|
Madame Le Fanu and the swingers, "les anges impuissants se damneraient pour moi!" Morbid statuary and a blues performance by a leonine Johnny Shines adorn the art-gallery opening, where inane come-ons and faddish babble ("Whoa, that's sort of frightening..." "I get a lot of sensual energy from it!") give a brisk sketch of trendy Angelinos about to have their erotic mischief tested by a century-old bloodsucker. The meathead (Michael Blodgett) and the belle (Sherry Miles) stranded in the Mojave desert, rescued by the chic temptress (Celeste Yarnall) with the dune buggy and Spanish colonial manse. The place is equipped with objets d'art and a beloved's corpse in the nearby graveyard, plus a veiled portal to introduce a triangular voyeuristic element to the languid couplings and overlapping dreams. "Why fight the animal in you," purrs the vulturette to Blodgett, as Stephanie Rothman's coolly distanced camera cuts to a serpent slithering toward the sunbathing Miles. (The affable punchline-frisson involves venom sucked out of a quivering thigh.) A humid, elegant reworking of the vampire myth as a direct challenge to the limits of a "liberated" couple, concurrent with Daughters of Darkness and The Blood Spattered Bride. The Sapphic angle is discreet but Magritte is at once recognized in the oneiric apparatus (brass bed, sand, mirror), the Antonioni of Red Desert figures markedly in the décor. The bus ride back to the city brushes up ever so slightly against Murnau, the peculiarly affecting climax has one heroine vanquishing another with harebrained hippies and souvenir-stand crucifixes. "You evil-hearted woman, you're gonna blow my mind," Shines eulogizes. With Gene Shane, Jerry Daniels, Sandy Ward, and Robert Tessier.
--- Fernando F. Croce |