which begins in black and white, now shifts to color.

Amira’s body visually lengthens, staying with the column imagery. Her arms dangle straight down; she grasps the lowest bar as if to stretch out.

Getting Amira Ready for Vlad

Getting Amira Ready for Vlad

She pulls herself up with a deep bend like a vampire emerging from a coffin and stands in front of the steel structure. She is awaiting Vlad. When he abandons his coffin and faces her, Amira’s eyes speak of recognized inferiority.

 

“So she’s the American girl,” Vlad utters.

Amira stares straight ahead, unflinching, in the best of submissive postures. Dracu backs away. Vlad has work to do and it entails breaking down Amria.Episode5_024

For BDSM aficionados this scene is a must. John Stagliano commented to me how moved he was with Brooklyn Lee’s performance. Rocco Siffredi shows his skills as a porn veteran and Brooklyn’s acting is over the top.

The sex is totally oral and filled with body fluid as is Stagliano’s preference. But it’s the drama that entices. Vlad is emotionally beating down Amira and in a tension filled moment she screams, “I want to see the sun!”

IMG_8958

Now the truth comes out. She is fighting back tears.

At this point the images of the film come together. In a mighty struggle, Vlad is forcing his will on Amira. Her throat fills with fluid, almost drowning her (the water image). She repeatedly rises out of the water to be reborn, only to be attacked once again by Vlad’s “column.”

Suddenly Amira, head arched back over the rail of the ladder, spews out all the fluid in her mouth. An explosive sound is heard. The angel erupts from the victory column that is now Amira’s body. She screams again, “I want to see the sun!” in the same metaphoric way the golden angel gleams in the sunrise over Berlin, the once capital of evil and destruction.

Eruption

Eruption

Vlad slaps her violently, as if in a desperate attempt to discipline her and drive the angel back into the night. His anger surges forth.

“Please!” she begs and screams.

“You’re not a real vampire!” he growls.

“I don’t know!” she cries in confusion. “I don’t know!”

Vald’s fury mounts. His hands grip her throat to squeeze the life out of her; he is taunting her.

“Please don’t kill me!” Amira pleads.

“If you decide to become human again, I will kill you!” he shouts. Vengeance is mind saith the Vlad.

What is this? Is Amira in some kind of vampire purgatory? She has choices? Does Vlad kill the undead to discipline the clan or simply for sport?

Vlad Forces the Angel Back into Hiding

Vlad Forces the Angel Back into Hiding

Vlad rams his fingers into Amira’s mouth. Her eyes stare up at him in desperation and fear. Her face becomes immobile, freezing in its tracks her longing to be reborn in daylight.

 

 

2 Comments

Filed under Uncategorized

Follow Me

by Rich Moreland, February, 2013

This episode introduces Rocco Siffredi as Vlad. Siffredi is a long-time associate of John Stagliano and directs for Evil Angel.

*          *          *          *          *

Back in Los Angeles Manuel Batiste is probing further into the vampire mystery. Father Zoltan responds to Manuel’s inquiry by offering to video conference giving Manuel a chance to raise questions about the vampire killing and meeting Adriana and Amira. During their talk, the priest adroitly deflects Manuel’s concerns while pursuing an issue of his own.

Speaking of Adriana and Amira, Zoltan asks, “They are friends of yours?”

Manuel says “no,” but he wants to locate Amira.

The priest turns icy. “You have seen a lot, Mr. Batiste, and we’ll get back to you.”

With that, the call terminates and begins Episode Four, “You Can Never Leave the Clan.”

Nobody Can Leave Again

The hookers have returned to the park, they are blood slaves, not yet full-fledged vampires. Their task, one of the slaves announces, is to “feed the vampires.”

Luring Blood to Feed the Vampires

Luring Blood for the Vampires

They have no luck until a motorcycle pulls up.

“He’s the one who can help us,” the taller slave announces. She is played by Russian beauty Ivana Sugar, who sports a resemblance to Paris Hilton in face and figure.

“Really?” the second slave (Zorah White) responses.

With an assured presence, Ivana’s slave says, “Follow me.”

They arrive at a wooden dock that appears to access to an inlet or lake. Once again the water motif runs through the narrative. Here the water is more expansive than the hillside pool in LA and unlike the Pacific, very calm, perhaps indicative the clan’s self-satisfied control of its adopted environment.

The Blood Slaves Meet Vlad

The Blood Slaves Meet Vlad

“I think maybe he’s over there,” Zorah’s slave says.

They walk on until startled by Dracu who appears from nowhere the moment the motorcycle pulls up. The rider is Vlad whose status in the clan is not clear at this point, though it is apparently superior to Dracu’s.

“I’ve killed the mother fucker,” Vlad tells Dracu. Is this the dead vampire Manuel discovered?

“Good job,” Dracu replies.

Dracu Prepares his Special Fingernails

Dracu Prepares his Special Fingernails

“Nobody can leave again, nobody,” Vlad asserts. Is Amira doomed to never be free if this is what she wants? Or, does Vlad’s self-assurance forebode a conspiracy that will challenge his power?

Attention is drawn to the blood slaves. Vlad reminds Dracu to tell them once they are vampires, they can never leave. Vlad approaches Ivana’s slave and asks if she knows she is not a vampire yet. “Yes,” she replies.Episode4_031

And with that, the sexual encounter of this episode begins. Dracu backs out of the scene at the beginning in deference to Vlad, much the way a medieval inferior would cede an offering to his overlord before partaking himself. The girls are Vlad’s toys at this point. He starts by pinning Ivana’s hands behind her back in bondage fashion and grips her face to let her know the sex to come will be rough. She arches her back and drops her head like the girl with the satyr in episode one.

The sex begins in slow-motion with a guttural over voice that is reminiscent of a growling vampire wolf. Vald’s motorcycle sits in the background and like the painting in episode one, lords over the dock and its entertainment.

This part of the shoot is beautifully done. Eventually Dracu joins in. Saliva and spit is minimized. The oral skills of Ivana Sugar steal the scene. Her performance is a reminder that no female performer in this film ever gives the impression she is in it for a paycheck. The enthusiasm and hard work of all the female performers in Voracious is remarkable considering the length of time invested in the episodes. The girls in this scene appear to thoroughly enjoy themselves.

In particular is Ivana. Once she is caught momentarily glancing toward the camera, apparently at someone in the crew. It is slight but delightful because she smiles, hardly in character for a vampire- to-be who is engaging in heavy sex. Watching Ivana reminds me of a characterization I once heard of an Evil Angel icon and porn legend, Bobbi Starr. “She good at it and she knows she good at it” was the description. The same can be said of Ivana Sugar and the upbeat attitude she brings to the shoot. Not to minimize the talents of Zorah White who can rival anyone in porn, but this scene is Ivana’s.

Finally, Vlad takes the two blood slaves into a sauna on the dock. Their throats are ravaged, a bit of blood flows, and the deal is sealed.  The viewer cannot resist admiring the work of both girls when the action moves indoors. Ivana responds to Rocco Siffredi’s guidance through the scene with tenderness and a smile. She playfully kisses his abdomen in a moment that seems oddly placed in a vampire film, but speaks volumes about an Evil Angel production and the pleasure many performers get from working with Rocco.

Vlad secures his new vampires, but he has a task before him. What to do with Amira?

Leave a comment

Filed under Uncategorized

You Love This?

by Rich Moreland, February, 2013

My special thanks to Evil Angel Productions for the photos used in this series.

 *          *          *          *          *

Voracious’s third episode, titled “Fuckin’ White American Trash,” opens back in Los Angeles. Antropoligist Manuel Batiste has returned to the property ostensibly to purchase it, but in reality he’s looking for Amira. He comes at dusk intuitively feeling that this is the proper time to meet her. Remember the mirror? The house is locked up.

Calling the realtor, Manuel is told the residents are gone.

Just as the house has locked up vampire lore, Amira will have her own trial to “lock up” her clan loyalty.

Returning to his office, Manuel runs an internet search on vampires. A strange article on a dead vampire in Szugio, Hungry, shows up and Manuel notices the circular medallion hanging around the neck of the body. It’s the same as Amria wears. The article suggests there is a vampire clan in the area.

Not surprising, Father Zoltan is referenced and claims the clan talk is just superstition.

Clamping Down a Wandering Soul

The scene shifts to Hungry. Amira enters a room in the house where she is confined by Dracu. A glass enclosed St. Andrew’s Cross (an upright X) is the room’s centerpiece. The Vampire Mistress (Sandra Romain) is positioned with her back arched over the intersection of cross’s arms. Her hands are raised holding onto chains that drop down from the ceiling. She wears breast and labia clamps likewise attached to chains.

The St. Andrew's Cross and The Vampire Mistress

The St. Andrew’s Cross and The Vampire Mistress

According to Christian lore, St. Andrew brought Christianity to Eastern Europe, particularly Romania. At his execution, he was tied to a cross that was positioned on its side, an inferior status to the original crucifixion because Andrew did not feel worthy of Christ. The cross, the conduit of death, resurrection, and martyrdom, is a staple in BDSM play spaces today because a sexual submissive can be bound in a spread-eagled position.

When Amira circles the enclosure, the Mistress’s eyes open and stare in her direction and turn blood red.

Satanic Red is a Head Drop Away

Satanic Red is a Head Drop Away

The message to Amira is clear. You are inferior and not worthy of joining the clan until you prove yourself.

The remainder of this episode furnishes a sexual encounter that is rough and tumble. When I spoke with John Stagliano about Brooklyn Lee’s incredible performance in the film, he singled out Episodes Three and Five as being exceptionally tense and real. I would agree. No matter how long Brooklyn Lee remains in adult film, she will be remembered as a superstar in this movie.

Only the work of Kink.com’s Peter Acworth can compare with the hard hitting BDSM sexuality of the extended scene that follows. There are no nuances here. Amira is tested by the Vampire Mistress, played beautifully by Sandra Romain, who like Brooklyn Lee has a history of performances at Kink.com. The actresses are complements of each other in this scene.

Amira's Tribulations Begin

Amira’s Tribulations Begin

Suffice it to say the clan has detected reluctance and weakness in Amira and it’s time to call her to task. Clamps of different varieties are used on Amira as a form of discipline and dominance. During the sex, the conflation of pain and sensuality common to many devotees of BDSM subjects Amira to the test she undergoes.

The Mistress taunts Amira as the sex intensifies.

“I want to be proud of you!” the Mistress screams at Amira, who will be broken in this trial.

But the Mistress detects weakness early in the game.

“You give up, you fuckin’ bitch,” the Mistress derides Amira. “You give up!”

Brooklyn Lee’s performance ranks with the best I’ve seen from San Francisco masochist and porn icon, Madison Young, whose shoots are the zenith of BDSM.

The verbal tirade continues.

“You are white American trash,” the Mistress yells.

Amira is breaking. “I’m nothing,” she responds in almost a whisper.

The Mistress slaps and kisses Amira, disciplining and seducing her as a dominant would a submission in the theater of BDSM.

“I just want to be yours,” Amira barely utters. But the proof is not there yet. The sex continues, a DP is on the menu, and the Mistress never gives up.

She pounds away verbally at Amira as the two males in the scene work over her body.

How Much Can She Handle?

How Much Can She Handle?

“Am I too rough for you?” the Mistress asks. “You love this?”

“I want to be like you,” repeats Amira.

Vampire triumphant compete, the Mistress withdraws. Amira is left smiling and a body covered with spit and ejaculate. She has broken through to the other side, satisfying the immediate demands of the clan. Or so it seems.

Leave a comment

Filed under Uncategorized

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.

*          *          *          *          *

Episode2_001

“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.

 Episode2_026

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.

Leave a comment

Filed under Uncategorized

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.

*         *          *          *          *

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.

Episode1_032

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.

Episode1_039

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

Leave a comment

Filed under Uncategorized

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?

*           *           *           *           *

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.

Leave a comment

Filed under Uncategorized