Kiss of the Damned (2012): Sexy Vampire Women, updated

Kiss of the Damned (2012)
dir: Xan Cassavetes

From the 1960s and into the 1970s, there was a whole genre of erotic vampire movies, with a fair amount from Jess Franco, director of Venus in Furs and Female Vampire. They were lush, languid, filled with sexy bodies, and had plots that were largely inconsequential. With Kiss of the Damned, Xan Cassavetes is trying to recapture that feeling of the purposeless vampire movie without devolving into the maudlin vampire genre that was created in Twilight.

Kiss of the Damned focuses on the relationship of a Paolo, a screenwriter, who falls in love with a hot vampire woman, Djuna, and then is turned by her. Later, as they're nesting, Djuna's sister Mimi reappears from Amsterdam following a tumultuous whatever, and creates chaos simply by being present, and by not killing her victims and leaving them around to be resurrected.

Apparently, in the mythos of Kiss of the Damned, if a vampire doesn't decapitate their victims, the victims have a chance of randomly resurrecting. No blood exchange needed. Djuna's problem with Mimi is that she claims that Mimi doesn't properly protect her victims, whereas Mimi and Paolo always decapitate their victims.

Djuna also has a problem with Mimi's periodically wild party lifestyle. This is shown by a threesome with a random couple in the gigantic mansion Djuna has. Everybody snipes at each other, people die, and the movie ends.

What Cassavetes captures with Kiss of the Damned is the languid pacing that came with the arthouse erotic horror film, as well as the inconsequential plots. With all of the fancy camera work, however, Cassavetes somehow misses the completely lush gorgeous look that those old films actually captured. Maybe it was in color selection, fabrics and shapes that were en vogue, or just a general aesthetic of color choice, camera angles, lighting and film stock. But, Cassavetes misses the mark in a fully transformative experience.

Cassavetes also seems to be attempting to turn Twilight inside out by deconstructing a couple of the central ideas from the novel, but putting them into an erotic old-school movie genre. She includes the fight between Mimi and Djuna about Djuna's turning Paolo into a vampire. There is discussion of the morality of humans and vampires. There is discussion about the larger groupings of vampirism, with Djuna and Mimi being sisters from the same mother. Cassavetes is simultaneously exposing these discussions to be as silly and morally relative as they are.

Cassavetes also tones down the rampant, gratuitous, nudity that dominated the Jess Franco vampire movies. In some of his more notorious movies, like Vampyros Lesbos, Franco would essentially fill the movie wall to wall with beautiful naked vampire women, and the movies would be a classy excuse to see a blue movie because it was a Spanish movie, and therefore have more cultural currency. Cassavetes has little interest in keeping everybody naked, though does frequently indulge in shirtless displays of Milo Ventimiglia (Paolo).

The experiment that is Kiss of the Damned is, ultimately, a mild success. It does succeed in deconstructing and  mocking Twilight without being overt about its intentions. It only half succeeds in recreating the atmosphere of the original vampire erotic genre. And, it isn't nearly as over the top as it should be. It's entertaining in fits, but ultimately it is brought down by the lack of anything going on.

Female Vampire (1973)

Female Vampire (1973)
dir: Jesus Franco

Jesus Franco was, at one point, king of the low-rent Spanish erotic horror genre. He created films that combined eroticized females and supernatural elements, mostly to craft an atmospheric mood piece with a lot of breasts in it. Some of Franco's movie are coherent movies, some are pieces of incoherent psychedelia, and some are pure softcore exploitation films.

Female Vampire exists as three versions. An R-rated horror movie, an X-rated softcore edition, and a XXX hardcore version. Somewhat surprisingly, the softcore version of Female Vampire has made it to DVD and to Netflix under the title Female Vampire, while the hardcore version still is out of print. But, really, what would Female Vampire be without the softcore sex? A 30-minute shorter movie about a vampiress who is stalking some European town.

What Female Vampire actually is about is a mute vampiress who is a descendant of Dracula, who kills people by giving them orgasms through oral sex. It could be man or woman, but she drinks their sexual essence and ultimately they die in the midst of their orgasms. Le Petit Mort becomes Le Grand mort. There are also some people hunting her, but that's mildly incoherent as it never really sticks to any of these storylines.

The story isn't what makes Female Vampire so good. I mean, it has something to do with it. But, the true qualities of Female Vampire are in the details. Franco is fascinated by the female body, as he is in every one of his other films. His camera leers over the female body in the most hilariously perverse ways. The opening credits play over our female vampire walking naked, save for a cape, belt and go go boots, in a forest. She stops, and the camera zooms in to give full screen breasts, bush, lips, and pans slowly up and down her body. Then, she walks into the camera, hitting it with her face.

The next scene, she walks into somebody's backyard, whose response to seeing a naked mute woman is "Can I help you? What do you want?" Of course, then she gives him a blowjob and kills him, after which she flies away by flapping her arms to transform into a bat, which, by the way, you never see. The closest you get to seeing a bad is an awesome bat ornament on a fancy car whose wings flap as you drive. I WANT THAT HOOD ORNAMENT.

Along the way, the vampiress, who is a mute, is interviewed by a woman and then kills her by oral sex. She also violates a bed and a headboard pillow. She writhes around in a bathtub full of bloody water. The fabrics are all in the ornate rococo gothic styles that one associates with European castles. Yet, she frequently has those moon boots that were so prevalent in the 1960s.

The voiceovers during the flying bat ornament scenes express a melancholy debate over how she is cursed to love people even though she will kill them, which is re-emphasized by the somewhat solemn elevator muzak that is in every Eurotrashy '70s sleazy film. Female Vampire has this heightened feeling of regret for the sex that it indulges in, but it actually is to just give the whole affair a bit of class, and actually succeed in taking the edge off what would be a women kill through sexuality plot.

Jesus Franco has never really cared much about anything other than leering over the female body. And, it shows in Female Vampire. But, it is so much fun for indulging in all of the cliches that you would expect from a 1970s eurotrashy film. Sultry voiceovers, moustache trimming, rococo fabrics, bad lighting, terrible focus, extreme closeups, 1970s era bush, soft muzak, and hilariously ornate details. As long as you don't take Female Vampire seriously, it is a serious load of fun.

Kink (2013): Sexual Politics Documentary as Advertisement

Kink (2013)
dir: Christina Voros
pro: James Franco

San Francisco is home to The Armory, a Moorish Castle which now serves as home to Cybernet Entertainment, the proper name for the company that owns Kink.com, an internet-based adult film company which specializes in...wait for it...kinky videos.  They've owned the Armory since 2007, which had been empty since the '70s.  This movie isn't about The Armory itself, but the building itself is a fascinating creature.

Kink.com makes both hetero and gay oriented kinky films.  The majority of Kink.com's content is in the traditional female submissive oriented films, but there are categories for femdom and for gay male videos.  This is also a movie directed by a woman, Christina Voros, who is trying to seem interested in sexuality and the reasons behind why these models would want to be exploited or degraded.  Christina Voros mainly is interested in female sexuality, who dominate the film's all too short 79 minute run time.  More than that, Voros is interested in justifying kinky porn and female participation in it.

At one point in the middle of this female dominated documentary, a woman ironically comments, "I guess females have this sexuality thrust upon them."  She is implying that women in porn is completely taboo compared to it being acceptable for men, and this focus is a type of slut shaming.  Then, the movie proceeds to focus on women for the majority of its length, in an effort to say that women in porn shouldn't be so stigmatized.

Given that Kink wants to legitimize porn, for the most part it avoids the tough questions that linger around the whys and wherefores.  Some of the women are legitimately into kink, but some of the submissive models seem like they're OK with it but mainly doing it for the money.  And, the audience probably notices this up until a hard interview with an experienced dominatrix towards the end of the movie.

This interview, I believe it was with Matrisse Madeline, confessed that the industry runs through people fairly quickly.  Sometimes it is empowering to people who want to try it as a lark, and some people are doing it because they're down on their luck, but most, in the end, don't stick around for long.  She also confessed that if her children wanted to get into the industry, she would probably have a problem with it because it might mean they were in a tough place.

This was a fleeting moment of realism in an otherwise really shiny documentary about a company that pushes its image of being a porn studio that checks, double checks, and triple checks its validity with its models.  In certain videos that depict sex committed against the model's will, the videos are frequently preceded and followed by interviews with all models involved stating that they happily and willingly were participating in the videos. Kink.com is trying to go the extra step to say that these depictions are acceptable displays of sexuality and objectification of men and women by men and women is OK as long as it is wanted and accepted by all participants in said behaviors.

That's not to say that Kink is all about women.  The film is bookended by behind the scenes of gay BDSM videos, whose category is generally produced by, and sometimes starring, Van Darkholme.  There are some interviews with a hetero male submissive and a couple hetero male dominants. There is also an interview with a set construction guy, secretaries, and directors. The majority of these interviews are, obviously, supportive of the behaviors and justifying the morality of Kink.com.  And, many of these interviews are about the female submissive behavior that director Voros is so fascinated by.

Kink serves almost as a pro-sex primer into the world of female sexuality, BDSM, and porn.  It is practically made to tear down the sex-negative and objectification-negative aspects of some tenets of feminism.  Kink wants to show you that it is OK for women to own their sexuality and to willingly submit to men or women if that's what they really and truly want to do.  Whether it succeeds in these lofty goals is hard for me to judge, as I have always supported women in owning their sexuality and being able to act like men without the repercussions that women who act like men generally face.  But, what it does succeed in doing is being a great advertisement for Kink.com.

Final note, to those that were wondering, yes there is hardcore sexuality featured in this documentary.  There is full frontal nudity (male and female), some penetration, toys, and explicit kink in fair amounts.  If you are not able to handle homosexual sex, kinky sex, female nudity, male nudity, or graphic depictions of non-romanticized sexuality, this movie is not for you.

Fasinatingly, the only still of five in the press kit that has a woman as a submissive is the one shown below the break.  The other four stills are male submissive, and only one of those is male submissive in an explicitly femdom scene.

Ed's note: As of 8/16/2013, I believe that Kink has not found a distributor.  It is not a poorly made documentary, and should probably be seen by many people.  I believe that it's explicit content is what is keeping Kink from finding a theatrical, or even a VOD/streaming distribution.  Kink's official website seems to have been created exclusively for Sundance festival, and maintained through Sundance.  I saw the film at SIFF in 2013.