The Black Room

Plot synopsis:
Larry [Jimmy Stathis] thinks it's a dream come true when he rents an exotic "fantasy
room" in a mansion in the Hollywood Hills for only $200 a month. He uses
it for his trysts with various women and then goes home at night to tell
his wife Robin [Clara Perryman] all about them. Robin doesn't believe a word of it, but she
does like how Larry's fantasies are having a stimulating effect on their
lovelife, which is too often interrupted by the demands of their two
children, Mark [Edwin Avedissian] and Jenny [Allisun Kale].Larry's landlords, Jason [Stephen Knight] and Bridget [ Cassandra Gaviola], are brother and sister. Jason
has a blood disorder called thalassemia aka Cooley's anemia. Bridget helps
Jason to find victims whose blood they exsanguinate and transfuse into
Jason when he starts having one of his spells, which are becoming more and
more frequent. They also take great delight in peeking through the one-way
mirror and photographing Larry and his activities in the black room. After
a few weeks, Larry and Bridget start playing together, too.Everything is going along smoothly until Robin borrows Larry's car to
do some shopping and comes upon both the ad and the keys for the black
room. Shaken in her realization that Larry has been telling the truth,
Robin makes a copy of the key and goes snooping. The room is real enough,
and when she happens upon Jason, he shows her pictures of Larry and his
sex partners as proof. Robin is horrified and stays to watch Larry the
next time he brings one of his girls (Lisa [Charlie Young]) to the room.Jason suggests that Robin join in her husband's game and bring her
own lovers to the room. Mostly out of revenge but also curiosity, Robin
invites Lisa's boyfriend Terry [Christopher McDonald]. While they have sex, Larry watches through
the mirror and does a slow burn. Later that evening, after they have
returned home, Larry gives Robin an ultimatum...him or the room. Robin
needs some time alone, so she leaves the kids with Larry and goes to the
room to think.Meanwhile, Bridget and Jason have lured Terry and Lisa to the room
and fed them wine laced with knock-out drops. They carry their bodies down
to the lab and proceed to drain them of their blood. When Robin arrives,
she drinks some of the drugged wine and passes out. Larry calls their
babysitter Milly [Linnea Quigley] to stay with the kids, and then he drives to the mansion.
When he arrives, Jason chloroforms him and chains him in the black room
with Robin. Bridget telephones Milly and tells her to bring the kids and
join Robin and Larry. When Milly arrives, Bridget lures the kids out to
the garden while Jason takes Milly down to the lab.Jason then returns to the black room where Robin and Larry are
chained together. When he releases the chains to prepare Robin for
exsanguination, Larry suddenly leaps up and strangles Jason with a chain.
Larry then releases Robin and goes looking for the kids. He finds Milly in
the lab but, before he can release her, Bridget locks the lab door.
Robin wakes up and twists a coathanger into a point. When she
encounters Bridget, she jabs the point into Bridget's neck. Robin releases
Larry from the lab, and they go looking for the kids. They find them
asleep on the couch and take them out to the car. Then they remember
Milly, and Larry goes back to get her. Meanwhile, Jason has come to
consciousness. He tries to attack Larry, but Larry stabs him in the
stomach and drowns him in a bathtub of blood. Larry carries Milly out to
the car and, after having some trouble getting the car to start, the five
of them drive away.Meanwhile, inside the mansion, Jason and Bridget both revive. A few
days later, an ad appears in the newspaper for an exotic "fantasy room" in
a mansion in the Hollywood Hills for only $200 a month. [Original Synopsis by bj_kuehl]

Tags: pornographic, murder

Review:
A special film that works despite budget limitations.
The Black Room turned out to be an engrossing semi-masterpiece.
I was expecting mundane from this forgotten  horror, but what I saw was more kinky, twisted and sick than I'd imagined.
Something about the acting, the script , the directing or everything was different than other films.
It also has the most graffically depicted blood transfusions I've ever seen.
They were painstakingly slow over these shots.
I had to turn away....gallons of blood...
It's a shame Clara Perryman didn't do much after this film.
She was excellent and made the troubled relationship with her and Jim Stathis {also great} possibly more interesting than the horror elements.
Linnea Quigley plays a small role as the babysitter.
She says maybe 5 words..
Don't date anyone in the Black Room.
A man rents a room a brother & sister so he can have extramarital affairs away from his own house, however his landlords are draining the blood from everyone who enters the room.An extremely dark and original take on the vampire genre.
Set in the modern day (1981 when it was made) unlike many vampire movies of the time, the setting does give it much more credibility than its Gothic counterparts.
The draining sequences are very dramatic, no fangs here but a massive machine which pumps out the blood into some very gory scenes.
The performances are a lot better than you might think, the 4 leads are surprisingly good as is most of the supporting cast.
The second half of the movie is great, tension mounts very well, the pace improves and the last 10-15mins are superb and quite scary at times.
The film does have a couple of issues though, in the first half pacing is quite sluggish, as the set up sequences to key scenes take an age and at times fail at keeping the viewers attention, editing is also quite strange at the beginning (although that could just have been the copy I watched 1983 UK VHS).Overall a very good surprising watch, if you enjoy weird fairly gory horror there should be plenty for you to enjoy here.
Interestingly this quite rare horror was put onto the DPP's section 3 list here in the UK (meaning the police could seize it from the shelves), a real shame as this well made little horror didn't deserve the negative attention it got..
Amusing and steamy.
Larry, a dashing family man, decides he needs some escapism in his life and rents a room to fulfill his darkest fantasies.
The room he finds is within a Hollywood Hills mansion and is decorated seductively in black with lots of candles and drink.
His doting wife goes along with the fantasy, but what she doesn't know (if you can believe it) is that the lurid tales of prozzies and pickups he's ravished in the room are actually true.
And what Larry doesn't know is that the kooky siblings from whom he rents the "black room" are after blood and not his rent!
This is a quirky and unique low-budget film that delivers in some areas.
It manages to go from creepy to sizzling hot to awkwardly funny from scene to scene.
The acting is excellent for a low budget-80s film, especially by the four relatively unknown leads.
Jimmy Stathis (Larry) manages to pull off loving father and husband in some scenes and complete sleazeball in others.
He's a character that is difficult to root for (and even watch at times), but thankfully he isn't the only protagonist in the film.
His wife (played by the fantastic Clara Perryman) smiles and laughs along with Larry's kinky fantasies that don't involve her, which is an aspect of the story that comes across as silly considering she knows that he really does have this "black room." But once the story gets going and she becomes more involved with the plot, it's easy to get past this.
The demented landlord sibs steal every scene they're in.
Stephen Knight is believably lecherous and Cassandra Gava is both sexy and insane as his caretaker and BDSM-loving sister.
The atmosphere, especially in the titular room, is eerie and alluring.
The score is inventive and one of the movie's high points.
So while some of the plot premises are a bit brow-raising, and the horror in the film didn't seem to fully lift off, this is an original and steamy genre movie in which I found enough things to enjoy.
Look for Christopher McDonald and Linnea Quigley in small roles..
Damn, those good old days.
This movie is something weird.
This movie is something weird.
It is made in 84, full slasher period.
But this isn't a slasher, I even don't know were to place it.
Face it, the first minutes all you see is nudity.
Due the fact that it is an OOP it is even harder to see it unless you live over here in Europe were it became available as an freebee on the Bloodstained Romance DVD, but even that one is a hard to get already.
So I thought, is this a soft erotic flick or what, because the cover is a nude girl looking towards a camera.
After a while when a person hire a room, the black one, to cheat on his wife it becomes clear what it's all about, but again, first you will have to watch a nude girl dancing and doing weird stuff.
It's when the tenant brings his first hooker with him that the film changes into a horror flick.
Once his wife gets to know what the black room is it changes a bit into a revenge (sexual) movie.
Again, weird scene's are shown, the score is creepy too and more and more you will get to know the why and who about the brother and sister hiring the black room.
At the end you will be surprised again about the brother and sister...weird story, strange editing, creepy score ( a lot of delay on voices...).
but the other reason why people want to see it is because Linnea Quigley is in it, but she's only 5 minutes in it and stays dressed.
Still, worth watching..
Vampiric blood transfusion..
The titular Black Room is the room where some of the darkest sexual fantasies are brought to life.It's candle-lit and secretly hidden in the mansion of doom.Brother and sister Jason and Brigette rent it for sexually adventurous people.Unfortunately Jason has a rare blood disease and he needs fresh blood transfusions in order to stay alive.The murderous duo kills most of the people who rent the Black Room and drain them of their blood.Their next victims are going to be Larry and Robin-a married couple with two kids."The Black Room" is an erotic and suitably dark horror film with some nudity and graphic gore including Bridgette's neck stabbing by Robin in the finale.Linnea Quigley has a small cameo as a babysitter.8 blood transfusions out of 10..
An effectively creepy and perverse low-budget 80's horror vampire sleeper.
Sleazy and bored hubby Larry (well played by Jimmy Stathis) ain't too happy with his marriage to his neglected wife Robin (a fine and touching performance by Clara Perryman).
Larry decides to rent a creepy black room in a swanky Hollywood Hills mansion from the strange Jason (muscular Stephen Knight) and his equally odd, but alluring sister Bridget (the strikingly lovely and exotic Cassandra Gaviola) in order to put some much-needed pizazz back into his dreary love life.
Larry uses the room to have sex with young ladies.
Unbeknownst to Larry, Jason in turn drains the young women of their blood and shoots up their precious life fluid with a needle.
Ably directed by Elly Kenner and Norman Thaddeus Vane (the latter also wrote and directed the strictly so-so "Frightmare"), with solid acting from the entire cast (Linnea Quigley has a nifty small role as a near victim babysitter towards the end of the movie), a compellingly bizarre and twisted story, a genuinely spooky atmosphere, several aberrant touches (Jason and Bridget like to spy on Larry as he's doing just what you think with the girls he picks up), and a harrowing conclusion, this pleasingly offbeat, inspired and unjustly overlooked low-budget horror sleeper deserves to be both better known and more widely seen by fans of enjoyably deviant outré cinema..
Disappointing, dull and almost unwatchable.
"The Black Room" is an incredibly bad and dull film without much going for it.**SPOILERS**Finding a new apartment, Larry, (Jimmy Stathis) decides to buy it and turn it into a bachelor pad, hiding it from Robin, (Clara Perryman) his wife.
When landlords Jason, (Stephen Knight) and Bridget, (Cassandra Gava) question him on the purchase, he uses it as a place to sleep with a multitude of women hitchhikers he picks up.
When she hears about the place, she doesn't think much of the stories and think it's just a bunch of stories.
Soon afterward, a series of strange disappearances plague the women who have visited the place, but they ignore it and decide to focus on their marriage and continue on with bringing people over to visit.
Finally realizing that the landlords are murdering the women who visit as a means to acquire blood for transfusions to fix his blood-disease, they try to stop them before it's too late.The Good News: There's hardly anything worthwhile about this one.
The fact that the film's lone action scene in the middle of the film comes from a rather nice chase scene is to be commended, as there's a couple good things about it.
The fact that it's a rather energetic scene with the different characters going out after it through the woods, and it makes for an effective atmosphere.
The sleaze factor here is also rather nice, with the way it manages to create an icky feeling with the relationship it creates with them, as well as the general fact of what they're doing offering up some rather nice sleaze.
The last bit in here that works is the film's nicely done climax, which is where the main action occurs.
From the chase through the house to the different stalk-and-slash tactics used, it offers up some interest.
Further helping it is the film's only real gore scenes, which aren't much to talk about but at least it offers up something.
These here are all that work for the film.The Bad News: This is a terribly dull and completely worthless horror entry.
The fact that there's hardly any horror at all in the film is the biggest and most damaging prospect, effectively making it so dull and lifeless that the film does almost nothing at all during it's running time.
The fact that it rests so much on it's relationships rather than it's horror is where it falls foul, making them the central point when they aren't that good or exciting to begin with.
The sibling angle is so lamely done it's still up in the air at the end of the film, as it seems to incorporate aspects of both a brother-sister bond as well as an incestuous air between them in certain scenes.
The other angle with the marriage-on-the-rocks story is not that much better, full of never-ending scenes that are purely not that scary at all.
That's the film's biggest problem, nothing in here is considered scary, and here, what happens between them is exactly that, not that great at providing anything to counter the boredom these non-horror sequences create.
None of them are there for the best of what makes the film entertaining or interesting, and just make the film incredibly dull to sit through.
The amount of time spent on those angles are nothing worthwhile at all, providing no scenes of value and just continuing a storyline that isn't all to concerned with horror aspects at all.
That also means that we don't get anything remotely close to the horror genre until the end, with only a mildly interesting chase scene to provide the goods until then.
The scares are missing, the gore is non-existent until the end, and the kills are relegated to simply being just the scenes of the victim being drained of blood.
It leaves such a bad aftertaste that there's almost no need for it.
Even the fact that it's a sleazy-feeling film is neutered by the fact that it's only in one scene, and despite all the different scenes in here that provided opportunity to do so, it doesn't offer anything up, making the film even more of a cheat and providing even more flaws to hate against it.The Final Verdict: An unbearably slow and dull film that barely has anything worthwhile, or even remotely horror-based about it.
It should really be avoided at all costs unless this sort of sleazy thriller is appealing, but for any other sort of style this one should be ignored and forgotten.Rated R: Graphic Language, Violence, Nudity, several sex scenes and drug use.
Pretty twisted Horror film, that has a few good moments here and there, with some creepy Blood transfusion scenes, however it's just too dull for it's own good.
Pretty twisted Horror film, that has a few good moments here and there, with some creepy Blood transfusion scenes, however it's just too dull for it's own good.
All the characters are OK, and the story while had a lot of potential is rather dull, however the blood transfusion scenes looked frighteningly real, and as a result they were extremely disturbing.
It's well made and decently written, and it started out really interesting, but it just couldn't keep up the pace, plus I found the ending to be disappointing.
Linnea Quigley has no more then a very small role in this so, I was also disappointed about that, and Stephen Knight does a good job as the lead, as he was pretty twisted, plus I got this in a DVD Horror set called A Taste Of Evil, along with a bunch of other Horror films.
There is lots of blood,however it's not all that gory, and for it's low budget it was pretty well done, however as I said it just couldn't sustain it's interest.
This is a pretty twisted Horror film, that has a few good moments here and there, with some creepy blood transfusion scenes, however it's just too dull for it's own good, I would pass,but I guess it's worth a watch if you have nothing better to do.
The Direction is OK.
Elly Kenner&Norman Thaddeus Vane do an OK job here with decent camera work, and doing a good job on it's low budget, however the pace is too inconsistent for my liking.
The Acting is actually alright.
Stephen Knight is great as the lead, he was creepy, twisted, sick, and gave a very creepy performance, the most creepy thing about it though was he seemed like a normal person.
Linnea Quigley did well in her small role.
Christopher McDonald is OK I guess sin his short time.
Rest of the cast are OK as well.
Overall I would pass, but I guess it's worth a watch if you have nothing absolutely better to do.