The Devil’s Plaything (1973) (aka Vampire Ecstasy)

What the hell?......no really what the hell? I’m still trying to make some sense out of this movie. The plot is pretty simple but so buried under lesbian sex scenes and nudity that it’s very easy to lose track of just what is going on here.

A group of travelers arrive at a castle in Germany. Why I’m not quite certain but the castle is the residence of a long dead vampire known as the Baroness. The castle is run by the somewhat manly Wanda (Nadia Henkowa). Wanda and her “staff” spend their nights in the bowels of the castle, half naked and jiggling their breasts to the beat of conga drums while performing some type of satanic ritual. The rituals cause the guests to get rather horny and naked. Wanda turns out to be a vampire servant to the Baroness and has kept her spirit alive. She targets one of the guests as a vessel for the spirit of the Baroness and one by one recruits the other guests until her task is complete. Of course the only way to do this is to turn all the women into horny naked vampires. Like I said, a pretty simple plot is it not? Well it was pretty hard to discern amongst the horrible dialog, chop shop editing and lack of any kind of direction whatsoever. It there hadn’t been a copious amount of nudity and lesbian sex scenes, this movie would have been a complete waste of time. 

Three playthings and the devil.....no the devil is not the man-thing with the tie.

 

Now for giggles the writers threw in an incest sub plot with two characters. Nico (Peter Malenkow) and his sister/cousin (the relationship wasn’t explained well or either I missed it entirely) who happens to be an expert in the occult. So there’s a lot of almost grouping and kissing between two especially at night when the vampires are dealing out their hip beat in the basement. In the end, the reborn vampire Baroness is quickly disposed of with a stake in the heart and signals the only bit of blood letting in the entire film.

The Devil’s Plaything was a disappointment in just about every facet of the genres it tried to play towards. The eroticism was low. You just can’t throw a bunch of naked chics on the screen, have them dance around in the basement with penis shaped candles and call it erotic. The execution was poorly done. The vampire story line was pretty weak and the violence was anything but. All in all a huge fail but one of those movies you have to see at least once to get a good chuckle out of it.