The Devil's Plaything
a.k.a. Vampire Ecstasy / Der Fluch der schwarzen Schwestern / Veil of Blood
1973 · Directed by Joseph W. Sarno · Sweden / Switzerland / West Germany
The Devil’s Plaything (1973) is a eurosleaze vampire film from Joseph W. Sarno. It’s as if Sarno had watched Rollin and Franco and decided their films weren’t filled with enough sexy vampires for his liking, and turned it up to 11. There is groovy naked dancing to a hypnotic bongo beat that casts a spell over the uninitiated. Housekeeper and high priestess Wanda wanders the castle with dark eyes and flaring nostrils.
There is a plot about descendants of a vampire, Baroness Varga, burnt at the stake for her unholy goings-on. This is all secondary, though, and soon strangers Helga and Peter are literally rolling in the hay, and Monika is falling under the spell of Baroness Varga’s portrait. Julia, an anthropologist who has studied local superstitions, clutches her crucifix of cloves in a bid to keep from falling under the power of the vampyric-worshipping servants of evil.
“I believe the spirit of Baroness Varga walks this corridor,” Julia says to Helga, who seems unable to satiate her own burning desires. Ulrike Butz as Monika goes from innocence to darkly captivating when fully possessed by Baroness Varga; with her black hair and red lips, she feasts on the spellbound victims.
The Devil’s Plaything is a notable contemporary of Rollin’s early-70s films, and sits comfortably alongside Jess Franco’s Vampyros Lesbos (1971) and José Ramón Larraz’s Vampyres (1975) in the erotic vampire canon.
