Dracula Exotica (1980)
*** (out of 4)
Count Dracula (Jamie Gillis) forces himself on a woman (Samantha Fox) who in return kills herself. Flash-forward to the current times and Dracula is now in America where he sees a woman (also played by Fox) who reminds him of his long-lost love so he goes after her. Dracula EXOTICA wasn't the first porn version to feature the classic monster but it's certainly a good film and I think a strong argument could be made that it's one of the better Dracula movies from this period. It's certainly much better than the previous year's Frank Langella version. There's a lot of good things going with this film and a lot of credit has to go to director Shaun Costello who manages to keep the film moving at an extremely good pace and best of all is how he's able to mix the hardcore sex with the regular story. I was shocked to see how much plot was actually here and I was even more shocked to see how well-made this film was. It actually looks extremely good and this is especially true in regards to the costumes and sets. Another major plus is that the performances are actually good with Gillis doing an extremely nice job in the role of Dracula. I will admit that I'm not sure what he's going for with the accent but I'm not going to fault him or the film too much for this. Fox is good in her supporting roles and we get a very energetic Vanessa del Rio and a young Ron Jeremy. The film mixes the sex and horror elements quite nicely but the director takes it a step further with some comedy that works at times. The film even crosses the line of del Rio's dead body being molested and raped inside the mortuary. If you think that's weird it gets even worse during one scene where a father molests his daughter (in a dress, with a sucker and piggy tales), which is just rather disturbing to say the least. At nearly 100-minutes the film does run a bit too long but there's no question that the film has a lot going for it.
