“Who wants to see a porno?” blurts out Cody Cook, seemingly at random, to a confused audience.
It’s near midnight at the Globe Theatre, where Cody and Greg Sonier are presenting another winning entry in their popular Night Terrors series of films. (This time, it’s Maniac, 1980.) Cody and Greg are answering questions about upcoming screenings, when Cody decides to surprise everybody, including Greg. “Who wants to see a porno?” I can see the surprise in Greg’s face, but he recovers quickly, and admits that, ‘Yes, Night Terrors has acquired a raunchy ’70s sex flick on 35mm film, and, uh … do you guys wanna see it?”
The audience (who has not come here for porno) thinks about it for a moment, and then cheers. It is decided. The next show at Night Terrors will be Voluptuous Vixens (1972)! What’s that? You’ve never heard of it? Don’t worry; neither had Cody and Greg, until they lucked into finding a cheap print.
“Greg and I bought the print a few years ago on eBay for really cheap.” explains Cody.
Greg elaborates. “We had no real intentions of screening it to the public, we just thought it would be a cool thing to have in our collection and that maybe in the future we could do something with it.”
They watched the film, laughed their heads off, and forgot about it, until Cody let the cat out of the bag.
So what the hell is Voluptuous Vixens? “It’s a 1972 Swiss/German co-production, directed by Erwin C. Dietrich, who was one of Jess Franco’s producers from 1975-78 or something like that,” Greg says.
“It’s more of a comedy than a porno!” says Cody. “It really goes for the laughs, and most of them are genuinely funny. It’s also softcore, so there isn’t any real extreme sex or anything like that in it. Think of it as a ’70s sexploitation film.”
Greg adds, “It’s certainly been influenced by those German ‘Girlschool Report’ films that were popular at the time. A well-stacked sex ed teacher tells her students to go out and discover things for themselves.”
This being a Night Terrors event, the midnight screening of Voluptuous Vixens will be preceded by a bunch of crazy 35mm movie trailers and several prize giveaways.
“The prizes from this event will come from TransCanada Adult Video! There will also be some prizes from our other sponsors, Video Game Traders and Calgary VHS Tape Swap,” enthuses Cody.
Greg says that he’s “not sure” about what’s inside the TransCanada Adult Video prize bags, but he’s been assured that each one will have a retail value of somewhere around $150. Yowza! Plus, the gang has printed up official “trading cards” based on the original Voluptuous Vixens poster, free for the first 25 patrons to come to the show on Friday.
Night Terrors Film Society will present Voluptuous Vixens for one night only, Friday, Aug. 24th at 11:55 p.m. at the Globe. The event is 18+ only, and will be fully licensed. Tickets are $10 cash only at the door.
John Tebbutt is the Video Vulture. He has been writing about obscure and ridiculous cinema since 1997. You can keep up with his nonsense on his website, Facebook, Twitter and through episodes of a program he’s doing with NUTV.
