Rating: *
Review Date: 10/8/13
Cast: Debbie Collins, Jamie Orlando, Toni Parllee
Ah yes, the good old 1970's... Remember when sex and nudity were considered "progressive" filmmaking? "Sexcula" holds the bizarre distinction of being the first and only government funded Canadian porno film, which makes my brain melt just thinking about it. How did this ever come about? Anyway, the ridiculous plot concerns a young woman finding an ancestral diary with enough freaky stuff in it to "curl your pubes." Ahem. The diary chronicles the work of a certain Dr. Fallatingstein (Jamie Orlando), who is attempting to create a sex slave to satisfy her carnal cravings. He's perfect in every way, except that he has no sexual drive and can't get an erection. After several frustrating failures, the good doctor finally decides to call on her sister, the Countess Sexcula (Debbie Collins), for help. In the doctor's words, she's "a specialist in erotic techniques, or basically a hooker." From here, it becomes an increasingly nonsensical collection of erotic set pieces, including a mute hunchback named Orgie, a dancing gorilla, a sex robot, and a completely confusing visit to the set of porno film, which makes the entire production look like two completely different movies spliced together. After all of this craziness, the film abruptly ends on a ridiculous philosophical note as the doctor's creation smugly says "but it wasn't love" and walks off-stage.
Not surprisingly, the production values are wretched and look no better than a badly lit home movie. The writing is appalling and the acting is dreadful. Jamie Orlando is pretty and Debbie Collins appears to be having fun with the material, hamming it up to good effect and frequently breaking the fourth wall. As you would expect from the time period, the sex scenes are mostly just badly lit, unattractive naked bodies grinding together, with an occasional glimpse of genitalia. Not artful or tasteful at all, and with the exception of a couple of Toni Parllee's scenes, not particularly erotic. The entire point of the film eludes me, and there aren't enough drugs in the world to make sense of its outrageous plot and seemingly random direction. More than anything it reminded me of Russ Meyer's psychedelic romp, "Wild Gals Of The Naked West" (1962). Definitely only for genre fans of sleaze and sexploitation.