Der Fluch der schwarzen Schwestern

Plot synopsis:
Two young women, Helga Borich [Marie Forså] and Monika Tarnek [Ulrike Butz], one or both of whom
may be a direct descendent of Baroness Dania Varga who was burned as a
vampire and witch in the 17th century, have arrived at Castle Varga. They
are met by the housekeeper, Fraulein Wanda Krock [Nadia Henkowa], and several of her
staff, all of whom are dressed in long, matronly, black dresses.
After getting settled in their rooms, Helga, Monika, and Monika's
girlfriend are taken to see a portrait of the Baroness, who is a
dead-ringer for Monika. As a storm brews outside, two travelers -- Dr
Julia Malenko [Anke Syring], an anthropologist studying the local superstitions, and her
brother Peter [Nico Wolf] -- knock on the castle door. They are having car trouble and
need shelter for the night. During the night, the guests are awakened by
the sound of chanting and bongo drums, which seems to bring out the libido
in everyone within earshot. Julia begins to suspect that something is
wrong and makes her brother wear a cross made out of garlic cloves. Julia
is wearing one just like it.The next morning, Julia recounts the story about Baroness Dania being
burned as a vampire witch during the 17th century. Legend has is that,
because she died without being staked, her spirit is waiting around to
take over a body and return to life. As the day proceeds, Peter and Helga
appear to be falling in love, much to the displeasure of Julia, who
harbors incestuous feelings for her brother. That night, as the chanting
and bongos begin again, Helga can barely stand the libido rising in her
body. Meanwhile, Wanda is thinking that Julia knows too much. When Wanda
attempts to mesmerize Julia, however, Julia lifts her garlic cross and
breaks Wanda's spell. That night, the chanting and bongos again affect
Helga, but this time Wanda tells Helga that she must get Peter's cross in
order to make "the throbbing" stop.The next morning, Julia warns Peter that there is something going on
at the castle that she doesn't quite understand but that it could lead to
their destruction if they don't leave, but Peter doesn't want to go unless
Helga goes with him. When Helga calls him to her room and pleads with him
to help her because her body, soul, and mind are being destroyed, Peter
removes the garlic cross from around his neck and places it on Helga. When
Wanda sees the cross around Helga's neck, she grabs a poker, lifts the
necklace over Helga's head, tosses it in the fire, and smiles. Now there
is nothing standing in her way. She admits to Julia, who is beginning to
figure it out (having written a book about the Vargas), that Wanda and her
black sisters, are actually priestesses of Baroness Dania and that they
are planning for a mating between one of the sisters and a male descendent
of Dania's line, an event that can only happen once every nine years
during a particular phase of the moon -- the night of the Vampire. Wanda
also tells Julia that she and her brother are descendents of the traitor
Donnashova[sp?] who fingered Baroness Dania. Fortunately, one of her
priestesses scooped up her ashes, and they have been been keeping Dania
"alive" for these past 300 years.Now Julia is really concerned. She tries to talk with Monika, but
Monika is "asleep" and Julia cannot awaken her, so Julia goes looking for
her brother. As the sun sets, Monika wakes up and orders her friend, who
is now her renfield, to bathe and dress her. When prepared, Monika and her
renfield head for the dungeon where the priestesses, along with Peter and
Helga, are ready to perform the ceremony. Wanda kisses Monika, which
apparently passes Dania's spirit into Monika's body. Monika/Dania
indicates that she wants to drink Helga's blood. Meanwhile, Julia is still
searching for her brother when she is attacked by bats who manage to rip
off her clothes. Fortunately, Julia is able to hold on to her cross, and
she uses it to chase away the bats.The next morning, Peter returns to his bedroom to find Julia asleep
in his bed. Julia tells him that she believes the vampire was reawakened
last night. Peter chastizes her for believing those "old wives' tales".
After breakfast, Peter, Helga, and Julia go for a walk, during which Julia
finally convinces Peter to leave with her. They spend the day traipsing
through the forest, but by nightfall they find themselves back at the
castle, where they are greeted by Monika/Dania, who plans to drink Julia's
blood and watch her die on a stake. It's not going to be easy because that
garlic cross Julia wears is pretty powerful, so she sends Peter to seduce
Julia and make her take off the cross. However, Julia notices that Peter
is not wearing his cross and concludes that Peter is acting under the
Baroness's power. Julia uses her cross to ward him off.Plan two is to make Peter strangle Julia, but Julia manages to ward
him off again. Later, Julia goes looking for Peter who, by now, is in the
dungeon making love to and having his blood drunk by Monika/Dania. Julia
is chased back to her room by two of the priestesses. A few hours later,
Peter comes to Julia's room with no memory of where he's been or what he's
been doing. She puts him to bed and places her garlic cross around his
neck. When the priestesses begin to chant, Julia is unprotected and
succumbs to their mesmerism. Fortunately, Peter is able to hold Julia back
with the cross and prevent her from going to them.Plan three is to send Helga to Peter with the message that, if the
Baroness can't have Julia, she'll take Helga instead. When Helga runs off
to join the Baroness, Peter grabs Julia and they follow Helga. She leads
them to an altar in the forest, where a stake has been erected. As Helga
nears the stake, Julia shouts, "No!" Monika/Dania releases Helga and turns
to Julia, biting her neck and drinking her blood. In her weakened state,
Julia stumbles near the altar. As Monika/Dania keeps drinking, Julia
breaks off the tip of the stake. She falls to the ground, the Baroness
zooms down on her, and Julia impales her on the stake."At last, they are free," Julia says, as she watches the priestesses
walk off in shock, "and the Baroness, at long last, is at rest." [Original Synopsis by bj_kuehl.]

Tags: pornographic, cruelty, sadist

Review:
Sounds like a natural -- a 70s female vampire opus from 60s erotica master Joseph Sarno.
First of all, Sarno's favoured technique is to build up tension between characters using short dialogue scenes -- but here, the thick German accents and stiff acting render the script unfathomable.
Nonetheless, Sarno fans will be amused by the recycling of his favourite tropes (candles, bongo drums, ceremonial chants and dances, carnal compulsion and betrayal), and vampiric completists may be amused by his idiosyncratic and more realistic take on bloodlust conventions.
Well the story is a little hard to follow the first time, but that's only because of all the bare breasted '70s painted-up vampire/witches dancing to the bongo drums.
This masterpiece of lesbian horror comes from exploitation master Joseph W.Sarno.It features plenty of soft core sex,really hot lesbian sequences plus a lot of naked women.The acting is pretty good and the film is quite atmospheric and well-made.Marie Forsa is one of the hottest chicks I have ever seen in a horror movie-it's a visual pleasure to see her wonderful body.Sarno really knows how to pick up hot looking ladies.A must see for fans of sexploitation!.
One of Joe Sarno's best films--for what ever that's worth.
Joe Sarno has never quite achieved the respect or notoriety of other sex/genre directors like Jess Franco or Russ Meyer largely because he was a very workman-like director without a really distinctive style of his own.
However, unlike Franco, who only made movies in Europe, or Meyer, who only made movies in America, Sarno was able to go back and forth across the Atlantic making low-budget classics like "Sin in the Suburbs" in the US and "Inga" and "Young Playthings" in Europe.
In America he helped discover several bra popping ingénues like Uschi Digart, Marsha Jordan, and Audrey Landers while in Sweden he discovered some truly impressive beauties like Marie Lillejahl, Christine Lindberg, and the star of this picture, Maria Forse.Forse, the only Swede in an otherwise German cast, plays a schoolgirl who is lured with her friend to a remote castle as part of some plot by a coven of witches/vampires to snare a brother and sister in order that they can resurrect the siblings' ancestor, a long dead witch (or something like that).
The plot really isn't that important though--this is another European film where the producers apparently had access to an old castle and some actresses willing to disrobe so they decided to make a movie.
If you want to see a pure Sarno sex film I'd recommend either the arty but barely legal (if that) Swedish film "Inga" or the godawful American bored housewife romp "Pleasures of Woman" (which Retroseduction also recently released on DVD-- along with a shot-by-shot "remake" with their in-house silicone cyborg girls just in case you want to watch it twice).
Pick your poison.Next to the very hard-to-find "Young Playthings", this is probably Sarno's best film though--for whatever that's worth.
First of all, even though I like to think of myself that I know a little something about 70's euro-exploitation and its most prolific contributors, I never heard about Joseph W.
Secondly, and even worse, just when you think to have found a new source for obscure cult movies, that director's most famous and supposed "masterpiece" turns out to be an irredeemably dull and irritating film.
Admittedly, lesbian vampire movies form a pretty insignificant sub genre as a whole, but some of them bath in ominous atmosphere and curious sensuality (like José Larraz' "Vampyres" or Harry Kümmel's "Daughters of Darkness").
Joseph Sarno's film has nothing to offer, except copious amounts of gratuitous nudity and even that becomes boring rather quickly.
Her loyal disciples still throw naked dance parties in the castle's catacombs, which are lit by penis-shaped candlesAUCH, and hope to resurrect the baroness any time soon now.
Please do yourself a favor: no matter how desperately you strive to see all lurid lesbian-vampire movies of the 70's, this one isn't worth a penny!
Der Flutch der Schwarzen Schwestern (called by it's UK release title The Devil's Plaything, on my copy)is an experiment in eroto horror that never really takes off.What plot there is to be had involves the spirit of a vampiric baroness whom has been kept alive by her cult of attendants, so as to possess the body of a young woman and be reborn.
Once resurrected, she can continue her bloodlust eternally, provided she drinks the blood of the descendants of her executioners.The stilted dialogue and even worse acting make the storyline damned hard to follow (worsened by a very poor audio mix and no subtitles).It's pretty evident the plot is a wash about 15 minutes in, and had there been enough half clothed starlets, all would've been forgiven.Instead there's random cut scenes of naked girls dancing to bongos(while wearing body paint reminiscent of extras from Laugh In), lots of spell induced heavy breathing in sheer nighties(resembling those shampoo as orgasm Herbal Essences commercials) and a weird incest subplot, with the girls being fairly below par overall (The castle's housekeeper/leader of the cult is probably the worst of the lot, looking like a man in drag in most camera angles) This movie is fence sitting between the two genres, and it's lack of commitment to either is what makes it a lot less interesting than it could've been.
Yet another sapphic blood cult's on the loose in an old castle as the female descendants of a sixteenth-century vampire get together to receive their sanguine inheritance.
There's also a brother & sister whose car break down, a Mrs. Danvers-type housekeeper, garlic crosses, puncture wounds on the neck, and other familiar horror trope in this CARMILLA-esque yarn that's short on hetero coupling and long on lesbianism and incest.
Sarno borrowed Mario Bava's colored lights as well as the plot of BLACK Sunday (more-or-less) to spotlight a castle full of T&A, mostly from a naked coven, and even has a woman getting her clothes torn off by bats.
A lot of women who may not be able to convince you of their characters motivation, but seem to be able to convince others to obey them (through singing as is suggested and their bare bodies).I wonder if some thought: who needs Viagra, when you can chant and make people horny just like that.
I mean it get eerie from time to time, but this puts the Horror mantle on to let you watch a soft-core movie and not feel bad about it.
A group of young travellers converge on a remote German castle where the occupants try to resurrect a centuries old vampiress by using a descendant as the host for her spirit.As written and directed by prolific adult film maker Joseph W.
Sarno, The Devil's Plaything unsurprisingly suffers from a dreadful plot and crap performances, and delivers loads of (unexplicit) nudity and sex, opening as it means to go on with a protracted naked lesbian hippy Satanic ritual in which the participants are felt up by their leader.
Sadly, as the film progresses, and the story becomes harder to follow (not helped by the strong accents of its mostly German cast), the repetitive scenes of gyrating naked women actually become extremely boring, even when they introduce multi-coloured penis-shaped candles into the mix.More nudity and random sexual acts are provided by the castle's young guests, including a couple having a roll in the hay, and a woman satisfying herself with a candle (NOT penis shaped, but it still does the trick).
Vampire Ecstasy (1973) * (out of 4)The beautiful Helga (Marie Forsa) arrives at a mysterious castle with a dark past and soon she is being seduced by the lesbian vampire (Nadia Henkowa) who was put to death four-hundred years earlier.Director Joseph W.
Sarno made a handful of films in Germany and this here is one of them.
It's also known as VEIL OF BLOOD, THE DEVIL'S PLAYTHING and several other titles and it's also available in a shorter 85-minute version as well as the 104-minute version, which is what I watched.There are all sorts of problems with this film and the running time is certainly the major one.
Whenever a film is this slow and boring an extended running time is never what you want to see and sadly this film really does seem like it's longer than THE GODFATHER trilogy.
Obviously there a lesbian cult looking for new members but the scenes never add up to anything and they just last too long.Another problem is that the pacing is awful and I can't help but think the shorter version must have played better.
Forsa would appear in a couple other Sarno pictures and she's certainly the best thing about the film and keeps it from being a BOMB.
The film offers up plenty of softcore sex and lots of beautiful women but even this grows boring after a while.
The castle does look beautiful and the locations are also terrific to look at but overall this film is really bad..
I've enjoyed all the films of Joseph Sarno, that I've seen and I suppose the most attractive common denominator in the US ones is the normalcy.
There are some decent scenes and much nudity but this is no great shakes as a vampire movie - we don't even get a bloody bite till over an hour in - instead there are the constant comings and goings of the coven, sorry vampire lair, and just occasional scenes of visceral action..
THE DEVIL'S PLAYTHING is my second attempt at a Joseph Sarno production - and although I will say it is far more enjoyable than the painfully dull and unerotic Swedish WILDCATS, it is still a little slow and un-explicit for my taste.This one centers around a group of vampire girls who live in a castle, that want to resurrect their previously murdered "leader".
In order to do so, the girls have to dance around naked and kiss each other and chant weird stuff - and of course drink some blood, too.
When a doctor and her brother's car breaks down and they have to stop at the castle for lodging - they provide the ideal bloodbank for the horny vampires...but they may not be as helpless as they seem...THE DEVIL'S PLAYTHING is a pretty good example of early 70's exploit sleaze.
Lots of nudity - including some full-frontal, some sleazy undertones - including incest and of course, lesbo-bloodsucking...but these scenes are still pretty tame by today's standards.
Also would have benefited from some heavier violence/gore, being that it IS a vampire film, but I think the purpose of THE DEVIL'S PLAYTHING was more to showcase skin, not blood.
Worth a look to exploit fans - others may find it a little too dull for their liking.
Sarno's Lip-smacking Lesbian Vampires Lack Conviction.
Making his way back to home soil following the extended Scandinavian sojourn that yielded the landmark likes of INGA and DADDY, DARLING, Joe Sarno got sidetracked into the Swiss alps by distributor Chris Nebe who had made a mint dubbing and distributing several of the director's '60s sexploitation efforts in German-speaking countries and was now looking to branch out into production.
Their association, which was to last the course of three films (BABY LOVE and BUTTERFLY being the other two), got off to a less than fortuitous start with VEIL OF BLOOD which clearly adhered more to Nebe's notion of naughtiness, informed by Hammer's sexy streak of lesbian vampire sagas with the Karnstein trilogy and his access to a 12th Century Munich mansion owned by his uncle, the Baron Malsen.
Fortunately, both follow-ups played much more to his great strengths as a filmmaker which were the psychology of sex and the often inadmissible motivations that drive a character's attraction to another person.
VEIL only really swings into gear when focused on the unhealthy desire between brother and sister Peter and Julia Malenkow, brought to a head by innocent interloper Helga, played by the magnificent Marie Forsa making her dirty movie debut.A proverbial wild child prowling the streets of Stockholm when they met, this Swedish siren served as Sarno's true inspiration for the triumvirate in which she was to take center stage.
Her work for Sarno holds additional interest for American audiences to hear her deliver her own dialog as by means of experiment to facilitate export these movies were shot with the predominantly German cast speaking English.
This proves something of a drawback in the case of VEIL however as its dense plot requires reams of plot exposition, most of it delivered with fluctuating intelligibility by Hungarian Nadja Henkowa as Frau Wanda Krock, the sinister housekeeper at Castle Varga, the ancestral home of an evil Baroness (Elisabeth Batory in all but name) burned at the stake four centuries ago.
Brother Peter (bland hunk Nico Wolferstetter, an occasional hardcore performer in Lasse Braun's landmark SENSATIONS) in tow, she's dead set on getting to the bottom of the strange goings on at Castle Varga, starting with that infernal bongo beat rising from the basement every night as the bare nekkid Wanda leads her band of boob and butt shaking Baroness worshipers in a rudimentary introduction to belly dancing and bouts of feverish penis-shaped candle fondling, a spectacle even Sarno couldn't save from ridicule.
Even the vaunted vampire aspect alluded to in all of the movie's many titles is almost casually discarded with only the Malenkows clutching their "garlic crosses" a clear reference to bloodsucker lore, as sure a sign as any Sarno was definitely operating outside his comfort zone.
The Swedish gal (Helga) was what made this movie so great.
You also got to love the major hoaky scene where the bats stripped her nekkid; I don't know if I've ever seen anything more ludicrous yet sexy at the same time.
Because there is a good story around the naked rituals and sex scenes.
Of course, I wish that they had some vampire effects which they had at the time period and the sex did get in the way of the story a little.
Plus some of the accents were hard to understand at time periods, but it's worth watching the unedited version then the edited up version which is titled THE DEVIL'S PLAYTHING.
But if you don't care for allot of naked women dancing and having sex, then this isn't the movie for you.
She promised to return one day, and it appears that time has come.Hungarian actress Nadja Henkowa plays Frau Wanda Krock, the housekeeper, who bears a passing resemblance to singer/songwriter PJ Harvey.
Her transformation from seemingly 'innocent' to something far more provocative is well played.Everything you need for a typical Euro-horror is here – much stilted acting, bare-breasted erotica, unconvincing day-for-night shots and a genuine crumbling castle set in spacious, beautiful locations.
Sarno, who began his pioneering work in the sexploitation genre in 1961 with 'Nude in Charcoal', before venturing into more explicit territory.The story is regularly padded out/interrupted/enlivened (the choice is yours) with lingering sex scenes of varied persuasion.
The physical and mental connection between vampire-like curses and sensuality has always been a selling point, and is portrayed quite explicitly and very effectively here.
Although it could be argued that the whole venture is just an excuse for lots of heaving breasts and softcore activity, and that the performances (from a cast who are not speaking in their native tongues) are typically 'Euro trashy', this is a powerful meeting of sexuality and dark rituals - complete with phallus-shaped candles and a tribal drum-beat that will stay with you long after the film has ended!.
To be as honest as I possibly can, The Devil's Plaything (or Veil of Blood or Vampire Ecstasy or The Curse of the Black Sisters or) is a complete bore.
The movie has a good premise behind it  the resurrection of a long dead vampire through the body of a descendant through the aid and assistance of a group of women dressed in black  but the execution is horrible.
Most of the acting involves a group of below average looking women dancing naked while staring at the camera.
And what little plot there is seems to be designed to get more of these less than attractive women naked so they can join in the dancing.
While it's not as bad or pointless as the dancing or the plot in something like Orgy of the Dead, it comes close..
Joe Sarno ventures into the horror genre with decidedly mixed results.
Sarno takes a stab at the vampire horror genre, but alas falls a little short of the mark due to his fumbling inability to craft much in the way of spooky Gothic atmosphere.
Fortunately, Sarno does succeed quite well in giving this picture a substantial erotic charge thanks to the pleasing plethora of hot women dancing and cavorting in the buff, gals masturbating with huge phallic candles, sizzling soft-core copulation, equally scorching lesbianism, and the inspired idea of presenting stuffy occult expert Julia Malenkow (a decent performance by the slender and attractive Anke Syring) as a repressed lady with forbidden incestuous longings for her brother.
While not one of Sarno's better movies, this flawed outing nonetheless still delivers the satisfying seamy goods and hence qualifies as perfectly acceptable grindhouse fare..
I agree with many: some of the actresses who spend a lot of time topless and (go-go) dancing are not really that attractive.
The acting was pretty stale, also, though delivering lines in a second language might have accounted for a lot of that problem.
I do heartily agree with one other comment: for a vampire movie, there's not much blood.
Yep, if you want GOOD bloodsucking flicks, check out such Hammer classics as "Horror of Dracula" and (my personal favourite) "Brides of Dracula".The most (unintentionally) humorous part is where the lady doctor gets her clothes torn off by a cloud of bats...which you never SEE!...the bats, I mean.Okay as a time-waster if you happen to catch it on cable here in the Great White North but, for heaven's sake, don't rent it!