AN EROTIC WEREWOLF IN LONDON

Lovers Misty (Misty Mundae, SINFUL; SICK GIRL) and Ruby (Ruby LaRocca (SHADOW: DEAD RIOT) get in on in their bar while it's empty. Their lengthy lesbian session is filmed in loving soft-focus while dance music blasts in the background, and images if a blonde wolf woman (Anoushka, VAMPIRE OBSESSION) flash occasionally across the screen.

After the girls finish, ahem, satisfying each other, they retire for a drink at the bar. In walks the travelling Anoushka, who is looking for somewhere to stay. Misty whispers the suggestion of a threesome to Ruby, but Ruby insists she needs a bath first.

While Ruby leaves for a scrub, Misty takes Anoushka through to the back room and within minutes they're having sex on the settee. When Anoushka climaxes she turns into a werewolf and takes a bite out of Misty.

By the time Ruby returns (after her own bathtub dream of having sex with Anoushka), Anoushka has vanished and Misty is laid unconscious on the settee.

Meanwhile, Anoushka hightails it to London where she gets in touch with a sleazy tabloid editor saying she wants to "tell all" about her affliction.

The editor - sporting typically rotten British teeth - hands the assignment to his best reporter, sexy brunette Zoe Moonshine (THE DEVIL'S BLOODY PLAYTHINGS).

Zoe meets with Anoushka in a top-floor apartment where she starts to conduct an interview into the blonde's lycanthropic tendencies. We learn that Anoushka turns into a furry beast whenever she orgasms, and is compelled to seduce women before devouring them.

She offers Zoe first-hand experience of this when she allows her to watch as she seduces her beautiful blonde neighbour Linda Murray, before killing her.

Zoe rushes back to the office of The Daily Limey and tells her editor she does not want to continue with the story. But the editor insists she goes to America, where he has been told Anoushka now is …

William Hellfire's (DUCK! THE CARBINE HIGH MASSACRE) cheap 2000 effort was made as an excuse for the aspiring director to spend a few days in London at the expense of producer Michael Raso.

Hence, it was shot on various mediums (video, mini DV) and the random lesbo sequences were later edited together and a flimsy storyline was attempted to link them together.

The end result is a wildly uneven, episodic affair with plenty of soft camera work, lots and lots of softcore lesbian fumblings and a storyline that veers between the ludicrous and the downright incomprehensible.

The sex is plentiful but tame for anyone other than teenaged boys too embarrassed - or too young - to order porn online. While the horror aspects are an afterthought, mainly superimposed or clumsily edited into unrelated scenes via dodgy computer trickery. Anoushka's werewolf make-up is apparently influenced by LA LUPA MANNARA, and you can see how that would be so. Unfortunately, she looks less WEREWOLF WOMAN and more like hardfaced Shirley from "Eastenders". Not a pretty sight.

The best bits of the film are, predictably, those featuring the ever-watchable Mundae. As the film starts to focus more on Moonshine's interview with the curiously unappealing Anoushka, it does at least keep cutting back to update us on Mundae's condition - allowing her to get it on with old friend Darian Caine (FIST OF THE VAMPIRE) and Julian Wells (SKIN CRAWL).

The film is presented in its original 1.33:1 ratio and looks pretty decent for the main part. There's minimal grain and colours are relatively solid. Quality dips here and there, but that's more to do with the varying formats the film was shot on, than the transfer itself.

The English mono audio track is an adequate proposition, with a minor hiss on occasion that doesn't hinder the preposterous dialogue.

Athough there is no scene-selection menu the film can be remote accessed via 12 chapters.

The main extra on disc 1 is an audio commentary from Hellfire, Raso and moderator Ed Grant. It's a decent enough commentary, full of earnest chat about the technical side of things while women are licking each other's bodies on the screen. Hellfire is clearly pleased at getting the opportunity to finally "complete" his film, several years after the fact.

A 12-minute interview with Ruby LaRocca has her fielding questions that appear onscreen as text. This is intercut with hot clips from a selection of her films.

Rounding off disc 1 are trailers for CHATAL, SINFUL, THE EROTIC DIARY OF MISTY MUNDAE, CLOAK AND SHAG HER and CANNIBAL SACRIFICE.

Disc 2 is home to an obscure oddity by the name of NIGHT OF THE GROPING DEAD.

Written and directed by Rich Hillen, this ridiculous shot-on-video affair opens with a woman - LaRocca - visiting her local launderette, which happens to be empty. She takes this as an opportunity to get semi-naked and start molesting herself.

Her fun is curbed when a mop-handling zombie janitor appears. At first he gropes her and she appears extremely gracious. But the mood soon sours when he rams his broom handle between her legs.

She flees to her car - is groped by a zombie. She flees into the street, and down a back alley - where more zombies grope her.

Ultimately the girl is captured by the groping dead and taken to the home of Marcus De Sade, a madman who wants to rule the world with his zombies, whom he has complete control over.

He instructs his zombies to seduce and eat the shackled girl (which they do, in primitive scenes of exposed labia and blood soaked genitalia that would have trouble with the BBFC even in these times).

The girl returns as a zombie and Marcus expects that he will be able to control her, making her first task the act of performing fellatio on him. Unfortunately she bites his penis off and becomes … zombie girl (complete with "Dawn Of The Dead" T-shirt).

Zombie girl wants to recruit more female undead into her clan, so orders her male zombies to abduct Misty Mundae and bring her back to their pad for seduction and devouring. And the copious nudity and blood-soaked sex continues …

It's all extremely cheap, amateurish fare, though undeniably effective in a grimy sort of way. And best of all, its only 48 minutes long. These factors combined make GROPING DEAD undeniably more entertaining than EROTIC WEREWOLF.

A disclaimer at the beginning of the film warns that the poor video quality is not a reflection of the transfer - it's the state of the source material. Yeah, it's VHS standard, but watchable - oddly, it suits this trashy sort of stuff.

The film is presented in its full-frame ratio with English mono audio. Again, there's no scene-selection menu but the film can be remote accessed by way of 10 chapters.

Extras on disc 2 are limited to trailers for a staggering Misty Mundae titles.

Rounding out the package is an attractive 8-page booklet with good liner notes from Ed Grant and alternative cover artwork courtesy for Brett Piper.

A great package for a less than essential lesbian rompathon.

Review by Stuart Willis