Sexcula, a 1974 Canadian sexploitation import being presented on DVD for the first time after having been assumed for many years to be lost, has a rather amazing story at its core. Unfortunately, none of that is really on screen. The Argo-type version of this tale — the story behind the story, of its actual making and subsequent abandonment — would make for an interesting period piece seriocomedy. Sexcula, though, is just kind of a baffling mess.

The film nominally uses the framing device of an old diary being discovered and read, and then spins back in time to — again, sort of — tell the tale of a female doctor (Jamie Orlando) who’s created a sex slave, Frank (John Alexander), who has trouble sustaining an erection. So she… calls in the titular family member (Debbie Collins) for help? There’s also a striptease-and-grind sequence involving a gorilla, plus a deformed hunchback, Orgie (Tim Lowery), who runs around wanting to dry-hump the female sex-bot (Marie McLeod) that the good doctor Fellatingstein has stashed over in the corner.

Directed by John Holbrook under the pseudonym of Bob Hollowich, Sexcula sounds a bit like a campy, totally deranged romp, I realize. And for roughly its first half-hour, when it’s more of a stylized (albeit terribly acted) softcore romp attempting to poke fun at horror conventions (minus the whole gorilla thing, which doesn’t track), it is. The dialogue is of course terrible (“Listen, Frank — this may be your last opportunity to understand. My cousin Countess Sexcula of Transylvania is an expert at erotic, sensual… uhh, well, she’s basically a hooker”), and delivered in wooden fashion. At a certain point, though, things go off the rails. The story is more or less abandoned, and the fleeting glimpses of hardcore action that marked the first half of the movie give way to an explicit, wedding-set foursome that unfolds over fifteen-plus minutes… during which, inexplicably, cameramen and grips eventually also just wander into frame.

The story behind the movie’s completion (this more hardcore bit was apparently part of a separate, reconvened shoot), its awkward single public screening, and eventual discovery and rendering to the digital format (the transfer for the Sexcula DVD was struck from the single remaining theatrical print, stored in the basement of the Canadian Film Archives) is a long and winding one, recounted in part in a textual accompaniment to this release’s packaging (more info still is available on the Interwebs). Maybe someone can write that story and slip a script to Ben Affleck… or maybe Larry Clark?

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case, Sexcula comes to DVD via the fine folks at Impulse Pictures, presented in 1.33:1 full frame, with a 2.0 mono audio track that works fine for the meager aural demands of such a production. Its static menu screen yields to a similarly static screen with a dozen chapter stops, and while there is a copy of the movie’s trailer, the only other supplemental feature is a two-sided liner notes sleeve with a solid little essay of historical framing by Dmitrios Otos and an amusing cartoon by Rick Trembles. For period piece cult completists, there may be something worthy of exploration here; for less specialized audiences, however, this isn’t the horror titillation for which you’re looking. To purchase the Sexcula DVD, click here. D (Movie) C (Disc)