A preliminary pick-me-up before the sometimes hard-to-see action in the long buried Canadian hardcore spoof SEXCULA.


in Canadian theaters, writer Rob- ert Fulford famously attacked the project in the pages of SATURDAY NIGHT magazine. His article, “You Should Know How Bad this Movie Is: You Paid for It,” lamented that the picture was partially bankrolled by the tax payer funded Canadian Film Development Corporation. It is a good thing that Fulford was unaware of John Holbrook’s SEXCULA (1974), a hardcore hor- ror yarn the CFDC was also in- volved with, which is infinitely worse. As it turned out, practically no one was familiar with SEX- CULA, which was never commer- cially released prior to this DVD incarnation almost four decades after it was shot.


When a young couple (Debbie Collins and David F. Hurry) in- vade the broken-down remains of a mansion, they run across an old book detailing the life of Count- ess Sexcula (also Collins), which we see in flashback. A sort of su- pernatural prostitute, Sexcula was enlisted by Dr. Fellatingstein (Jamie Orlando) to help awaken the dormant erotic desires of his male creation, Frank (John


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Alexander). When her obvious charms fail to elicit the desired reaction, Sexcula tries harvesting the sexual essence of more will- ing and able males in order to transplant them into the disinter- ested Frank. Meanwhile, hunch- backed assistant Orgie (Tim Lowery) repeatedly tries to get it on with a willing sex robot (Marie McLeod), but is always inter- rupted, once by a man in a dime- store gorilla suit who apparently proceeds to rape him. We say “ap- parently” because this is one of several scenes that unfold with inadequate illumination. Leaving aside the logic of making a hardcore film in a coun- try where such things could not be legally exhibited at the time, SEXCULA displays bad judgment in virtually every aspect of its cre- ation. Holbrook (credited as “Bob Hollowich”) appears to have run into all manner of problems with the film and did not end up with a complete feature. This is evi- denced by a 26m sequence around the midpoint consisting of a porn movie crew filming a wed- ding that quickly turns into an


orgy. Never mind that SEXCULA was a period production up to that point; the footage has nothing at all to do with the rest of the pic- ture and looks to have been left over from another project. It does provide some of the raunchiest material, however, and portions of it show up again to pad the final minutes. Produced for less than C$100,000, SEXCULA has sev- eral cast members playing more than one role, but this likely had less to do with artistic inspiration and more to do with a lack of will- ing candidates. Collins is appeal- ing and most of the cast is at least moderately attractive, but the sex is monotonous and the disjointed storyline and unfunny humor grate on one’s nerves. Holbrook went on to a long career as a camera op- erator and occasional cinematog- rapher on major movies like SHADOW OF THE HAWK (1976) and FIRST BLOOD (1982), re- vealing that he learned much about lighting and film exposure settings in the years that followed his work on the sometimes-pitch- black SEXCULA.


Following a disastrous pre- miere screening (where most of the guests were not informed in advance of the explicit content), the picture was shelved and only still exists because producer Clarence Neufeld (who acts in the film as “Clarence Frog”) submitted a print to the National Archives of Canada at the time of production. He was more recently able to lo- cate a second print, thought lost years earlier, which evidently served as the basis for this video transfer. Aside from being referenced in the only slightly more widely-seen com- edy OVERNIGHT (1986), SEXCULA was little more than an inside joke amongst Canadian film industry personnel for many years. Thanks to the efforts of several people, notably CANUXPLOITATION website creator Paul Corupe, the film finally made its way on to DVD in 2013.


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