SINFONIA EROTICA -- Blu-ray Review by Porfle

Originally posted on 3/23/18

 

Spanish director Jess Franco burned his way through cinema like a fuse, voracious and volatile, leaving the ashes of his endeavor in his wake for us to sift through.

Much of it is of mere passing note to me, interesting only to see what such a prolific filmmaker produces when free to work fast and furious and pour out his id on film with little or no restraint.
 
But with this outpouring comes the occasional work that demands my attention and admiration (VAMPYROS LESBOS, SHE KILLED IN ECSTASY, COUNT DRACULA), and one such example is his 1980 anti-romantic, anti-erotic sexual nightmare SINFONIA EROTICA (Severin Films), based upon the writings of the Marquis de Sade. 

Franco's real-life love and muse Lina Romay (THE HOT NIGHTS OF LINDA, PAULA-PAULA) plays Martine de Bressac, returning home after months of confinement to a sanitarium by her husband, the Marqués Armando de Bressac (Armando Borges).

During her absence Armando has acquired and become addicted to a seductive, effeminate male lover named Flor (Mel Rodrigo), both of whom taunt and torture poor Martine with their flagrant contempt for both her emotional needs and urgent sexual desires.

Norma (Susan Hemingway), a timid young escapee from a nunnery, is found lying unconscious on the grounds during one of Armando and Flor's nature romps, and is taken in to become a part of their cruel sexual games. 

She ends up falling in love with Flor, and the two of them plan to not only aid in Armando's plan to murder Martine but to then get rid of Armando himself, leaving them free to run away together. Martine's only allies during all this are a sympathetic maid and a psychiatrist who may or may not believe her story.

Needless to say, SINFONIA EROTICA belies its opulent Victorian romance novel setting--Franco shot it in Portugal using gorgeous mansion interiors and magnificent exterior locations--with fervid, disturbing images of mental and physical cruelty in the form of ugly, non-erotic sex. 

When Franco makes a sex movie instead of a horror movie, the sex seems to replace the horror, or rather it becomes another kind of horror, of a deeper and more Freudian kind.

Here, he gives us a perversely erotic thriller that hates sex even as it's preoccupied with exploring Lina Romay's offbeat beauty and ample breasts as well as showing various joyless lovers rutting like animals in scenes that waver between softcore and hardcore action.

Although involved in several projects at the time (including THE SADIST OF NOTRE DAME and TWO FEMALE SPIES WITH FLOWERED PANTIES), Franco seems neither rushed nor slapdash here, despite his usual shakily handheld camera. 

He lingers over his finely-rendered, sometimes impressionistic imagery as though following a deeply-pondered train of thought, and many of the shots are arranged with both a painter's sensibilities and a perceptive filmmaker's orchestration of character and movement.

Romay is at her best as Martine, looking strangely enticing at all times while also surrendering to the role with an intensity that evokes excitement and sympathy for her character. 

As Armando, Borges plays the heartless cad to a tee, relishing his own sadistic impulses which will eventually include coldblooded murder, which Franco depicts in non-graphic yet chilling style.

But the lack of graphic violence is made up for by the horrific depiction of sex and sexual desire as a Freudian nightmare that leads to madness when infused with malevolence and perversion.

Severin's Blu-ray disc (also available in DVD) is a 4k restoration of an uncut 35mm print which is the only known copy of this cut to exist.  There are some rough spots here and there, but, as I've often said, I prefer for a wizened exploitation print such as this to look like it's been around the block a few times. Otherwise, picture quality is fine. The soundtrack is in Spanish with English captions.

The visually rich fever dream that is SINFONIA EROTICA draws us into Martine's dark, corrupting psycho-sexual ordeal and has its way with us until somebody dies.
 

Special Features:
Jess Franco On First Wife Nicole Guettard – Interview With Director Jess Franco
Stephen Thrower On Sinfonia Erotica – Interview With The Author Of ‘Murderous Passions – The Delirious Cinema Of Jesus Franco’

SINFONIA EROTICA -- Blu-ray Review by Porfle

THE SADIST OF NOTRE DAME -- Blu-ray Review by Porfle

Originally posted on 3/21/18

 

By now, I've seen a fair amount of Spanish cult director Jess Franco's films, and, despite his popularity among countless ardent fans, I've always found his works to be a great big grab bag of good and bad all swirling around together like socks in a dryer--mostly mismatched and full of holes, but occasionally wearable.

With 1979's THE SADIST OF NOTRE DAME, we see the result of Franco taking his earlier sex-and-horror film EXORCISM (already the result of much tinkering and consisting of various different cuts including a XXX-rated one), re-arranging and repurposing the existing footage, and adding several minutes of new footage to create what he himself considered the definitive version.

Franco stars as Mathis Vogel, who once studied for the priesthood at Notre Dame but ultimately failed the final audition, so to speak, due to the fact that he was a raving loon. 

Now, after years in institutional exile, he returns crazier than ever as your stereotypical "religious fanatic" intent on punishing "sinful women" and becomes a dreaded Jack the Ripper-style serial killer.

Vogel's twisted mind is a maelstrom of conflicting impulses as he stalks and murders women he considers whores (promising that this will purify their souls) while being irresistibly aroused by them.

Franco succeeds in portraying him as a sick, pathetic troll of a man tormented by his own desires while even his former friend in the priesthood denies him the absolution for his crimes that he desperately craves.

He meets and is obsessed by pretty Anne (Franco's lifelong lover and muse Lina Romay) who works for a lurid sex magazine where he submits autobiographical sex stories, and, through her, stumbles upon a group of upper-class swingers who meet regularly in a castle for perverted S&M sex shows followed by intense orgies. 

The rest of the film follows Vogel's stalking and killing of members of the group, usually after he has voyeuristically observed them having sex involving dominant-submissive roleplay.  Romay's fans will enjoy seeing her romping about in various stages, although I found most of the other anonymous, undulating nudes somewhat less appealing.

Much of the violence is surprisingly non-graphic while still managing to be deeply disturbing, especially when juxtaposed with ample amounts of nudity and fevered Freudian sexuality. 

Occasionally, however, there are flashes of more graphic violence that increase the shock value, and, taken as a whole, this must've presented late 70s audiences with quite a heady concoction.

Meanwhile, there's a subplot (mostly from the original version, I think) involving some bickering police detectives on Vogel's trail.  This is meant mainly to show us that the net is indeed tightening around our perverted protagonist as he goes about his murderous ways, although some of the conflict between the veteran French detective and a young hot-shot cop on loan from Switzerland is interesting.

Besides Lina Romay (PAULA-PAULA, THE SINISTER EYES OF DR. ORLOFF), the cast also includes Olivier Mathot (TWO FEMALE SPIES WITH FLOWERED PANTIES), Pierre Taylou (HOT NIGHTS OF LINDA), and Antonio DeCabo (VIRGIN AMONG THE LIVING DEAD).

Technically, THE SADIST OF NOTRE DAME is the wildly-prolific Franco's standard rushed production--he often burned through several projects at once--filled with quick set-ups, lots of zooming and meandering camerawork, and the occasional evidence of a talented film visualist at work. 

Often Franco simply allows his cinematic mind to wander, resulting in long stretches that may delight his fans while lulling others to sleep.  The story itself is pretty threadbare and dependant upon its outlandish, grotesque imagery and themes for whatever impact it may have on individual viewers.

The new Blu-ray and DVD release by Severin Films is taken from the only known existing copy of the film, a 35mm print scanned in 4K after reportedly being discovered "in the crawlspace of a Montparnasse nunnery."  The various resulting imperfections only add to its visual appeal for me since I find perfect, flawless clarity in a film to be off-putting.  When it comes to old-style exploitation such as this, I like a print that looks like it has been around the block a few times.

I found THE SADIST OF NOTRE DAME sporadically interesting but never particularly appealing for either its horrific or erotic qualities. Francophiles, I assume, will find it fascinating.  And still others will doubtless agree with the Spanish film board's assessment of it--proudly touted in the film's publicity--as "an absolute abomination."

Special Features:
The Gory Days Of Le Brady – Documentary Short On The Legendary Parisian Horror Cinema
Stephen Thrower On Sadist Of Notre Dame – Interview With The Author Of ‘Murderous Passions – The Delirious Cinema Of Jesus Franco’
Selected Scenes Commentary With ‘I’m In A Jess Franco State Of Mind’ Webmaster Robert Monell
Treblemakers: Interview With Alain Petit, Author Of ‘Jess Franco Ou Les Prosperites Des Bis’
Spanish language or English dubbed with subtitles

THE SADIST OF NOTRE DAME -- Blu-ray Review by Porfle

EMANUELLE AND FRANCOISE -- Blu-ray Review by Porfle

Originally posted on 4/27/19

 

Is "Cinemax After Dark" still a thing? I remember in the 80s when HBO's sister channel Cinemax would show softcore sex comedies and thrillers during the late-night hours. Director Joe D'Amato's EMANUELLE AND FRANCOISE, aka "Emanuelle's Revenge" and "Blood Revenge" (Severin Films, 1975), is a lot like what would happen if one of those softcore sex thrillers had a head-on collision with one of the director's celebrated blood 'n' guts gore epics. 

Francoise (Patrizia Gori, WAR OF THE ROBOTS, DEADLY CHASE) is a cute, chipper fashion model whose life would be sunshine and lollipops if her live-in boyfriend Carlo (well-played by George Eastman of D'Amato's ABSURD and ANTROPOPHAGUS) weren't such a horrible cad.

 

Not only does he make her have sex with guys he owes money to, but when she walks in on him getting it on with another woman, his response is to stuff her clothes in a suitcase and toss her out on her ear.  Poor heartbroken Francoise goes straight to the nearest train track and throws herself in front of the next speeding locomotive.

Enter Francoise's worldly older sister Emanuelle (Rosemarie Lindt, SALON KITTY, PORNO-EROTIC WESTERN), who, after reading Francoise's novella-length suicide note, vows revenge against Carlo. 

She contrives to meet him and then leads him on until he ends up in her trap--a secret prison cell behind a sliding wall in her living room, with a two-way mirror through which chained-up Carlo must watch her indulge in the culinary and sexual delights he is now denied (with a much harsher final punishment reserved for the end).

The film is an example of how capable director Joe D'Amato (THE ALCOVE, ABSURD, ANTROPOPHAGUS, BEYOND THE DARKNESS, EMANUELLE AND THE LAST CANNIBALS) was at handling this sort of sexy potboiler, which has the look of one of the better low-budget Italian films of its kind being produced during that era. 

There's a good deal of nudity and sexual activity, from Francoise's unfortunate encounters to Emanuelle herself cavorting with various male and female partners for Carlo to see.  Rosemarie Lindt, not exactly the kind of woman I picture when I hear the name "Emanuelle", is a good actress with sort of an Honor Blackman quality.

Co-written by D'Amato and Bruno Mattei (SHOCKING DARK, ZOMBIE 3, ZOMBIE 4), the film resembles a giallo much of the time, but what really plunges it into horror territory is when Carlo, forced to watch as his captor and her guests gorge themselves on an elegant candlelight dinner, imagines them feasting on human body parts.  Thus we see these sophisticated diners happily chomping away on severed hands, feet, and various other carnal delicacies rarely seen outside of a zombie flick.

A later scene (which may or may not be a hallucination) finds Carlo on the loose after escaping his secret room and attacking Emanuelle with a meat cleaver.  This scene consists mainly of Lindt rolling around nude in a gallon or two of fake blood while a crazed Eastman swings the meat cleaver, which doesn't look very convincing but is certainly lively and fun to watch.

Things finally come to a head when Emanuelle decides it's time for Carlo to pay the ultimate price (I'll give you three guesses what that is), leading to an entertaining final sequence with a pleasing twist ending.  It's more of a kick in the rear than a gut punch, but fans of both sexy thrillers and gruesome gorefests should find that EMANUELLE AND FRANCOISE fits the bill on both counts. 



Buy it at Severin Films

Street date: April 30, 2019

Special Features:
    Three Women and a Mirror: Interview With Actress Maria Rosaria Riuzzi
    The Other Side of the Mirror: Interview With Actor George Eastman
    Deleted/Alternate scenes
    Trailer
    2k Scan From Original Negative
    Reversible Cover

EMANUELLE AND FRANCOISE -- Blu-ray Review by Porfle

WILD BEASTS -- Blu-ray Review by Porfle

 Originally posted on 2/3/17

 

Okay, first of all, WILD BEASTS (1984), now on Blu-ray from Severin Films, is one very warped, one very grotesque flick. 

And second of all, if you're a soft-hearted PETA type--or just anyone who can't stand seeing animals being hurt in any way--then you will not like this movie.  In fact, you should avoid it at all costs. I'll explain why in a bit, although you might as well stop reading now because you won't want to see it. Ever. (But don't stop reading. I just said that for effect.)

The premise is simplicity itself--someone puts PCP into the water supply, and when some zoo animals get a snootful of it they escape into the heart of the city and go on a rip-roaring rampage of revenge.  Against what, you ask?  Why, against humans for "raping nature" as the trailer informs us.

 

Head zoo-guy Dr. Rupert "Rip" Berner (real-life animal tamer John Aldrich) and his scientist girlfriend Laura Schwarz (Lorraine De Selle) are knee-deep in it all from the git-go, with Rip (in her Italian accent Laura calls him "Reep") working with veteran police inspector Nat Braun (Ugo Bologna) to track down the marauding animals while Laura rushes across town to protect her young daughter Suzy (Louisa Lloyd), who's in a dance class that will soon be invaded by a hungry polar bear.

Well, the manure hits the ventilator early on in this anything-goes Italian free-for-all when the wild animals hit the streets and start chowing down on city dwellers like they were meaty treats.  The result is an abundance of graphic gore effects as we see screaming victims being devoured before our eyes.

While this, fortunately, is merely simulated, not so fortunate are several live rats that are roasted alive with flamethrowers (after molesting a kitty cat) and some livestock that get attacked by very toothsome lions.  We've all seen movies that made us ask, "Wow, how'd they do that?"  In this case, they just freakin' DID it. 

 

Of course, most fainthearted viewers will have already checked out during the main titles at the sight of a zookeeper chopping up actual horse heads for lion food, which we see the ravenous cats gleefully devouring.  I found this scene particularly disturbing since I happened to be eating hot dogs at the time.

More gleeful devouring takes place throughout the film, but what really shifts much of WILD BEASTS into mindboggle-mode are scenes such as elephants invading an airport and causing a plane to crash during landing.  The SPFX include some surprisingly elaborate model work which is not all that convincing but is great fun to watch. 

Elsewhere, we're treated to the sight of a cheetah chasing a Volkswagen convertible at full speed down a city street, a tiger loose in a subway car, and, wilder still, a herd of cattle stampeding through the heart of a modern city. 

This is stuff you just don't see every day, and, as I mentioned, it's all the more amazing because it's real.  Nowadays they'd just CGI it all up and expect us to "ooh" and "ahh" over a cartoon.

 

Such spectacle makes up for the fact that this is a low-budget production done on the fly with barely any retakes by MONDO CANE director Franco E. Prosperi, who knew how to stretch a lira thanks to his extensive documentary experience. 

The hasty schedule means not much attention is given to cinematic style, but the hit-and-run atmosphere is exciting and the editing is great. Daniele Patucchi's score is a combination of Goblin-style suspense music and really cool jazz.

The Blu-ray from Severin Films is in widescreen HD with English and Italian 2.0 soundtracks (English subtitles are available).  Once again Severin comes through with a solid bonus menu including terrific recent interviews with director Prosperi, star Tony Di Leo (aka "John Aldrich"), editor Mario Morra, and circus veteran/animal wrangler Carlo Tiberi.  There's also a scenic tour of Prosperi's museum-like home and a trailer. 

I didn't like WILD BEASTS much at first--in fact, its more crude and distasteful elements and contemptible animal abuse continued to turn me off throughout-- but I eventually warmed up to and started enjoying this absolutely off-the-wall exploitation flick.  The ending is especially good, because instead of petering out or leaving us unsatisfied, the film saves its wickedest plot twist, and its wildest beasts, for the very end. 


Release date: Feb. 7, 2017

WILD BEASTS -- Blu-ray Review by Porfle

MONDO FREUDO/ MONDO BIZARRO -- Blu-ray Review by Porfle

Originally posted on 1/29/19
 

MONDO BIZARRO (1966)

In 1962, exploitation filmmakers had a massive surprise hit with the shock-u-mentary MONDO CANE (Italian for "Dog's World"), a showcase for the twisted,  bizarre, and exotic things that go on in the world.  Audiences didn't know or care that the actual footage was heavily augmented with obviously staged material, and it was such a success that it even scored an Oscar for Best Song ("More").

As you might guess, this was followed by scores of imitations including 1966's MONDO BIZARRO (Severin Films). Producers Bob Cresse and Lee Frost spared every expense to put together a mixed bag of shocking sex and violence vignettes from around the world, or rather from in and around the Hollywood area with lots of stock footage of foreign countries to give things a faux international flavor.

The result is an interesting look at what audiences found shocking in 1966 and what exploitation filmmakers were allowed to get away with in terms of sex, violence, and forbidden content.

We the audience are invited to view it all as vicarious voyeurs, sometimes by means of a supposed super-powered telescopic lens (with infra-red capabilities for night shooting) that brings us up close to such forbidden nocturnal activities as a voodoo ritual in the Bahamas and half-naked lovers cavorting on a dark beach somewhere in California.

The most authentic footage is found in a sequence about spring break on the California coast, in which we see real-life mid-sixties teens blowing into town by the hundreds to engage in bacchanalian revelries.

There's also a lengthy bit which simply invites us to gaze at bikini-clad babes sunbathing on a public beach, and a profile of a man who lies on a bed of nails and pushes long needles through his cheeks (this part is disturbingly real). This is followed by a man who eats glass, although I'm betting this guy's not the real deal.

MONDO BIZARRO gets going when it starts focusing on sex, beginning with the relatively innocuous with a day in the bustling Frederick's of Hollywood mail order room (complete with models showing off their latest fashions for us) and night footage of various prostitutes, male and female, plying their wares on Hollywood Boulevard. There's also a few scenes of nude body painting, art classes with a nude model, and a beatnik photog snapping a topless dancing girl.

More endearing fakery comes with a naive guy's first visit to a massage parlor (supposedly in the Far East), which we witness through a one-way mirror. Already this technique has been used in the film's opening as supposedly unsuspecting women are filmed, again through one-way glass, stripping off in a dressing room with their eyes crudely obscured for anonymity.

The really dark side of sex comes into play with a trip to "Berlin" where leering audience members relive the glories of the Third Reich by gleefully watching a play about a Jewish girl who is kidnapped, stripped naked, and whipped as Hitler's recorded voice blares out. 

The film ends with a lengthy slave auction in which California's Bronson Canyon doubles as the Middle East and our high-tech telescopic lens captures wealthy sheiks bidding on hapless, naked slave girls who are brought out one at a time from their cages on the back of a truck (their lower regions crudely obscured to avoid obscenity charges). 

Cresse's sober voiceover observations ("To a maggot, the cadaver is infinity") add extra camp-humor icing to the cake.  While much of this sounds horrifically unsuitable for decent folk to watch (though it must've been irresistibly titillating to audiences at the time), the fact that it's all so wonderfully fake is what now gives MONDO BIZARRO its substantial entertainment value.


MONDO FREUDO (1966)

The second shock-doc on Severin's double-feature Blu-ray disc is the follow-up, MONDO FREUDO (also from 1966), which is more of the same but with even greater emphasis on the dark side of sex.

As with MONDO BIZARRO, the most true-to-life stuff involves real-life teenagers out for a good time.  Here, they're shown riding around up and down Hollywood Boulevard at night (for no apparent reason other than it's a fun thing to do) and hanging out in Watusi clubs.

The film then wastes little time steering us into a strip club where we get to watch a dancer named "Baby Bubbles" do her thing. While the club looks suspiciously like the same soundstage where almost every other such scene in these two "Mondo" films takes place, the dancer herself is a knockout (we'll see her again).

The same can't be said for all of the supposed prostitutes on display at other clubs (this time in both Tijuana and jolly old England, we're told), who pose as dancers while actually advertising themselves to potential clients. 

We learn that as long as they're wearing outfits that can be purchased in a store, they qualify as "models" and can therefore legally display their naughty bits for an audience. Makes sense, I guess!

More slave auctions take place, this time in Mexico, with more nudity and more of that odd film-scratching effect to obscure the more forbidden zones.  Then, a lengthy visit to a black mass ritual takes up much of the film's latter half, with a woman who appears to be "Baby Bubbles" herself writhing vigorously in black undies (once again, she's a total knockout) before helping to initiate another woman into the cult during a blood ceremony. 

My enjoyment of both documentaries was greatly increased upon second viewing thanks to the commentary tracks by Johnny Legend and Eric Caidin, whose humorous remarks on the onscreen action and first-hand stories about the times and places involved are as entertaining as the films themselves.  Also of much interest is an informative featurette, "The Cadaver Is Infinity: Bob Cresse, Lee Frost, and the Birth of American Mondo", featuring Chris Poggiali. 

Much of the lurid material in MONDO FREUDO/MONDO BIZARRO seems relatively tame these days, but it's interesting to see what was once considered so shockingly taboo to movie audiences.  (Admittedly, some of it still is, and viewer discretion is advised.)  But whether you're shocked, titillated, or simply moved to laughter, chances are you'll have a mondo good time watching.


Buy it from Severin Films

Special Features:
4K Scans From Original "Something Weird" Vault Negatives
Audio Commentary with Johnny Legend and Eric Caidin
The Cadaver Is Infinity: Bob Cresse, Lee Frost and the Birth of American Mondo – Interview With Chris Poggiali
Mondo Bizarro Trailer
Mondo Freudo Trailer
English Subtitles

MONDO FREUDO/ MONDO BIZARRO -- Blu-ray Review by Porfle