Brooklyn Lee In “Voracious”: Porn Vampires We Like

Brooklyn Lee makes getting eternally fucked a good thing.

Shot in Malibu, Budapest, and Berlin, "Voracious" stars Brooklyn Lee as a vampiress who has problems with self control; she almost makes a vampire out of civilian Manuel Ferrara, and then wishes she could be turned mortal again just to be with him. The pair must reckon with debauched priest Steve Holmes, Vampire Clan leader Omar Galanti, and henchman Rocco Siffredi. The power-hungry Lea Lexis leads the Euro contingent of porn vampiresses, Blood Slaves, and doomed prostitutes.

Stagliano has made a sweeping series at a time when that's just about impossible to do. Each episode (nine are currently online) ranges from 30 minutes to just over an hour, and provides a satisfying amount of story that then demands a transition to a single, sustained porn scene that takes up 90 percent of the episode. The format has a Golden Age, ensemble-driven, budget-agnostic feel that makes you think cast and crew had all the time in the world—of course they didn't—to get the best single-mindedly dirty people together.

Stagliano left a similarly big footprint in the last decade with his two "Fashionistas" movies, which proved transformative both to porn and to the careers and sensibilities of stars Belladonna and Sasha Grey. Brooklyn Lee herself seems poised for porn greatness with her "Voracious" performance, alternately poignant, wild, and unstoppable. Like those two other complex and smart brunettes, Lee has that quality of being put through the wringer but maintaining sexual power. One of my favorite images from the first episode finds Lexis pinning down a raving, bloodlusty Lee. The pair has just fucked Ferrara and Lee wants to finish him off, vampire-style. But it is too soon; so one fuck-slick vampiress holds the other down while Ferrara makes his escape.

It is, of course, refreshing to see porn shot somewhere other than the San Fernando Valley, but "Voracious" makes extra effort to introduce us to its night-time locations: the Malibu coast looks beautiful in the twilight, and Lee's forced blowjob of Father Steve is made more impressive in the glow from Berlin's Victory Tower. The gals look that much more vampiric when they disembark by starlight on the Danube, and prostitutes being savagely fucked in a Budapest park is a charming part of any travelogue.

I recently watched the classic "Opening of Misty Beethoven" and was impressed with both its sweep, its theatricality, and its 70s banter. "Voracious" is not a throwback to this type of movie because nobody's there for the dialogue. But Stagliano's film does mirror iconic movies like "Misty Beethoven" in the sense a viewer gets that everyone on camera is at the prime of his/her powers and is among real pros.

· Watch "Voracious" online (evilangel.com)