We Are The Night (2010)

Directed by Dennis Gansel
Starring Karoline Hefurth, Nina Ross, Jennifer Ulrich, Anna Fischer
Not Rated
Germany 

“People fall apart so easily.”

Like me, you may be saying to yourself, “Just how many more fuckin' vampire movies can my overtaxed brain and strained eyeballs endure?” Well, the answer is at least one more.

Three sexy German vampires – one clearly still stuck in the 1920's, one a bubbly party girl, and the Ingrid Pitt-y leader of their cursed clan – lay siege to a jet on is way to Paris, draining passengers and stewardesses alike before tearing open a side-door and free-falling through the air.

Cue opening credits, as well as heightened expectations. With this decade's glut of tweenage vamps, it feels like a minor miracle to land on a bloodsucker epic with a novel approach to the well-worn subject.

Anyway, we then meet a scruffy, tomboy sneak-thief, Lena, who narrowly avoids getting popped by a good-guy cop named Tom before fucking off to a cavernous underground disco for a dance party hosted by – you guessed it – the toothsome trio. Head vamp Louise akes a shining to her – she's pretty sure Lena is her soul(less) mate – so she bites her.

It takes a good 15 or so minutes of meat-sucking and pimp killing, but eventually, after some kind of ceremonial bath, Lena accepts her fate. Also, they finally start dressing her like a girl, which is nice.

While all this is going on, Tom-the-cop is busy investigating a series of brutal crimes. Are they related to the vamps? Probably. They own a lot of sweet stuff. Like crazy-expensive cars. Louise gives Lena a Lamborghini and then takes them all shopping for diamond-encrusted  watches and whatnots. While browsing the aisles, Lena gets the skinny – they can eat people food for fun, fuck all they want without getting pregnant, do as many drugs as they want without getting hooked and drink their heads off without hangovers. Also, they killed all the boy vampires because they didn't want anyone telling them what to do.

So that's their trip, basically. Undead party girls. They're all terrible dancers, though. You think you' d figure that out after a couple hundred years.

Here's the problem, though. Turns out Lena's not into chicks, which really throws a monkey wrench into Louise's romantic plans. Also, Lena feels nostalgic and goes home to hug her mom and grab some stuff, and runs into Tom. He's fairly certain she's up to antics of some kind. Also, he's sorta into her. She  feels the same way. Too bad she's undead. They have coffee and exchange cute banter while Louise spies on them while hanging upside down on a building like Spiderman, quietly seething. Lena senses her lesbianic pal in the shadows and splits.

Later on, the girls have an impromptu pool party and end up snuffing a couple security guards. Up to this point, Lena was apparently unaware that they kill people for all that  blood she's been guzzling. She runs off and leaves Tom a message. He's on the case. Next thing you know, dozens of cops are storming the vamps' hotel!

Three of the girls barely escape in a hail of gunfire and deadly sun rays – one of 'em isn't quite so lucky – so they decide it high time they got the fuck out of Germany. The plan is to go wreak some havoc in Moscow, but with all the ill-will in their ranks, will they make it? Will they even live to see another sunset? And can Lena find love with a human cops now that she's an immortal monster?

Maybe. Seems unlikely, though.

I gotta tell you, I was pretty surprised by this one. It's flashy, fast-moving, and witty, and the girls are gorgeous. Not exactly ground-breaking stuff, but definitely worth a look.

- Ken McIntyre 

2069: A Sex Odyssey (1974)

Directed by Georg Tressler
Starrign Nina Frederik, Catharina Conti, Heidrun Hankammer
Rated R
Germany

"Did you bring back samples of the seed?"
"I tried, but I was so surprised, I swallowed it."

The world of German 70's sexploitation is still largely unknown outside of Europe, so when a Teutonic titty-flick does manage to wash ashore, it's always cause for a vigorous...erm...examination. 2069: A Sex Odyssey (AKA Ach Jodel Mir Noch Einen) actually played in US drive-ins in the late 1970's, and later popped up on late-nite premium cable in the 1980's, so it's probably the most well-known of the German/Bavarian jigglers. This version - released several years back by Retro-Seduction - is five minutes shorter than the Euro cut, and sloppily dubbed in English, but these minor annoyances do not detract from this film's goofy charms.

So, a bunch of hot German chicks dressed in tight silver spacesuits and Astro Zombies helmets swoop down onto a remote ski resort to drain the local male populace of their sperm. You guessed it, they have come from Venus, where all sexy, horny galaxy- girls are from, to breed with Earth men and repopulate their planet. Now, I am totally willing to go along with this premise. No sperm at home, you gotta go out and get some. But why land on a nearly empty mountaintop? There's only half a dozen men in the entire village, and all of 'em have big crusty moustaches!

So, they're not too bright, these space chicks. They run around the tiny town stealing people's clothes and assuming their identities - cop, nun, um...ski instructor, etc.

I think this is mostly so they can eat up screen time with stunts, like an out-of-control motorcycle ride through the town square (it's so obviously a dude on the bike that it becomes an unintentional laugh riot) or a not-so high speed sled vs. skis run down the mountain. The nun manages to lure a few guys to the spaceship, where they have tubes clamped to their crotches and get a "gallon" of goo extracted from their balls. When they complain to the space-nun that they have nothing to arouse them, she takes off her clothes and lets them out of their shackles, but instead of fucking her, they just walk out. And that's the whole scene.

Significantly, that's pretty much the only time in the film when guys don't take the opportunity to manhandle the space-girlies. Almost every sex scene is a pseudo-rape, and even though they're all brief and not very graphic, the forced-entry vibe sucks all the erotic potential out of the scenes. And so, you are left with the comedy. I mentioned that this film is German, right?
There's a climactic riot in the beer hall while an oompah band plays, just in case you were thinking, "This movie sounds like it needs an oompah band scene". It also has a senseless ending that's so treacly, two of my teeth fell out while the end credits rolled.

Listen, this is no Wham Bam Thank You Spaceman, or even Nude On the Moon, but still, you'll have fun with this. The spacesuits and silver-glitter make-up are retro-licious, and there's a boner-popping lesbo scene near the end that's almost worth the tedium of the first hour. Almost.

And I mentioned the Oompah band, right?

- Ken McIntyre

Six Swedes on a Pump (1980)

AKA
Six Swedes on a Campus
High Test Girls
Swedish Erotic Sexations
Swedish Gas Pump Girls
Swedish Sex Service
Secxhs Schwedinnen von der Tansktelle
Rated X
Germany
Shop for this poster!

I should say right off that I am hopelessly confused about what I've just seen. The English title on the opening credits reads Six Swedes on a Campus. Although there are most definitely six Swedes involved, there is no campus. They actually run a gas station. They're not really Swedish, either, but that's a minor quibble. There's another film in this series called Six Swedes on a Pump, which makes more sense. There is a pump here. So I'm defying the title on my copy. It doesn't matter, though. Six Swedes on a Pump/Campus is like bowling. You don't need to know anything about the sport to bowl, all you need to do is stick your fingers in the holes, and you're bowling. Same thing here. It would probably help if you knew anything about Swedish girls or German films or campuses or pumps, but if you don't, you'll still get it.

This title, as well as the other titles in the series, all star the incomparable Brigitte Lahaie, a baby-faced French actress who started her career in pornography, and was still making XXX films when she shot this softcore romp. She later crossed over into mainstream acting, but is most well-known for wall-to-wall jiggle-fests like this one. She plays Greta here, one of the six Swedish girls running a filling station in a tiny German burg. It is clear from the beginning, however, that this is no ordinary service station.

Six Swedes on a Pump 0pens with a woman absent-mindedly masturbating while she watches a weather report about a tropical report in Cuba. So that's a good sign.
A few minutes later, some guy shows up for some gas. She slips her panties back on and runs out to fill his tank.
"You really know how to handle that pump," he says.
"Well," she says, "I've had a lot of practice."
She asks the dude if we wants to come inside for refreshments. He agrees and, once they get inside, she strips all her clothes off.
"Don't you want to?" She asks. He does. And so they do. The newscasters on the TV report on the action and fondle each other while the couple bang away on the couch. It's pretty fuckin' crazy.

There is no plot to this film, but there is a slight storyline. The grumpy mayor wants the Swedish girls ousted, because he thinks they're affecting the "moral fabric" of his town. To tackle this thorny issue, he calls for an endless series of meetings with his councilmen. The gag is that there's always one councilman missing from the meeting - a different one every time. Guess where they all are? That's right, all the councilmen are banging the mayor's scrumptious wife (Jane Baker) while he's bloviating about the goddamn Swedish girls.

Meanwhile, when they're not fucking the mayor's wife, all the men in town are at the filling station, having extremely casual sex with the Swedish six. And in the very few instances when there are no men around, the women are still carrying on like Scandinavian Caligulas. At one point, they all sit around watching a black and white porn movie. In it, Santa Claus gives a woman a giant wooden fucking machine. She likes it, and it gives them the idea to rig a stationary bicycle with...well, you get the point. They certainly got the point. The television continues to sexually interact with them, as well. It is almost as if the Swedish girls are trapped in some genital-bothering Purgatory. Even when they go out for some exercise, it takes a turn for the erotic. Halfway through an innocent jog through the forest, they suddenly feel the need to disrobe and run naked. Naked and in slow motion. This goes on for something like seven minutes straight.

Halfway through, you start to ponder. How necessary is it, really, to show six Swedish girls running naked, in slow motion, through the forest?

Well, I've watched this scene three times already, so, pretty fuckin' necessary, it seems.

The ceiling of the mayor's mansion is cracked. This is because his employees are having athletic sex with his wife in their upstairs bedroom. He has other theories, of course, but regardless of how the cracks got there, he thinks it's too dangerous for the town's marching band to practice in his mansion, and proposes that they move their rehearsal space to the Swedish filling station. They do. And so, as decreed by the Euro sex comedy handbook, tuba gags and a flustered conductor soon follow.

The original running time for Six Swedes on a Pump is 85 minutes; the US theatrical version is 75 minutes. The copy I have is 64 minutes. Somewhere out there is a print that actually makes some sort of sense, but this one clearly isn't it. Still, even in this chopped and diced form, Six Swedes piles on enough nudity and crazed softcore humping to keep any T&A fan happy. A jumbled mess for sure, but a well-made one. The crystal clear camerawork, eyeball-abusing angles, odd bursts of surrealism, and comic-book edits suggest a Euro Russ Meyer, minus the double-d obsession. Swiss-born director Erwin Deitrich was already a battle-hardened exploitation film vet at this point, having produced everything from Nazisploitation (She Devils of the SS, 1973) to women in prison potboilers (Barbed Wire Dolls, 1975) and even a faux-Ilsa movie ( Ilsa, the Wicked Warden, 1977). Most of his directorial efforts, however, were softcore quickies like this one. All those Swedish girls must have worn him out, however, since this was the last film he directed.

There is practically no end to the amount of goofball sex comedies produced in Europe during the genre's golden age in the 70's and 80's, and since most were chopped, dubbed, remixed, retitled, and distributed all over the world with very little thought or care beyond a quick cash-grab, figuring out what, exactly, you are watching can be a lesson in futility. Still, these films always deliver what they promise - breathtaking scenery, buffoons in beards falling down flights of stairs, and an eyeful of some of the most gorgeous creatures imaginable, flaunting their feminine charms without an ounce of shame. And on that criteria, Six Swedes on a Pump/Campus/Tuba is an absolute winner.

And, did I mention Brigitte Lahaie is naked in it at least half the time?

Availability: Region 2 DVDs of the Six Swedes series are available, but most lack English subtitles. Non-Europeans will have better luck trolling around the internet until you stumble on a dubbed copy. Try some sleazy Turkish or Indian porn forums. You can find all kinds of crazy stuff on those.

-Ken McIntyre

Link: Brigitte Lahaie's blog (in French, naturally)