Essay by Chris Hall

The modern vampire — that dangerously seductive figure who inspires both fear and desire — was born on the same night as another great horror icon, Victor Frankenstein. During the legendary storytelling session in 1816, when Mary Shelley invented the mad doctor and his creation, Lord Byron began a fragment of a tale from which his doctor, John Polidori, took “inspiration” to write “The Vampyre,” which starred a title character who was a thinly disguised portryal of Byron himself.
More than 180 years later, the vampire is a cultural icon with more life than any of its individual incarnations. Looking at any of the mainstream depictions of vampires — whether Victorian or modern — is fascinating in the context of the sexual repression in our society. Vampires have consistently been depicted as demon lovers who embody sexual desires (i.e., rape fantasies, necrophilia, snuff, sadomasochism) that otherwise would be unspeakable in polite, mainstream societies. Media depictions like the Anne Rice novels and their predecessors serve as a kind of crypto-porn for people who wouldn’t otherwise admit to indulging in such things. Adult films, of course, have been much less shy about throwing the sexuality of the vampire right onto the screen; after all, blood-sucking demons of the night are far more intriguing figures than the pizza-delivery boys, horny nurses, and lonely late-night bartenders populating so much of porn.
In 1980 — when porn was still exploring the creative possibilities implicit in substantial plot, skillful cinematography, and big hair — Jamie Gillis starred as Leopold Michael George/Count Dracula in Dracula Exotica. Leopold is part of the tragic, tortured tradition of vampire fiction, having damned himself after raping his lover (in a scene that is both explicit and disturbing), and driving her to suicide. After living in his castle for over 400 years, he decides to do away with his two vampire brides and go to America for a change of lifestyle.
Ironically, the sex scenes featuring Gillis are the least erotic in the film, because part of Leopold’s curse is that his sexual lusts shall forever be unfulfilled. Just before leaving for America, he watches with bored and distant eyes as the two brides suck his cock passionately. It does nothing for him; in 400 years, he has never come. In contrast, the scene where the two women pleasure themselves on top of a coffin is dynamic and hot. They bite and hiss at each other with animalistic fervor, giving and receiving all the passion and pleasure to which the Count remains immune.
What ultimately saves Dracula Exotica is the movie’s very droll sense of humor, especially with regard to a subplot concerning the absurd machinations of spies from the Eastern Bloc and the American Federal Intelligence Bureau, all of whom believe Leopold is working for the other side. Spies can be easily identified, apparently, by their unfailing tendency to wear mirrored sunglasses, even in dark porno theaters.
Let’s also not forget porn legend Samantha Fox, who has a unique dual role in Dracula Exotica. She not only portrays Leopold’s lost love, but is also cast in the role of Sally, a spy whom the F.I.B. has assigned to seduce and destroy Count Dracula. In a strange way, Sally’s lethal, predatory sex practices are even more typical of the vampire archetype than the asexual Leopold. In one rather bizarre and humorous sequence, she plays out an extended daddy/schoolgirl fantasy with an Armenian diplomat, only to dispatch him with a bullet in the ass. Of course, it’s ultimately Sally’s sexual power that brings redemption and satisfaction to Leopold.
Dracula Exotica, however, is really the exception to the rule: Other porn-vamp vids like Vampirass, Bite: The First Blood, and Vampires serve only to reinforce my long-standing belief that porn is a lot like country music — fantastic at its best, but deadly at its worst. These are three movies where you find yourself staring at the screen thinking, “Oh, no! Not another sex scene!” The sets and actors look as generic as cans of cheap soup lined up on a shelf, and the sex is long, tedious, and predictable. Worse yet, not one of these titles exploits the considerable potential of the vamp theme in terms of adding eroticism to the scenario. Buck Adams, stiff in all the wrong places, plays the chief vampire in Bite and Vampires (as well as in the equally miserable Intercourse With the Vampire), but he’s never anything more than a porn star in a silly-looking cape. He could just as easily be a doctor, plumber, or cable installer. Bite does make some strained attempts at humor by having Adams’s character make comments about his aversion to “steak” houses and Italian food (“All that garlic!”), but it just makes the whole venture look more pathetic.
As for Vampirass, the best thing about it is the title. Despite the marketing on the label and the box, the only mention of vampirism in this one takes place during the last 90 seconds (!) when the three main characters discover that they’ve been transformed into vampires because of a botched magic ritual.
Much of the vampire’s relentless grip on the popular imagination comes from the fact that they are creatures of pure id. Whether male or female, they represent the sex, power, and wealth that most of us desire, without the inhibitions or moral strictures that prevent us from possessing such treasures. Audiences have been drawn to Carmilla, Dracula, and Lestat precisely because they find parts of themselves reflected in those characters. The power of the werewolf myth comes from a fear of the alien and unknown; the vampire’s comes from a fear of one’s self.
If any adult film has managed to successfully capture this truth and use it to its own advantage, then it’s most certainly the lesbian S/M feature, Ladies of the Night. This is absolutely one of the most beautiful, well-executed, and erotic porno movies I’ve ever seen. When I say beautiful, I refer to the aesthetic quality of the cinematography, sets, and costumes, all of which similarly accentuate the sexual energy of the performers. Ladies of the Night is shot in the format of an old black-and-white silent film, complete with inter-titles for narration. The cinematography is very high-contrast, with few shades of gray, creating an atmospheric, gothic feel without being self-conscious or pretentious.
The scenario is a familiar one: Two female vamps abduct a schoolgirl off the streets, take her to their castle, and use her as their pet until morning, at which point they feed on her body, transforming her into one of them. Their attentions range from gentle caresses to heavy floggings in the dungeon. When their newfound pet resists, there’s the tangible sense that her resistance is at least as much against the intense sensations of her own body as against the cruelty of her captors. There’s also a surprising level of psychological complexity to the relationship between the vamps and slave, as seen near the end, when they lay their pet out in ritualistic fashion, preparing to feed on her. One of the female vampires lifts her breast out of its corset, gently bringing the slave’s mouth to her nipple, smiling as though she were suckling a child of her own body. The tenderness of this gesture is as real as the menace that she and her companion represent, and the tension between such contradictory feelings makes the scene that much more powerful.
Two additional quality efforts, although less so than Ladies of the Night, are Les Vampyres and Pornogothic. Both excel at creating a feeling of the sensual decadence and power of the vampires through lighting, chemistry, and plot, but each also has its own distinctive flaws.
Pornogothic centers on a cop named Blake, looking into a series of bizarre murders linked to a trendy L.A. nightclub. The club happens to be run by a small clique of beautiful vampires who turned Blake’s wife into their own personal Slurpee a year ago.
Most of the film’s shortcomings are directly tied to Blake’s endless angst about the death of his wife ... and the bad music accompanying his flashbacks. Yet most of the actual sex is flawless, using the dangers and the enticements of the vampires to complement each other. When Asia Carrera seduces and transforms Katie Gold in the nightclub, there’s a delicious moment when she takes the tip of a long metal talon that she’s wearing on one finger and drags it lightly through her victim’s bush and along the outside of her pussy. In that moment, danger and desire are indistinguishable.
In Les Vampyres, a trio of female vampires hunt yuppie men in a Big Sur bed-and-breakfast. There are so many things done right here — the erotic energy, camerawork, lighting — that I hate to get too critical. However, the erotic energy, instead of being enhanced by the vampiric element, is killed by the fact that the vamps gorge on their victims by giving the men long, luxurious blowjobs and then biting their dicks off. It’s almost enough to put me off blowjobs altogether.
Fortunately, director James Avalon seems to have figured this out for his sequel, Les Vampyres 2. There are still some cock-biting scenes, but they’re nowhere as ubiquitous as in the first film. If anything, Les Vampyres 2 manages to surpass the original, wiping away its flaws and keeping its strengths intact. The scenery department is really where the film excels. For one, there’s a lot more contrast in locales; in addition to the comfy yuppie interiors of the first film, there are also extended flashbacks to the characters' previous life in a gloomy but lush European castle that should fulfill the dreams of even the most goth viewer. The final scene, a lesbian four-way between the main vamps, takes place in a hip club made up in a Dia de Los Muertos motif, complete with partygoers in skeleton garb. The tension of the scene is incredible, partly because of the charisma and enthusiasm of the actors, and partly because of the narrative itself. As an example, one vamp couple is hunting another one in the name of vengeance, and the fact that lust and hatred are equally real brings a complex tension into the scene that’s usually lacking in mainstream porn. The opposing feelings of fear and desire are what give the vampire fantasy its edge, and director Avalon uses those same emotions well throughout the film.
These X-rated movies, of course, barely scratch the surface of the vampire genre, although sometimes the line between porn and mainstream does, indeed, get provocatively blurred when bloodsuckers are brought into the smut domain. Yet as porn itself becomes more socially accepted, both it and mainstream cinema will certainly continue to feed upon one other and perhaps provide some of the most interesting images of our own erotic contradictions.

Courtesy of The Spectator

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