Leave it to John Stagliano to create porn’s epic vampire saga, his greatest triumph since the Fashionsitas trilogy and the darkest and sexiest tale he’s ever made. This 10-webisode series, which debuted once a month on the Evil Angel website until its final installment in September, combines all of the elements that make a great sex movie and many of the ingredients that make for stunning horror.

This handsome boxed set (two DVDs containing the feature, a third bonus disc of extras—BTS, director commentary, etc.—plus a soundtrack CD and companion booklet) is called Voracious: The First Season, inferring that Stagliano isn’t done. That’s good, because there’s been nothing like it before, and after taking nearly a week to watch this, I wanted more.

Essentially a perverse love story, it stars Brooklyn Lee and Manuel Ferrara as blood-crossed lovers, and they are as good as they’ve ever been here, with acting nominations in store for both of them.

With good reason, the sex is intense, scalding and at times violent. Aided by dark moods and minimal lighting, Voaracios contains some of Stagliano’s most erotic imagery. While the sex sometimes disturbs, it’s never gratuitous, always in service of the plot. Shot in Berlin, Budapest and Los Angeles, Voaracios looks and feels as big as the Twilight movies, only with more visually interesting components.

The detailed plot, complex and textured, uses the horror elements to enhance the sexuality. Stagliano makes use of many styles of cinematography, making great use of darkness and light, as well as some truly inspired blacklights that make a lesbian scene both sexy and trippy.  

The hardcore scenes are astounding. From the very first scene with Lea Lexis, Brooklyn Lee and Manuel Ferrara to the finale, every scene works on an erotic level, each one seeming more extreme than the previous. Lee, Lexis and Ferrara perform a fetish-inspired three-way with both girls swallowing Manuel’s massive cock before taking it in their pussies and assholes. It’s as penetrating and raucous as one can imagine, and revealing both sexually and as a plot point.

By the time Episode 2, “Now You Are a Blood Slave,” rolls around, the vampire plot kicks in. Then, the Vampire Mistress, Sandra Romain, wants to test Brooklyn to see if she has what it takes to join the vampire clan. So into the B&D cellar they go, where Brooklyn gets slapped around and clamped (tongues and mouth) to a point where her mouth is stretched open for the cocks of David Perry and Ian Scott. The guys fuck her abusively, double penetrating her while Romain sits on her face, and they never stop slapping her while they pound away. I do not believe I’ve seen a scene with such heart-pounding intensity before.

Other scenes are equally stunning. Alice Romain and Omar Galanti in a rough and tumble anal sequence shot with blacklights and neon paints; priest Steve Holmes getting blown and fucked by Lea Lexis; the “curse removing” sex scene with Ferrara and Lee (his cock hits the back of her throat, plunges deep inside her pussy and spreads her asshole wide); and a dark horror sex scene with Ferrara, Sandra Romain and Ivana Sugar with fluids and objects and more of that intensity we’ve been fed throughout the six-plus hours. (Feeding being the operative motif of it all.)

Each of the episodes goes down as easy as an episode of The Walking Dead, with chills and spills and some of the best explicit sex John Stagliano has ever shot. It looks dark and beautiful, with a solid music soundtrack that enhances but never detracts from the action. Every performer astounds, and it’s possibly the quickest six and a half hours I’ve ever spent watching porn.

From a marketing point of view, the informed consumer possibly already knows of this series, as each episode was promoted individually. That makes for an enticing, well-packaged collector’s item for the initiated and the Stagliano fan, and a discovery for those looking for something new to masturbate to.

Overall, I consider Voracious to be a true horror/porn masterpiece, and I am looking forward to Season 2.