A Woman of (Four) Letters

Jackie Collins was the Lady Boss of
trash fiction in the 1970s and ’80s.

One of the many depressing aspects about the success of Fifty Shades of Grey was that it highlighted how adult fiction had become so tame by 2011 that E.L. James’ rape-y Twilight fan fic could not only became a pop culture phenomenon but also be discussed by the amnesiac media as if smut had never before dirtied the New York Times Best Seller list.

The NYT Best Sellers had been sullied long before James came along, and on a monthly basis, too. Among those regularly defiling popular literature in the 1970s and ’80s were Harold Robbins and Jackie Collins. Though Rosemary Rogers and Judith Krantz gave them a run for their money, Robbins and Collins had succeeded in making their names synonymous with raunch. Rogers and Krantz wrote racy romances; Robbins and Collins wrote trash.

I was more of a fan of Harold Robbins’ books, but Jackie always seemed a far more likable person, and watching the 2021 documentary LADY BOSS: THE JACKIE COLLINS STORY, currently streaming on Netflix in the U.S., confirmed the late author’s likability. She’s so likable, in fact, that no fewer than four women interviewed identify themselves as Jackie’s best friend.

Jackie’s story is told through interviews with her older sister (you know who), her three daughters, Tracy, Tiffany and Rory, and numerous friends and business associates. Director Laura Fairrie’s best source, however, is Jackie herself, not only from archive footage but from a treasure trove of diary entries, journals and an unfinished autobiography, Reform School or Hollywood.

Teen-aged Joan and Jackie Collins.

Jackie failed to make a
splash in the 1957
movie All at Sea.

Of course, much of Jackie’s story has likely already found its way into her novels in one way or another as her life could be the basis of a Jackie Collins book. It’s a life that includes a domineering father (Joe Collins was temperamental theater agent prone to flying into rages at the dinner table), sibling rivalry (Jackie struggled to establish an identity beyond “Joan Collins’ little sister”), an ugly duckling-to-swan transformation (Jackie matured into a shapely young woman, helping things along with a nose job in 1959), wild times in Hollywood (including a fling with Marlon Brando, whom Jackie describes in a diary entry as “kind of fat”), an acting career that goes nowhere (appearing in the Alec Guinness film All at Sea and a guest spot on TV show The Saint are her more notable credits), and an unhappy marriage (Jackie’s first husband Wallace Austin was a bipolar drug addict who committed suicide a year after their divorce in 1964).

Look back in leopard print: Jackie with her first born, Tracy,
and Jackie’s mother, Elsa Collins.

It’s not until Jackie’s second husband, nightclub owner Oscar Lerman, encourages Jackie to finish a novel she’s all but given up on that Jackie pursues writing with any real ambition. “I’d been writing all my life,” Jackie recalls. “I’d written a lot of half-books that I never finished, and he was the first person that said to me, ‘It’s absolutely terrific and you can do it’.”

That book was The World is Full of Married Men, and Jackie sold it to a publisher for £400 ($536 U.S.). To say that the publisher got a huge return on its investment is an understatement. The book’s mix of strong women and sizzling sex made it an instant—and controversial—best seller in 1968.

Jackie at work, exactly as you imagine.

As the documentary details Jackie’s ascension on the best seller lists, it focuses more on Jackie as a celebrity than a writer. Even her former agent Morton Janklow puts more stock in Jackie’s TV appearances than her prose: “It was one of the reasons she was so successful. She could go out there and promote those books and not be embarrassed.” Her Mob Wives aesthetic—big hair, big shoulder pads, lots of leopard print—was just another aspect of her branding. She looked like a character from one of her books, making her their ideal spokesperson. Lady Boss is peppered with clips of Jackie promoting her work, including a 1980s TV ad in which Jackie urges readers to “get Lucky.” (The voice heard at the end of the clip below is Jackie’s oldest daughter, Tracy.)

Two aspects where I feel Lady Boss drops the ball is that it fails to give viewers a sense of the book market of the 1970s and ’80s (timing plays a role in Jackie’s success as much as her storytelling talent) or acknowledge those who came before her. It’s admirable that Jackie was an active participant in the marketing of her books, but she was hardly the first author—or the first Jackie—to do so. That the documentary fails to pick up on the many similarities between Jackie’s and Jacqueline Susann’s lives and careers is Lady Boss’s biggest oversight. 

Jackie looms over Hollywood.

Lady Boss makes it abundantly clear that Jackie took a lot of shit for her books. The documentary tries to attribute this as mere sexism, i.e., people disapproved of a woman writing bluntly described sex scenes (Fairrie includes plenty of footage of Jackie being scolded and/or belittled by male talk show hosts). Lady Boss even tries to frame Jackie as some sort of feminist icon. Though the author did self-identify as a feminist, her brand of feminism didn’t seem to go beyond speaking out against the double standard. Women should be permitted to be as shitty as men, while true, is not the sort of rallying cry that would land her on the cover of Ms. magazine. 

The 1980s, when Jackie ruled trash fiction and Joan ruled
Prime Time.

The documentary also touches on the rivalry between Jackie and her older sister. Joan says that Jackie hated a couple men in her life (she doesn’t name names), and that these men also hated Jackie, and so things were a bit chilly between the sisters during these relationships. Though they teamed up to adapt one of Jackie’s bestsellers, The Stud, into a movie vehicle for Joan in 1978, and its sequel The Bitch in 1979, things were again reportedly tense in the 1980s when Joan, at the peak of her Dynasty career revival, tried her hand at trash fiction, starting with her 1988 debut novel Prime Time. Jackie was none too happy that Joan was trespassing in her territory, so it’s not surprising she felt some schadenfreude when Joan’s subsequent books for Random House were deemed “unpublishable.” 

On the subject of Joan—excuse me, Dame Joan—I did not always believe she was speaking candidly. Though she doesn’t appear to view her and Jackie’s relationship through rose-colored glasses, she’s careful to present herself as the ever-supportive older sister. (People without siblings might believe that, but rest of us aren’t buying it, Joan.) I also got the idea—through tone of voice and body language—that a few people interviewed didn’t have particularly high opinions of Jackie’s famous sibling. When Joan’s anecdote about Jackie’s spirit inhabiting a persistent fruit fly (seriously) is referenced, Jackie’s former assistant all but rolls her eyes and says her former boss's sister is full of shit.

From the Lost Years: A Supplemental Book Review

Jackie’s 2009 novel Poor Little Bitch
Girl. Love the title, hate the book.

Jackie’s life wasn’t as rosy during the 1990s and 2000s. In 1992 her husband Oscar died of prostate cancer. And though it’s only briefly touched on, Jackie was also losing her mojo as an author. Her books in the latter half of her career, while still best sellers, weren’t selling as well as they once had. “We changed as a world,” says Jackie’s publicist Melody Korenbrot, adding that Jackie tried to change with it. “She sat down and wrote, but eventually she became completely confused and lost.”

Judging by her 2009 novel, POOR LITTLE BITCH GIRL, Jackie was still lost in the late 2000s.

I’ve enjoyed a few of Jackie’s books, including The Hollywood Zoo, the 1975 a.k.a. of Sunday Simmons & Charlie Brick (the title later changed again to Sinners) and her 1983 mega-hit Hollywood Wives, perhaps the best thing she’s ever written (but still trash). Unlike grump Harold Robbins, Jackie didn’t take herself too seriously, her writing giving the impression she was chuckling right along with the reader.

Reading Poor Little Bitch Girl, you still get the impression she’s not taking herself too seriously, only this time the tone is less a conspiratorial chuckle and more of a “Whatever,” sighed under her breath.   

Poor Little Bitch Girl is the ninth installment in the Lucky Santangelo series, but the story pretty much stands on its own. Lucky herself is hardly in the thing. Instead, the novel revolves around four separate main characters: Annabelle Maestro, the estranged daughter of movie star parents, now running an escort service in New York with her cokehead boyfriend Frankie; Denver Jones (these names...), a one-time classmate of Annabelle’s, now a lawyer for an elite L.A. firm; Carolyn Henderson, a longtime friend of Denver’s, working in Washington, D.C. as Sen. Stoneman’s assistant (and his mistress); and Lucky’s son Bobby Santangelo Stanislopoulos, who runs a successful NYC nightclub and who was also once a classmate of Annabelle’s and Denver’s. None of these characters are older than 26, all of them are hot, and they all have the emotional maturity of junior high students.

The murder of Annabelle’s mother, Gemma Summer, is what sets the book’s story in motion, with Denver—whose firm is representing Annabelle’s father, the prime suspect—sent to New York to retrieve the titular poor little bitch girl. Denver hates the assignment, until she runs into Bobby. Meanwhile, in Washington, D.C., Carolyn is kidnapped just days after telling Sen. Stoneman that she’s pregnant with his baby. It’s a good thing Bobby, who is just as smitten with Denver, has a private plane and thinks nothing of using it to fly her to D.C. to look for her missing friend.

If you read the above paragraph and asked yourself, Wait, shouldn’t the driver of the story be Denver trying to solve Gemma Summer’s murder? then you clearly aren’t in the right headspace for a Jackie Collins novel. That murder is merely incidental. What matters is that Denver bangs a hunky journalist in L.A., then a sensitive screenwriter in New York, and then falls for Bobby Santangelo Stanislopoulos (though she has trouble forgiving him getting a b.j. from pop singer Zeena, a Cher/Madonna hybrid who speaks of herself in the third person). Even Carolyn’s disappearance is secondary to Denver finding a man. Why waste time cutting into the meat of the story when you can eat Reddi-Wip directly from the can?

Worse than the book’s mishandled plot is its one-note characterizations. Annabelle is selfish and bitchy; Frankie is an asshole; Bobby is charming; Denver is headstrong and kind of kooky (and evidently meant to be a Julia Roberts-type character as Denver is compared to Julia in more than once instance); Carolyn is a hopeless romantic. Jackie, preferring to tell rather than show, often assigns labels for her characters, declaring that Denver and Carolyn are independent and smart, yet Denver is always getting rescued by men and Carolyn just wants Sen. Stoneman to leave his wife for her, and the idea that either of these women have more than a high school education strains credulity. You’d have an easier time believing Denver, whose chapters are written in the first person, is a 16-year-old inhabiting the body of her attorney older sister, Freaky Friday-style, than buy her as a member of the bar. 

Why waste time cutting into the meat of the story when you can eat Reddi-Wip directly from the can?

But, hey, at least there’s all that graphic sex Jackie is known for, except, nope, not in Poor Little Bitch Girl. Sex may be at the forefront of every character’s mind—second only to money—but Jackie backs away from detailing any bedroom activity, preferring to just have her characters give generalized postmortems instead (“I liked that he took his time, kissing me everywhere—and I do mean everywhere”). Considering the first Lucky Santangelo novel, 1981’s Chances, includes a scene in which Lucky’s father, Gino, slurps his spooge out of the pussy he’s freshly plowed—and described about as delicately—Poor Little Bitch Girl is practically PG-13. But then, we didn’t have PornHub in 1981, so maybe by the 2000s Jackie figured she’d just let the Internet fuel the horny imaginations of her readers.

In the book’s defense, it does have an awesome title. Also, it’s fairly well-paced and I was invested in the story enough to want to keep reading. Except, by the time I reached the end I regretted wasting my time with it. Jackie never pretended to be a great writer, but she wasn’t even trying here. This wasn’t the work of an author trying to push herself to be better than her last book; this was a brand name trying to fill enough pages to get a new hardcover on shelves before her previous best-seller landed in the remainder bin. It’s not a novel, it’s product.

Admire Her Spirit if Not Her Books

After her husband’s death Jackie eventually took up with businessman Frank Calcagnini for a very long engagement (the pair never married). If Lady Boss interviewees can’t say enough good things about Oscar Lerman, they struggle to say anything nice about Calcagnini. The way Tita Cahn, one of Jackie’s many best friends, describes him, he could well have been the inspiration for the character of Frankie in Poor Little Bitch Girl: “He was a gambler, a drugger [sic], an alcoholic and an abuser.” About the kindest words anyone can muster for Calcagnini is that he could be charming. When Calcagnini died of a brain tumor in 1998 few people—other than Jackie—mourned his passing.

Jackie Collins in a British TV appearance
shortly before her death.

Unlike her late fiancée, Jackie’s passing was deeply felt by all who knew her. Jackie had been diagnosed with breast cancer years before her death, but like her mother before her, she kept her illness a secret, and like her late-husband Oscar, chose to keep working until the very end. Lady Boss includes a clip of Jackie on the British talk show Loose Women made during her final days and her appearance is startling. She looks gaunt, frail, a good ten years older than her older sister. Still, she never lets on that she’s sick. Nine days after this TV appearance, on Sept. 15, 2015, Jackie Collins died. She was 77.

In watching Lady Boss: The Jackie Collins Story I came to see Jackie as an entertainer, just one who wrote tawdry beach reads instead of performing live at Caesar’s Palace. The documentary also strengthened my appreciation of her as a person. I just wish I could like her books as much as I like her. Still, I’d read Jackie over E.L. James any day.

Short Takes: 'Shallow Grave' (1987) ★★ 1/2

I remember seeing this title at one of the video stores I frequented in the early ’90s when I lived in Tennessee. Though mildly curious, I never rented it, dismissing it as just one more lazy cash-grab on the slasher trash heap. Decades later Shallow Grave ended up on Tubi, as lazy cash-grabs so often do, and since streaming has made me a much less discerning movie consumer, I decided to give it a watch. And, whadda you know, it’s not half bad.

Sue Ellen (Lisa Stahl), Patty (Carol Cadby), Rose (Donna Baltron) and Cindy (Just Kelly – no, really), four misbehaving students at a Catholic women’s college up North, take a road trip down to Fort Lauderdale. Their plans for beachside debauchery—including hooking up with the two cute guys they met on the road—take a detour when a flat tire strands the women in Medley, Georgia (Rose took out the spare for more luggage room, because girls, amiright?) What should be a temporary delay becomes a fight to stay alive when Sue Ellen witnesses Medley’s sheriff (Tony March, whose bare chest is photographed more admiringly than his female co-stars’) murder his side piece, Angie.

Shallow Grave is not so much a slasher as it is a hicksploitation thriller. Before you get to the good parts, though, you must make it through the first twenty minutes, which play like a lamer sequel to producer Allan Carr’s tacky Where the Boys Are remake. You’ll be looking forward to seeing the girls get terrorized by the time they reach Georgia, if not rooting for their demise. My sympathies increased as the characters—those that survive, at least—developed. This character growth, as well as the actors’ above-average performances, made the bleak ending even more impactful. There’s even a bit of racial commentary (inadvertent, I’m sure) when the girls are afraid to enter a barbecue joint with a largely Black customer base but dismiss the mostly white residents of Medley as harmless yokels.

Shallow Grave is no hidden gem—it’s got nothing on that other Shallow Grave—but it’s better than you’d expect, and certainly better than anyone would have expected from the director of Sorceress II: The Temptress. Besides, you could make worse choices on Tubi.

More Flaccid than Fabulous

The vampire was just made for sexploitation. After all, seduction is a large part of the vampire’s M.O. And since it’s ideal for sexploitation, then it stands to reason it’s perfect for gaysploitation. Yet while there are quite a number of movies featuring lesbian vampires, gay vampires aren’t quite as well represented (though there might be some mitigating factors).

Interview with the Vampire had potential, but then they
cast this guy.

But the gay vampire is out there. You just have to step off the well-lit path of Netflix and Prime algorithms and go deeper into the streaming service abyss. Eventually a thumbnail image of two or more attractive men, baring fangs and abs, will catch your eye, tempting you to join them. And like a willing victim, you press play.

Which is how I ended up watching the 2011 British “film” VAMPIRES: BRIGHTER IN DARKNESS.

Like any cute, young gay man, Toby Brighter (puppy-eyed Dan Briggs) has had trouble getting dates in the six months following his breakup, so his sister Charlotte (Rebecca Eastman, deftly making her obnoxious character insufferable) has secured him a blind date via a gay dating website. Though Toby doesn’t have high hopes the date will be a success, he nevertheless bathes for the occasion.

And gets our hopes up for what will follow.

Toby’s date isn’t with some drooling troll but the very handsome, very elegant Lucas Delmore (Rhys Howells). And he’s wealthy, too, having reserved the entire guild hall restaurant so they can be alone. Lucas is equally enchanted by the working-class stud. By the date’s end the two men are, if not in love, at least very infatuated with each other. However, Toby goes home alone as the two men have agreed to take it slow.

But just as Toby is about to enter his flat, Lucas appears on his doorstep, only now Lucas is more menacing and rape-y than suave and charming. Through the power of boners, he convinces Toby to invite him inside, whereupon the two make-out hot and heavy. What the audience knows but Toby doesn’t is Lucas is a vampire!

Except the man on top of Toby isn’t Lucas but Lucas’ jealous ex Anthony (James MacCorkindale), who shape-shifts back into his true form when Lucas appears at the front door. Toby manages to invite Lucas inside before he bleeds out and, after lots of hissing, growling and fast-forward action, Lucas fights Anthony off. This leaves Lucas with a choice: let Toby die or make him a fellow vamp. He makes Toby one of the undead, of course, though he at least asks Toby’s permission, as he’s a gentleman. So much for taking things slow.

Anthony and Lucas prepare to do battle, yet I’m preoccupied with
thoughts about doing something with that drab kitchen. Painting
those cabinets a different color would do wonders.

Get comfortable with this expression. Abigail
Law-Briggs wears it for the movie’s entirety.

Alas, the movie maintains a glacial pace, despite promising to ramp up the action. Not only do Lucas and Toby have an angry Anthony to contend with, Lilith, the vampire queen who turned Lucas, (Abigail Law-Briggs, who gives the movie’s best bad performance), has returned and she’s mobilizing her coven and summoning CGI demons from the Sega Genesis Hell to take Lucas back into to her fold, or whatever. Then Lucas travels to Green Screen Egypt to meet with Semech (Richard Sherwood), who I think is like an ancient vampire king (but he’s still a queen, gurl), and then I went to the kitchen to make a pot of coffee because there was no way I’d be able to make it to through the remaining hour and ten minutes without some additional caffeine in my system.

I should’ve done cocaine. 

Experience the horror of ’90s caliber CGI.

Vampires: Brighter in Darkness isn’t a work of incompetence so much as the result of writer-director-editor Jason Davitt’s grand ambition exceeding his £5.99 budget. This movie originally aired as a TV series on Sky channel 201 (is that a public access station?) and was edited into a 2-hour-10-minute movie, but I doubt it would be any more enjoyable in 15-minute installments. Davitt clearly wanted to craft a vampire epic with a gay romance at its core, but there are too many story points to keep track of and too little action to hold a viewer’s interest. And if you’re expecting to see a lot of skin, forget it. Briggs’ opening credits shower scene is the only nudity in the thing. The acting, at least, isn’t too terrible, though all the actors cast as vampires speak like they have loose dentures whenever they have their fangs in.

Admittedly, this scene was kinda’ cool.

Davitt went on to make a sequel, Vampires: Lucas Rising, but given that I spent the last 45 minutes of Brighter in Darkness wishing it would just fucking end already! I decided to give it a miss. So instead, I watched VAMPIRE BOYS (also 2011). I doubted it would be much better, but at least it was significantly shorter.

Jasin (Jason Lockhart, who just might be literally sleepwalking through his role) and his coven of Vampire Boys, roam the streets of Los Angeles, seeking The One, which, as established by the movie’s black and white opening (artsy!), is to be someone of the opposite sex. And not too bright, apparently, as the young woman’s escape attempt amounts to little more than her twirling in place while Jasin and crew slowly approach. Alas, she dies, for in this movie’s mythology, The One must truly want to become a vampire to be turned (seems like her attempt at escape, lame though it was, would’ve been a giveaway). And immortality must be renewed prior to an expiration date, like a library book: “You’re entering your one-hundredth year,” warns one of Jasin’s vampire bros. “We must find The One.”

These vampires are also invulnerable to sunlight
and Hot Topic jewelry.

“Los Angeles, City of Angels,” Jasin says in a stilted approximation of wistful. “Let us hope I find mine.”

Jasin finds his angel, and his angel has a dick. Said dick is attached to Caleb (Christian Ferrer), a twink college student who has just moved to L.A. from Ohio. Caleb is sharing a house with fellow student Paul (Ryan Adames, who also contributed some songs to the soundtrack), who says his parents used to own the house then immediately contradicts that statement when he tells Caleb his parents own the house free and clear. (Regardless, someone needs to tend to that lawn.) Paul is clearly interested in Caleb, and Caleb encourages his interest by walking around the house in his boxer briefs. 

Christian Ferrer and Ryan Adames introduce us to the
concept of Sub-DeCoteau Cinema.

 

Jasin Lockhart tries to maintain some dignity while
Dylan Vox channels Bette Midler in Hocus Pocus.

But then, thanks to a bit of vampire telepathy or something, Jasin becomes aware of Caleb’s existence and, sensing he’s The One, goes out of his way to cockblock Paul. Jasin’s infatuation with Caleb doesn’t sit too well with Jasin’s right-hand Logan (best actor of the cast Dylan Vox, of The Lair as well as other things), who thinks Jasin should go after platinum blonde babe Tara (Zasu), apparently wanting the reverse of the agreement between male-female bi couples: outside play is OK so long as it’s with a member of the opposite sex. As for Caleb, he easily falls for his bleached-blond paramour, though he reconsiders when Jasin springs the whole vampire thing on him.

Vampire Boys is indeed not much better than Vampires: Brighter in Darkness. In fact, it’s actually a little worse. Sure, Vampire Boys doesn’t have the Spawn-caliber CGI, the all-over-the-place story, or the patience-trying runtime, and the movie even sweetens the deal with some full-frontal nudity...

Why is this man smiling?

Asked and answered. And in case you’re wondering, yes, he has.

...but Brighter in Darkness at least had heart. For all its shortcomings, you can tell the people involved gave a shit. Vampire Boys, on the other hand, is just one more thing released in 2011—when the Twilight Saga was still dominating the box office—that’s cashing in on the vampire craze. I’m not against cashing in, but at least be creative about it. Creativity, however, is perhaps too much to ask from a screenplay written by the same man who gave us Reptisaurus and The Amazing Bulk, and Charlie Vaughn’s directing does little to help matters. It’s a porn parody with all the sex and parody cut out, making its hour and nine-minute runtime feel like 109 minutes. Oh, well, at least they refrained from titling it Vampire Boyz.

‘Want Some Hot Fuckhole?’

As with Vampires etc., I was so grateful when Vampire Boys reached the end credits that I didn’t even consider watching its sequel, Vampire Boys 2. I was sick of watching cock-teasing gay vampire movies. I wanted some movies that would put out. So, I cruised the sleazier side of the internet went home with Tom DeSimone’s SONS OF SATAN (1973) and Roger Earl’s GAYRACULA (1983).

The plot of Sons of Satan offers nothing new beyond replacing blood and guts with boners and cum. Jonathan Trent (Tom Paine), rocking a pair of polyester bell-bottoms and stacked heels, visits the home of “Natas” (nope, not obvious at all) in his search for his missing brother Clark. Though Natas’ name and address were found among Clark’s things, Mr. Natas’ caftan-wearing manservant, radiating bitter antiques dealer energy, sniffs that he knows nothing of Jonathan’s missing brother, that the master of the house is unavailable, and that ring in a display case that looks exactly like the one-of-a-kind that Jonathan gave Clark has been locked that case for over 200 years. Good day, sir!

Jonathan politely fucks off, then reconsiders and breaks back into Natas’ house, discovering that Clark has joined a vampire worshiping cult! He just as quickly learns that “interruptions in our services are never tolerated, Mr. Trent.” His punishment: providing nourishment to the cum-hungry Natas!

Clark (Shannon) prepares to give his master his ‘life force’
(not to be confused with Tobe Hooper’s Lifeforce).

Natas awakens to a chalice of freshly squeezed jizz.

I recently learned from the Ask Any Buddy podcast that DeSimone only put his real name on the porn movies he was proud of, so the fact that Sons of Satan was released under his Lancer Brooks pseudonym tells you right away it’s one of his lesser offerings. Then again, he put his real name on Chatterbox and Angel III, so maybe DeSimone isn’t the best judge of his proudest achievements.  

That said, though Sons of Satan isn’t one of DeSimone’s better porn movies, it’s hardly his worst. It has the look of a cheap drive-in horror, which I appreciated, and its atmosphere is appropriately claustrophobic and creepy. But even cheap drive-in horrors—or Vampire Boys—have outfitted their vampires with more convincing fangs. Seeing Darryl Hughes, as the unduly tan Natas, struggle to keep his plastic vampire teeth in his mouth kills the mood, be that mood spooky or sexy. As for the sex…meh. Other than some cum-guzzling and a bit of incest (Jonathan is “forced” to suck off Clark, played by a blond cutie billed simply as Shannon), it’s all fairly bland. Still, Sons of Satan manages to have more bite than either Vampires: Brighter in Darkness or Vampire Boys. 

Who says Sons of Satan isn’t scary? Just look
at that wallpaper!

Jonathan (Tom Paine) is about to be initiated
into the Sons of Satan.

Not much better but way more entertaining than the previous three movies combined is Gayracula, which goes full-on camp with its story about Gaylord Young (toothy blond Falcon star Tim Kramer), a courier in 1783 Transylvania who delivers a package to the Marquis de Suede (Steve Collins) and gets turned into a vampire for his trouble. But before the fangs are bared, cocks are sucked. Gaylord helpfully narrates the action for the vision-impaired: “He sucked my big, hot cock with his moist, juicy lips. He twirled that tongue around my hot dick.” This voiceover is not by Kramer, who delivers his lines like a sixth grader reading aloud in English class, but by one of Gayracula’s screenwriters, Bruce Vilanch (not sure if he's Lorei I. Lee or Dorothee Pshaw), clearly relishing this opportunity to tap into his inner Vincent Price. 

The cardboard castle of the Marquis de Suede

As much as Gaylord enjoyed the Marquis’ “tight, and moist, and hot” ass, he’s not as appreciative of being made into one of the undead. And so he vows revenge on the Marquis, whom he learns 200 years later, is running a nightclub in Los Angeles.

“I traveled inelegantly but effectively.”

Michael Christopher: Master thespian.

The titular Gayracula is delivered to L.A. by none other than gay porn legend Michael Christopher. Once Gaylord’s manservant Boris (Rand Remington, in his sole film appearance) helps Christopher unload the coffin containing Gaylord, he offers the delivery man that most common gratuity in pornography: hot sex. Christopher is so into it that he is not only oblivious to the rats crawling nearby, he barely notices Gaylord rising from his coffin. When Gaylord does attract his attention, all he can do is ask if the vampire would like some “hot fuckhole.” Gaylord declines (“I don’t like sloppy seconds,” he lisps) but still can’t resist eating Christopher’s ass.

 

Though not in the way one would expect.

His bloodlust satiated, Gaylord heads to the Marquis’ nightclub, where he’s invited to watch a dancer rehearse his moves.

The rhythm doesn’t get everybody.

After taking a stroll into the club’s backroom for a quickie, Gaylord returns to the main room of the club to check out another performance, this one featuring hunky Ray Medina. Medina’s act includes popping a cork or something out of his foreskin, pulling a chain attached to his leather-cuffed balls, and, in a moment that is either hilarious or sexually traumatizing, periodically shitting out silver balls, complete with farting sound effects. (How I wish I was present to witness the audience reaction to that scene when this movie was screened for a benefit for the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center.)

Performance artist Tim Medina.

If you’re wondering if the movie—and it is a movie, shot on film, not video—might try to top this moment, let me assure you/burst your bubble: it doesn’t. After watching Medina’s act, which ends with him fucking the rhythm-challenged dancer seen previously, Gaylord invites the Marquis back to his place for a threesome with Boris. But once the guys nut, Gaylord chains up the Marquis and prepares to drive a stake through his heart. To spare his undead life, the Marquis tells Gaylord of a way to break the vampire’s curse: take the virginity of a man he truly loves, in this case Randy (Randal Butler, another one-and-done performer), a waiter barely glimpsed earlier at the Marquis’ club. Once Randy is deflowered (sure), the Marquis performs a ritual (i.e., an orgy with some mild BDSM). Gaylord plays along until he gets off, after which he rids himself—and the world—of the Marquis for good.

Leaving Randy and Gaylord free to frolic in
the pool happily ever after.

Gayracula knows what it is and doesn’t try to put on airs. It’s camp with extra cheese and it’s better for it. I found it more amusing than arousing, however. Though the guys in it are hotter than those in Sons of Satan (or, for my taste, Vampire Boys), the sex in it is almost uniformly mechanical (for all his physical charms, Tim Kramer fucks like an animatronic sex doll). Still, as gay vampires go, I’d rather spend my Halloween watching the robotic ramming of Gayracula or the ’70s shagging of Sons of Satan than sleeping through the turgid talk of Vampires: Brighter in Darkness or enduring the vapid Vampire Boys.

Can I interest you in an ... Egyptian feast?

If You Like ’Em Uncut: Should you seek out either Sons of Satan or Gayracula, beware that there are heavily edited versions out there. The print of Sons acquired by Alpha Blue Archives was apparently delivered to the company as a bunch of random film strips in a shoe box, requiring Alpha Blue to re-assemble as best they could, and their best isn’t very good. Pieces of the film are missing, and the last third is rendered almost incoherent, jumping between Jonathan being held captive in a basement room, being fucked by Natas, then back in the basement, then being approached by Natas. Parts of the footage aren’t even right-side up (though this kind of works). You’ll find a more complete cut from Something Weird Video or, ahem, other sources. Gayracula was heavily edited when initially released on video, leaving out some key plot points, as well as that climactic ritual orgy. I wasted $3.19 renting the edited version, but I was able to find an uncut version elsewhere.

Short Takes: 'El mirón' (1977) ★★

Roman (Héctor Alterio), a successful architect married to the beautiful—and much younger—Elena (Alexandra Bastedo), should have little to complain about. Yet Roman is unhappy, for what turns him on is watching Elena have sex with other men. But as much as Elena wants to fulfill her husband’s voyeuristic fantasies, she just can’t get into Roman’s kink. It turns out, however, that Elena is only resistant to fooling around with the men her husband chooses for her. She’s much more open to extramarital play when she attracts the attention of her neighbor’s hot young lover (Pep Munné).

El mirón (a.k.a. The Voyeur) has the potential to be a twisted psychosexual drama and given that it’s written and directed by José Ramon Larraz one should expect it to be quite twisted indeed. But El mirón wasn’t directed by Vampyres or Black Candles Larraz. No, it was directed by the Larraz who gave us La muerte incierta and Symptoms, which is to say that if you’re expecting lots of nudity, graphic sex and unapologetic sleaze, you won’t find those things here. Instead, we have a meditative arthouse drama about a middle-aged man torn between being aroused watching his wife fuck middle-aged men and being insanely jealous when she, um, cheats (?) on him with a sexy younger man.

And it still might have worked had Roman and Elena been more compelling characters or had Larraz followed through with some teases of a more violent climax. Instead, El mirón is only mildly engaging. That the scenes of Elena’s tense exchanges with her sourpuss mother-in-law (Aurora Rodondo) are more entertaining than any of the movie’s sex scenes should tell you all you need to know.

Short Takes: 'Al tropico del cancro' (1972) ★★★

Dr. Williams (spaghetti western star Anthony Steffan, who also has a story credit), chief surgeon at a Port au Prince hospital, as well as the city’s meat inspector (?), has created a new drug during his free time, and since that drug is a powerful hallucinogen and not a vaccine, everyone wants to get their hands on it. But the doctor has no reason to suspect his friend Fred (Gabriele Tinti, before he married—and started doing softcore sex flicks with—Laura Gemser) of having any motives beyond enjoying an exotic holiday with his wife Grace (Anita Strindberg). Fred, however, definitely suspects Grace of wanting to bump uglies with Williams. (Who would blame her? Not only is Steffan ruggedly handsome, but unlike Fred, he is not a raging asshole.)

This one was a pleasant surprise. True, there are better giallos out there, but I found El tropico del cancro (a.k.a. Tropic of Cancer or Death in Haiti) a lot of fun, with generous helpings of sex, violence and weirdness. Directors Giampaolo Lomi and Edoardo Mulargia make the most of their film’s location, juxtaposing the exotic glamor of the tourist spots with the poverty of the people who live there. The locals themselves seem to be little more than colorful background, however, performing voodoo rituals, serving drinks and, in the case of the young manservant for flamboyant businessman Mr. Peacock (Gordon Felio, giving us a Divine-out-of-drag performance before Divine was even a star), providing more intimate services, or so it’s heavily implied. El tropico del cancro isn’t worthy of either a NAACP or GLAAD award but considering the time in which this was made it isn’t nearly as problematic as I feared it might be.

The movie’s most notorious scene — the one reviewers on IMDb bring up the most, anyway — is when Grace is drugged by Stewart’s potent hallucinogen and embarks on a trip that has her fleeing a colony of tarantulas and running down a deep red hallway, wearing nothing but a sheer dressing gown, while naked Black men reach for her. The scene culminates with Grace losing her gown and stepping into the arms of a well-hung voodoo priest, a moment prominently featured in the poster. Some of the negative reviews I saw cited this scene as the movie’s nadir, but I suspect that might have more to do with sequence featuring a lot of penises. (Calm down, fanboys, this movie features plenty of tits, too.)  The sequence is kinda’ silly, but it’s also trippy and sexy and deliciously ’70s— it looks like porno chic perfume ad — so I found it to be one of the movie’s high points. Also, did I mention the scene features a lot of penises?