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CREATURE
FEATURE
Out of a
strange sense of full disclosure, I must say that film maker Don Glut is
a friend of mine. As a matter of fact, I introduced the extras on his
DVD "Countess Dracula's Orgy of Blood." That being said I was delighted
to watch and review his latest film, "Blood Scarab!"
In his
latest and certainly best film to date, Don Glut has skillfully combined
the vampire and mummy mythologies to the entertainment benefit of the
viewer. We first meet that loving couple, Dracula (Tony Clay) and
Countess Elizabeth Bathory (Monique Parent). It seems that after
draining and bathing in the blood of about 300 virgins, The Countess
decided there must be a better way to maintain her youthful beauty and
that was by becoming a vampire at the fangs of Dracula himself. This
was, of course, a marriage of convenience, which becomes obvious when
Drac bites the dust with little regret from anyone … except for Renfield.
While the
lovely Professor Foran (Brinke Stevens) finds that her mummy has
disappeared … again, Elizabeth has a scheme to make a deal with an
Egyptian goddess, through the missing mummy, to allow her to exist in
sunlight! Once the plan is hatched, Elizabeth, Renfield, the Mummy,
along with our goddess, frolic across the screen in a totally
entertaining and very beautiful romp.
I was
particularly impressed with Renfield (Del Howison). Don has dialed back
the naked female on female contact, while still providing a host of
beautiful bare breasts. In it's place he has provided a lot of humor
provided by Renfield. Actually he is the thread that ties the story
together as caretaker for both Dracula and Elizabeth. I actually found
myself laughing out loud many times and enjoying it!
The
production values are very good with photography under the direction of
Roberto Correa and the mummy looks wonderful thanks to John Carl
Buechler. There's a fine score by Terry Huud and you'll also be thrilled
with a slew of great new songs by Lucan Wolf place prominently
throughout the film.
The DVD
includes a ton of extras such as commentary tracks by Don and several of
his stars, a "Making Of..." documentary, the Trailer, Deleted Scenes and
a slew of fascinating interviews done by my fellow horror hosts Laslo
and Demonica of “Graveyard Theatre”!!!
"Blood
Scarab" is a hot, funny, sexy film you'll want to sink your teeth into!
You can
purchase the DVD from Amazon.com by clicking on the cover image above,
or you can go directly to www.FrontLineFilms.com where it will cost you
$20 plus $3 shipping/handling.
Reviewed
by “Count Gore DeVol” (AKA Dick Dyszel)
SYNERGY MAGAZINE
Blood Scarab opens with a nice tongue in cheek horror introduction, we
get a quick hstorical overview of the life of Countess Elizabeth Bathory
and then we are told the rest is speculation. This sets the stage for a
rip roaring romp through every possible horror motif from Hammer Horror
to scenes reminiscent of the Adam’s Family, from “Vampire Lovers” like
lesbian scenes to homage’s to classic Hollywood Egypt and Mummy films.
It is funny, witty, superbly made and above all, lots of fun.
It seems that the Countess Bathory, one of the great beauties of She
bathed in the blood of virgins to stay young but was having trouble
finding the necessary “stock” to keep her bath filled and hence went on
search to discover a more economical way to stay young. She found her
answer in an alliance with Count Dracula. Together they now live in a
castle in Los Angeles and somehow they have settled into a sort of
Addams Family/Mnsters type lifestyle. However, things are not all that
happy, Mrs.Dracula finds herself rather bored and wants to return to the
good old days of the Bathories, of which she has lots of fond memories.
These memory sequences are especially impressive with lots of sex, blood
and eroticism, they are very nicely done as indeed is the inematography
throughout the whole of blood Scarab. Disaster strikes as Dracula has
been a little too pre-occupied with young girl flesh and while watching
his next intended victims, Tanya and Mina, he loses track of time (Renfield
being too occupied with bug catching), and is destroyed in classic style
by the rising sun. This time Bathory has had enough, he has been killed
once too often! She is now freed from Dracula cramping her style and
decides it is time to whoop it up.
There are lots of great scenes of lesbian love, blood drinking and more.
Indeed it should be said the lesbian love scenes are highly charged,
combined with evocative music, great lighting and superior filming. The
soundtrack throughout the film is also superb ranging from classic
horror soundtracks to Goth rock and pop.
With a lot of partying and feeding to make up for she is rather annoyed
at being only able to feed during the night. She also is a bit wary that
Renfield will screw up again, this time on her watch, and that she will
end up as “sun dust”. So she sets Renfield on the task of discovering
the means to achieve immortality during the day. This leads to a great
intersection between vampires, mummies and Egyptian occultism. What a
combination!!! It seems the 3000 year-old Mummy of Hor-Shep-Sut has
walked out of a local museum and is actually the shell of an ancient
lesbian sorceress from Egypt. This leads to a great Egyptian flashback
with all the pomp one would expect from an Egyptian Hollywood scene. It
ends with a rather nasty embalming for Hor-She-Sut for seducing the
Pharoahs daughter. After a rather feisty love scene, she is captured,
locked in a funerary mask and her heart pulled out and stuffed in a
Canopic Jar, her body is left in an unmarked coffin.
A secret ritual unfolds with Renfield at his doddering best, Hor-She-Sut
explains to Bathory how she can become immortal in the sunlight.
However, as one might expect, two major Goddesses are going to have some
girl problems! As Bathory becomes a daywalker and Blood Goddess, Hathor
steps in for a bitch fight. This is a great scene – vampire versus
mummy, Goddess vs. undead. The climax is suitably fun as Renfield
realizes that since crucifixes don’t work then maybe the sacred Egyptian
Scarab will and he despatches his evil mistress back to her grave. Blood
Scarab is cracking entertainment.
It combines vampires, lesbians, beauty
addicts, mummies and Egyptian Goddesses in a way which is a omage to the
old world of Hammer Horror and classic Hollywood cinema. It includes
motifs and images from so many films, all mixed together in a new and
vital way to keep you chuckling, amused and entertained for every second
of the
film.
The cinematography is excellent; the special effects are cheesy but of
high quality and the sets are amazing.This may be a moderate budget film
but it has been made to look top notch and is a joy to watch. The music,
mood and texture of the film is great, the actors are all superb ranging
from the cackling Renfield to the various menagerie of barely clothed
woman. This is a film you will enjoy again and again, it has everything
you need – sex, gore, lesbian love, vampires, mummies, fantasy, Egyptian
Gods and more. It is also packed with special features including a
commentary track with director Donald F. Glut and stars Monique T.
Parent, Del Howison and Natasha Diakova. An original trailer, a
comprehensive making of documentary, deleted dancing handmaidens scene,
a heatrical
premiere video, interviews, Graveyard Theatre Stars, the Harvey and Bob
Show Review, Countess Dracula and Mummy's Kiss Archives and six still
galleries.
Reviewed by Bob Black
FAMOUS MONSTERS OF FILMLAND
Perhaps best known for writing the novel of Star Wars: The Empire
Strikes Back, writer, director, screenwriter, musician, special FX man,
prop builder, and actor, Donald Glut continues to feed his passion for
making amateur movies in his latest project, BLOOD SCARAB. As one of the
original "sci-fi boys," Glut lived and breathed horror and science
fiction. His efforts gained him much publicity in the original Famous
Monsters of Filmland magazines during its time. Today he returns to us
in the new era of Famous Monsters.
BLOOD SCARAB, produced by Dan Golden and directed by Donald Glut, is
Frontline Entertainment's sequel to their Countess Dracula and Mummy's
Kiss series. Starring Monique T. Parent, Blood Scarab tells the tale of
Countess Elizabeth Bathory, the infamous vampire who bathed in the blood
of virgins to preserve her youth, in her quest for survival in daylight.
Her motivation: her husband Count Dracula (accurately hounded as Vlad)
has just fallen victim to the sunlight, and she too nearly suffered a
similar encounter. Committed to serving now Countess Elizabeth, Renfield
(of the long line of Transylvanian Renfields, not to be confused with
Marty Renfield of the Long Island Renfields) discovers a method via the
"mummy's kiss" for his mistress to walk in the daylight. Their hunt
leads them to steal the mummified body of Hor-Shep-Sut (Hmmm … that’s a
mouthful) which will allow her to contact Hathor, the Egyptian blood
goddess and sister of Ra, (cousin to Courtney, mother to Bolinda…oh
sorry, wrong movie). Consumed by her newfound ability, the Countess
attempts to dispose of the loyal Renfield and defies Hathor. The
Countess and the Mummy engage in an all out battle of the boobs.
Anyone familiar with the old Hammer horror films will immediately
recognize BLOOD SCARAB. Donald Glut pays homage to these old films by
revisiting the legend (created in the last 37 years) of the "Blood
Countess" from the 1971 Hammer horror COUNTESS DRACULA and in addition,
merges her character with another one of our favorite genre monsters,
the Mummy with boobs.
Glut takes the film to a new level. You know the level you wanted to see
when you were 12 watching Creature Features and the two vampire chicks
are almost naked cat calling the other? Get your mind out of the “Glut-ter”.
The bloodshed is plentiful throughout the movie (and so are the boobs)
to keep the audience in suspense. Glut spares no details
for the Virgins in this film…We’ll that’s some acting aye? Where you
gonna find virgins in Hollywood?
The mummy suit created by special FX man John Buechler. Although the
mummy suit is not up to par with today's The Mummy franchise costume,
this had Boobs…are you getting the picture? Well you can on DVD.
Reviewed by Phil Kim
OBSCURE HORROR
Countess Bathory is looking for some new blood and with the death of her
husband, Count Dracula, she’s got a taste for something new. Using her
servant Renfield to help her, she teams with an Egyptian mummy to gain
immortality. But after he gets dumped to the side, Renfield seeks a
higher power to fight the countess. It’ll be a super power fight to the
death!
Overall: I think Donald Glut definitely has improved the product here
from his 2 franchises which created the film: Countess Dracula films and
the Mummy’s Kiss series. He’s merged the two franchises such that
Monique Parent can shine as the Countess. She looks stunningly beautiful
here and easily looks gorgeous in her outfit. The other ladies do an
admirable job as we await the battle between the Mummy and the Countess.
Very enjoyable film.
Reviewed by Rich Wolf
PULPMOVIES
It can always be a dangerous move for a
filmmaker to include familiar characters in their movie. By doing so,
you immediately set audience expectations as to how the characters will
behave and, if they defy those expectations without sufficient
explanation, events will ring less true than they should.
In the case of Blood Scarab, writer/director
Donald F. Glut unites Countess Elizabeth Bathory – who was notorious for
bathing in the blood of virgins to retain her youth – and Count Dracula.
Also in the mix are Dracula’s assistant, Renfield and a 3000 year old
Mummy with a habit of reanimating itself and wandering off.
Bathory (Monique Parent) has left
Transylvania and arrived at the modern day Los Angeles castle of Count
Dracula (Tony Clay), her vampire husband, with the intention of taking
control of the property.
Dracula, meanwhile, is about to discover
that his lechery will finally be his undoing. While watching a pair of
potential victims – Tanya (Cindy Pucci) and Mina (Natasha Diakova) - he
loses all track of time and fails to notice the lateness (earliness) of
the hour until he realises that the sun is about to rise. Renfield (Del
Howison) fails to get his master home in time and Dracula comes to the
inevitable fiery end.
The Countess Bathory shares with her former
husband an inability to tear herself away from the sight of nubile flesh
and, fearing an end similar to that of Dracula, instructs Renfield to
find a way for her to survive in the daylight. Although fearful of his
life at the hands of a mistress that so obviously despises him, Renfield
begins to research the problem. Conveniently enough, his investigations
lead him to the local history museum and our wandering Mummy which he
and the Countess need to locate in order to put Bathory’s wishes into
effect…
I have to admit that I found Blood Scarab to
be a bit of a mixed bag. There are certainly some good ideas in here
and, if you enjoy seeing your gothic horror wrapped up in plenty of
female flesh, there is plenty here to enjoy. The vampires are
effectively realised – more so with the Countess than with Dracula – and
the effects are never less than competent. Indeed, there were a couple
of cases where I was very impressed with the effects achieved –
especially when you take the size of the budget into account - and the
Mummy itself was superbly brought to life.
It was a bit jarring, however, to hear both
Dracula and Bathory talking – and often behaving – like modern day
Californians. This probably wouldn’t have been too much of a problem,
however, if I’d been able to fully buy into the character of Renfield.
Although Del Howison put in a pretty good
performance, his character was undermined by a combination of the plot
requirements imposed by the script and my own expectation of how any
character called Renfield should behave. In short, I tend to assume that
any character with this name is going to treat us to a display of
bug-eating insanity and, although the film acknowledges this, the plot
also needs him to remain lucid enough to drive the story forward. This
left the film with a character that was a little too contradictory for
me to really buy into. As a result, I was unable to suspend my disbelief
as far as I really needed to.
On a slightly more minor point, you really
do need to do more with a character called Mina when you make a film
with Dracula in it.
However, to focus on these gripes is to miss
the point of the film which is to reveal – both physically and
figuratively – the lesbian depravity of the vampire Countess. To this
end, Blood Scarab really is Monique Parent’s film and she clearly had a
lot of fun bringing the Satanically sexy Elizabeth Bathory to the
screen. She is both a stunning and a stunningly beautiful actress who
delivers a great performance that brings both energy and eroticism to
the events.
Ultimately, Blood Scarab is an homage to the sort of films that Hammer
started making in the early 1970s and how you respond to it will depend
on how you felt about these films the first time around. If you watched
the likes of The Vampire Lovers, Lust for a Vampire and Twins of Evil
and desperately wanted to see what was happening just outside of the
frame, then this really is the film for you.
Reviewed by Paul Pritchard |