Bram Stoker's Burial of the Rats (Dan Golden, 1995)

There was but little water, and the bottom of the drain was raised with brick, rubbish, and much matter of the kind.  He had made a fight for it, even when his torch had gone out.  But they were too many for him!  They had not been long about it!  The bones were still warm; but they were picked clean.  They had even eaten their own dead ones and there were bones of rats as well as the man.

It seems fitting, somehow, that in the week when Dame Helen Mirren arrives on screen playing a Russian monarch in Catherine the Great I found myself watching one of my own personal favourite Queens of Scream, Adrienne Barbeau, portraying a a slightly more sordid sovereign in a production filmed in Russia. I speak of course of nothing other than 1995's Bram Stoker's Burial of the Rats, a film which deserves prejudice of place alongside Bram Stoker's Dracula in the "taking the author's name in vain" stakes.

Bram Stoker's short story 'The Burial of the Rats' is an eerie tone poem that was published alongside its perhaps more well-known stablemates 'The Squaw' and 'The Judge's House' in 1914's posthumous collection Dracula's Guest and Other Weird Stories. Bram Stoker's Burial of the Rats is a slightly bizarre slice of cinematic Skinemax exploitation that was filmed as part of the Roger Corman Presents strand (alongside such debacles as pointless remakes of The Wasp Woman and Not of This Earth [not the Traci Lords one - that's far from pointless, Heaven forfend: I speak of the useless third version]).

Ms Barbeau may have only taken the role because she'd never seen Moscow - and, apparently, needed a new roof on her house - but she does an expert job of maintaining a shred of dignity here as she portrays the Queen of the Rat Women, an exalted position which seems to mainly consist of Marie Antoinette cosplay whilst presiding over bacchanals of nubile young women dancing around in varicoloured diaphanous wisps of fabric like a Russ Meyer vision of Themiscyra. The queen proclaims herself to be "The Pied Piper's twisted sister" - explaining her ability to charm and summon hordes of vermin by tooting her flute, and also causing my brain to debate the 'fact' that in canon with The Sarah Jane Adventures this means that Adrienne Barbeau is playing the sibling of Bradley Walsh. Don't think about it. I think these things so you don't have to.

The Rat Women are a secretive sect of sexy ladies including the lovely Maria Ford, Olga Kabo, Nikki Fritz and Linnea Quigley (the latter two so briefly glimpsed that i'm fairly certain they were shot in inserts filmed in California rather than being with the rest of the cast in Russia) who live a life free from the shackles of the tyranny of men. These Women Going Their Own Way dress in a uniform that appears to consist mostly of leather bikinis, knee-high heeled boots, chokers and gloves. Because they are liberated and dressing for themselves and not your Male Gaze, okay? Fine. Did I direct this movie? Because it totally seems like something sixteen year old me would have done. Me, or Jim Wynorski. Or maybe Fred Olen Ray. But definitely one of the three.

(Checks) Nope, it's directed by Dan Golden, apparently (also helmer of 1995's Stripteaser and 2017's fairly self-explanatory T&A Time Travelers), who also has the prime role of Man Stabbed in Back. Okay then.

This murine matriarchy finds itself in possession of a mislaid Bram Stoker (Kevin Alber)), although the portrayal of the taciturn and bewhiskered Victorian Irish author of Dracula as some Fabio-haired Californian may be the biggest desecration of a legendary figure of these fair isles since Kevin Costner befouled Sherwood in his quest for the sheriff of "Notting Ham". Captured by the cult and facing the prospect of spending most his life living in a Sapphic paradise, Bram befriends Madeleine (Ford) much to the chagrin of her scissor sister Anna (Kabo). The sisterhood are dedicated to avenging themselves against priapic oppression, including the wandering-handed priests of St Cecile and the corrupt local dignitary Verlaine (Leonid Timtsunik) who possesses neither the wisdom of his original namesake nor the musical talent of Tom. As they continue to "claw at the rich and tear down the powerful" - a maxim I can certainly get behind - they raid the local brothel (within whose walls Verlaine has indentured a twelve year old local girl) to wipe out the oppressive male scum and liberate the sex workers. This goes slightly awry when the premises' madame takes exception and has her uppity swash truly buckled by the sword-wielding maidens for the crime of being a woman who enslaves women.

"Let all repressed women face the consequences!" is the rather problematic cry, which seems to me to be taking their liberation philosophy to the extreme. Perhaps if this was a Gregory Dark joint it would have been called Third Wave Hookers.

All of this infighting - combined with Madeleine's growing forbidden infatuation with Mr Stoker and his manly charms - leads us on the road to Rouen, or at least to St Cecile. When Verlaine and his gynophobic gendarmes ("Good moaning" indeed) storm the palace, Maddy helps Bram escape along with his injured father and confronts the jealous Anna in a rambunctious rattling of rapiers whilst the queen breaks her enchanted flute and allows her scurrying scabies subjects to rip her fleeeeaaasssshh. You know, like weasels.

Vapid and verminous visual Viagra. I feel violated.  But in a good way.