Mistress of Seduction (2000) Online

The curtain has fallen on Seduction Cinema and its early 21st Century spate of lesbian videos, so this early example, made independently in Michigan, is barely of historical value. I'm guessing future film buffs will wonder what all the fuss was about, including the supposed cult following for now-has-been "Misty Mundae".

But MISTRESS OF SEDUCTION does not boast any of the New Jersey superstars, all wannabes trying to emulate Warhol's instant superstars of the '60s. Instead we have a motley group of femmes, headed by a talented actress Alysabeth Clements, whose cohorts make her haughty, Tallulah Bankhead-level performance seem out of place amongst folks who can barely recite lines.

Clements stars as Vampirina or "Allie", daughter of Dracula, out for revenge against the vampire hunter (reincarnated as Wayne State college student John) who destroyed her dad. She's been a lesbian for at least 900 years and preys on co-eds, with a coterie of lesbian slaves under her control.

Laced with unfunny and dated attempts at humor, the video is like most Seduction Cinema assembly line efforts (those made in New Jersey with Darian Caine, Mundae, etc. topping the casts) as a thin storyline used to facilitate various soft-core lesbian scenes. Writer-director Michele Pacitto includes many of these sex scenes randomly, including a couple which precede the actual story unfolding. Only topless nudity is shown, and the level of licking, nipple worship and french kissing is so tame that the DVD had to feature various warnings about content to mislead potential viewers into thinking this was "hot stuff".

Worst performance is by Josh Dirmish as Pat, a roommate of John's who gets angry and leaves, making way for Clements to muscle in as new and irritating roommate. Josh's line readings are unbelievably bad. Trying way too hard is the third roommate Matt played by Justiz Donaldson, who presents a cliché rather than a character, a young man whose goal in life is to become an on-air presenter on a fictionalized Home Shopping Network cable channel.

Many of the girls in the cast are pretty, but are there merely to partially disrobe and sort of simulate sex with each other. Most prominent among these is Clements' nemesis Corina (untalented "Gentle Fritz" - poor choice of stage name) whose role is mainly to set up a sequel potential in the hurried and confusing final reel.

Special effects are uninteresting, and the gore/blood is token, except for a rather unpleasant scene of Michelle Tebow as Tanya, a slave who Clements discards rather callously, throwing up blood in a toilet after exposure to the sun. Clements wanders around in the daytime, with the lame explanation that she has had a millennium to get used to the ill effects of sunlight on a vampire. Not exactly adding anything to the legend or lore.