Daughters Of Darkness

Les Lèvres Rouges | Germany/Belgium/France | 1971 | Directed by Harry Kümel

Logline: A newlywed couple book into a seemingly deserted resort hotel and are seduced by a mysterious countess and her equally alluring protégé. 

This deep trash gem is a rare and fabulous creature; self-consciously delicate and artfully fragile, yet infused with a volatile darkness and disquietingly dysfunctional characters. Exploitation fare for well-versed vamps. Although shot in the English language its original French title translates as the sexually-charged The Red Lips.

Stefan (John Karlen) and Valerie (Danielle Ouimet) are newlyweds holidaying through Europe. They book into the Hotel Ostend in Beligum where they are immediately spotted by Countess Elizabeth Bathory (Delphine Seyrig) and her assistant (read: lover) Ilona (Andrea Rau). The Countess is smitten with silky blonde Valerie. The concierge (Paul Esser) is intrigued by Ms. Bathory, as she has the same name and looks exactly like a woman who stayed at the hotel 40 years earlier, when he was a young bellboy. The Countess tells him he must be confused. 

Valerie is anxious for Stefan to confirm their arrival in England with his mother, but he is reluctant to make the connection. Instead they visit nearby Brugge where Stefan finds himself morbidly fascinated with a bizarre murder scene. Later, back at the Ostend, Stefan is mesmerised by the Countess who ingratiates herself. Valerie is disgusted. Valerie’s wariness sends Stefan into a schizo rage and he mercilessly beats her with his belt. At dawn light while Stefan sleeps she packs her bags and leaves for the train, only to be intercepted by the Countess, while Ilona goes to seduce her husband. 

There is a most curious sub-plot that concerns Stefan’s true nature; when he finally calls his mother to placate Valerie, and it’s revealed that “mother” is in fact a middle-aged queen whose feathers are slightly ruffled at the “unrealistic” idea that Stefan has married a woman; “Whatever will we do with her?” This camp avenue of characterisation provides the narrative some serious eccentricity, as does the extended “let the dead bury the dead” scene at the beach where the Countess has Stefan tidy up his dirty work. 

While the performances and much of the dialogue hinge on the risible (suggesting a tenebrous comedy at play), there is a deliciously alluring oneiric quality to the look, feel, and atmosphere of the movie. It is a vampire tale unlike most as there are no fangs on display, whatsoever, but it oozes a sly eroticism. This is psychosexual bloodlust of the most provocative and fevered kind, using a real and infamous historical figure as the sensual villain. 

The movie, although savagely violent in places, floats and glides with a distinct feminine wile. The three female leads contrasting beautifully against each other in look and personality: long blonde-haired Valerie with her equine-face and piercing blue eyes, Ilona with her black Louise Brooks bob and large fraulein features (big dark eyes and huge red mouth), and the Countess, with her white gold curls, porcelain skin, and that oh-so-delicate voice that whispers sweet nothings, carrying you softly into the darkness forever. 

Kümel fills his slow-burn dream with stunning, brooding images of landscape, architecture and figure; the fang-like car hurtling through the night, Ilona perched in the shadows waiting as Stefan stirs in his sleep, belt still in hand, the Countess slowly wrapping her bat-like cloak around Valerie on the sand dunes, the body lying wrapped in black polyurethane in front of the hotel. The movie sings like a thirsty siren; a Gothic torch song for the undead, an insidious legacy destined to unfurl over and over and over. 

“I’m just an outmoded character, you know, the beautiful stranger, slightly sad, slightly mysterious, that haunts one place after another…,” muses the Countess to Stefan and Valerie after events have taken a turn for the more complicated. 

The movie’s infamous violent shock ending might seem a trifle absurd now, but it still works on a gorgeously wretched, poetic level, and then there’s the coiling serpentine epilogue which layers on yet more mystery… The red lips quivering again, another soul kiss for another night, raising goosebumps, caressing cold flesh … and lying still through another day.

Definitely one of my favourite vampire movies. 

Cat People

US | 1982 | Directed by Paul Schrader

Logline: An inexperienced young woman discovers her ancestry will cause her to transform into a deadly panther when she is sexually aroused. 

I have a soft furry spot for this movie, despite its inherent flaws and trappings. It’s a rare beast, a remake - I prefer to call it a re-imagining - that harnesses the restrained thematic brilliance of the svelte, original and takes it to a more explicit and heightened level, without compromising the essence.

One of Jerry Bruckheimer’s early movies as executive producer, and certainly the “high concept” factors are in play, but the movie is very much director Paul Schrader’s vision, utilising ex-special make-up effects designer-cum-writer Alan Ormsby’s provocative screenplay. It’s an under-rated movie, very different from the original, but with enough merits to stand and stalk on its own four feet despite not performing well at the box office when it was first released and despite years of being trashed.

Irena (Nastassja Kinski) arrives in New Orleans to meet with her older brother Paul (Malcolm McDowell). Paul lives alone in a terrace he shares with Female (Ruby Dee) who is the housekeeper. She’s of old New Orleans voodoo stock, but welcomes Irena with open arms, happy that Paul is finally able to be reunited with his sister. But there is something strange and different about Paul. He is one of the cat people; a supernatural race of creatures that turn into black panthers when they are sexually aroused, and must kill to change back into human form. To prevent this xenomorphic trait from occurring they can only mate with each other. 

Irena is befriended by zoo curator Oliver (John Heard), after he discovers her sketching an aggravated panther in its cage after-hours (one of only a few scenes lifted from the original movie). He’s immediately attracted to her, and it seems she to him. He finds her a job in the zoo gift shop, much to zoo keeper assistant Alice’s (Annette O’Toole) jealousy. Oliver eventually cottons on to the whole mythology and realises what has to be done, in one of Hollywood’s rarer moments of mainstream sexual bondage. 

In Jacques Tourneur’s 1942 original Irena can’t even kiss her husband for fear of what she may become. In the reimagining the sexual element is brought to the fore, and its passionate abandon is played upon feverishly. Where the original relies on shadows and suggestion, the atmosphere of otherworldliness and the corruption of innocence handled with great finesse by Tourneur, in the reimagining the emphasis is more on what is shown, with the atmosphere and mood this time being dictated by production design, sound and music … and warm flesh. While both movies are very effective, they are entirely separate creatures. 

Paul Schrader’s Cat People is very much a movie of sound and vision. From the stunning opening scenes set on the stylized landscape that is home to the cat people; red desert sands, gnarled trees, tribal living amidst the skeletal bones of victims. The dream sequences are excellent, especially the intense “night rabbit” hunting sequence, and the superbly atmospheric stalking scene in the inside swimming pool (the one whole scene duplicated straight from the original). The other brief moment from the original is when a cat-like stranger (Neva Gage) “recognises” Irena in a bar and whispers “My Sister” (in Serbian). 

Kinski and McDowell fit their roles perfectly, both of them charismatic, yet strangely goofy-looking, animal-like, sensual, otherworldly. Arguably it’s one of McDowell’s best performances. While Kinski delivers initial awkwardness which gives way to a powerful sense of confidence and, ultimately, a tragic desperation. Curiously, she had been shedding her clothes for movies since she was sixteen (To The Devil a Daughter), so she has happy to pad around full-frontal in Cat People showing off her lithe, feline, yet muscular body; she appears strangely androgynous, just as McDowell has an androgyny to his appearance too. 

Georgio Moroder’s lush, distinctly 80s, yet sublimely timeless electronic score is one of the movie’s highlights, from the dreamy opening variation on the main theme to the freaky nature of the hunting night sounds to the classic chords and lilting melody of Irena’s Theme, and, of course, that amazing themed pop song collaboration with David Bowie. The special effects make-up effects created by Tom Burman are very good (love the feline eyes!), especially a gruesome dismemberment, but handled with subtlety and restraint in the transformation sequences. 

The movie’s pacing is a little off though. The romance between Oliver and Irena is important, but it causes the film to sag in the middle (mind you if we didn’t have the fishing scene we wouldn’t have got to enjoy Nastassja walking and bending over in tiny shorts and long rubber boots; one of cinema’s unsung moments of unexpected eroticism). Curiously director Schrader and Kinski had an affair during shooting but coked-addled Schrader became obsessed and Kinski fled back to Europe after shooting wrapped. Schrader was beside himself and threatened to insert graphic “pussy” shots of Kinski into the movie (as if there isn’t enough of Kinski’s body on show already). This tarnished Schrader badly and he didn’t work in Hollywood for a decade. 

It’s saddening seeing the archaic real New Orleans zoo and the size of the cages, to think animals were kept this way for so long. But the claustrophobic containment fits with the movie’s ancient concepts of possession and freedom, slaves to the rhythm of beastly desire. How they got the panthers so riled up is questionable, but the genuine animal rage is undeniably effective.

Cat People is a tragic tale of desire in the guise of an erotic nightmare, essentially a tale of carnal mythology and dangerous desires; it’s about the animal in us all.

Eaten Alive

US | 1976 | Directed by Tobe Hooper

Logline: A psycho, redneck hotel owner kills various guests who upset or annoy him, and feeds their bodies to his pet crocodile.

Eaten Alive is a strange Southern brew. Desperately trashy, yet undeniably eerie, it lingers in the mind for days after viewing, like the mood of a creepy dream. It was known as Death Trap in the U.K. (and on the notorious video nasties list) and alternately in the U.S. as Horror Hotel, Starlight Slaughter, and Legend of the Bayou. 

Judd (Neville Brand) is an extremely dodgy, disheveled man, with sex-crimes on his mind. He owns the run-down Starlight Hotel on the edge of the East Texan bayou. Alongside the porch is a murky pool where Judd keeps his large pet alligator (although he claims it to be an African croc). All Judd needs to feed his, and his reptile’s appetites, are suitable clientele. 

Along comes troubled whore Clara (Roberta Collins). Judd tries his way with her. Along comes a dysfunctional family; Faye (Marilyn Burns), Roy (William Finley) and young Angie (Kyle Richards). Judd interferes. Along comes Clara’s father Harvey (Mel Ferrer) and her sister Libby (Crystin Sinclaire) wondering what’s happened to her. Judd provides details. Along comes cocky butt-lovin’ Buck (Robert Englund) and his squeeze Lynette (Janus Blythe) to use one of the rooms for a little hanky-panky. Judd accommodates. 

Y’see all Judd wants is a piece o’ the action, but he’s got murder on his mind … and a hungry gator/croc to boot. No plot, just piece meal, yet there’s something about Eaten Alive; a kind of studied exploitation. It’s loosely based on the real-life post-Prohibition exploits of a seedy hotelier known as Joe Ball and his pet crocodiles. Like a Dario Argento movie, the tone and atmosphere floats with mysterious menace and languid intrigue. Characters don’t do much, and yet they still manage to behave in oddly interesting ways, just enough quirks to beguile you and keep you wondering where this crazy, mixed-up movie is plunging.  

Although shot entirely within a studio (when characters start raising their voices in exterior scenes you can hear the roomy acoustics of their voices bouncing off the studio walls), it is this cost-cutting measure (the shooting budget was probably less than The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, although it probably cost Hooper more to hire the actors on this film) which actually adds to the movie. The dreamlike mood is enhanced by the unreality of the sets. 

The intense, moody lighting, the over-use of the fog machine, and the histrionics of the acting makes Eaten Alive behave like some kind of wayward nightmare pantomime, or like a heavy rain pouring over a lurid, pulpy dog-eared paperback about southern sexual shenanigans soaked in a bourbon haze. Then there’s the hysterics; Tobe Hooper enjoys hysterics very much, and Marilyn Burns has got a great pair of lungs. 

The special effects are pretty darn cheesy, yes, the mechanical reptilian predator (the gator, that is) has to be seen to be (un)believed! Very curiously there was an end credit which read: “Mechanical alligator and crocodile furnished by Bob Mattey”. The producers would’ve been wiser spending money on footage of a real croc and editing it in. But then the fake croc adds a little more gamey flavour to this surreal gumbo stew. 

Robert “Freddy Krueger” Englund has a hoot playing the redneck booty-lover, poor Marilyn Burns (whom Hooper had so ruthlessly terrorised in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre) spends most of her time gagged and trussed to a bed, little Angie (Richards would play young Lindsey in the first two Halloween movies) spends nearly all her time hiding under the hotel amongst the rats and creaky foundations. Neville Brand mutters and splutters from his hoarse throat (yes, he’s a human reptile!), relishing his own perverse form of justice: if you come to my hotel be prepared to be devoured. 

Yes, Eaten Alive is a curious creature, ripe for the plucking (ripe for a remake??), late night popcorn fodder. Arm yourself with a large bourbon tumbler and a cut-glass ashtray full o’ bayou roaches, there's some country crooner lamenting a long lost love, and behind him the deep growl of a scaly beast swishing its tail in that pungent swampy corner.  

Caligula

Italy/US | 1979 | Directed by Tinto Brass, Bob Guiccione, Giancarlo Lui

Logline: The sudden rise and spectacular fall of Rome’s most notorious emperor. 

“What shall it profit a man if he should gain the whole world and lose his own soul.” --- Mark 8:36

Behold, the glorious disaster that is I, Caligula! Not so much an unmitigated catastrophe, but the beautiful ruins of a once proud beast, the most expensive hardcore movie of all-time, Bob Guccione and Tinto Brass’s Caligula took four years to make, enjoyed a briefly successful theatrical run in a handful of theatres before becoming the white elephant in the offices of Penthouse magazine, the bane of screenwriter Gore Vidal’s career, the thorn in Tinto Brass’s side, and the embarrassment of core cast members, not to mention, the ridicule of most critics. Throughout Caligula’s checkered history – and, it is oh, so checkered – the movie has been continually, and unjustly, banished from serious appraisal. But I champion this movie; warts, deformities, excesses, and extremities, in all its muddled, self-indulgent, hardcore wonder! Vivat Caligula!

“I have existed from the morning of the world and I shall exist until the last star falls from the night. Although I have taken the form of Gaius Caligula, I am all men as I am no man and therefore I am a God.”

Caligula traces the swift and sudden rise to power of Gaius Germanicus Caligula, and his (relatively short) reign as the third, and most infamous, Caeser of Rome from age 24 to 29. He was assassinated in 41 AD, along with his wife and daughter, after madness got the better of his judgment, and he’d betrayed one too many of his colleagues, a trail of murder and confusion left in the wake of his corrupt and ineffective leadership. But oh, what a fascinating period of decadent, violent history this movie traces. The abuse of power amidst the insanity of Pagan Rome. 

At the time Caligula was the most expensive independent movie ever made (it probably still ranks pretty high). Producer Bob Guccione, the editor of Penthouse magazine, had a deep-rooted desire to make the most spectacular and adult movie ever. But telling the story of Emperor Caligula wasn’t his idea. Producer Franco Rosselini invited scribe Gore Vidal to pen an original perspective on the story that would make no concessions to producer’s whims. Vidal incorporated his name into the title, and convinced underground filmmaker Paul Morrissey to direct. Enter Guccione as co-producer. Immediately the new affair rocketed the budget into the multi-millions, and Guccione got rid of Morrissey, not wanting the Warhol crowd hanging around. 

Rosselini saw Tinto Brass’s brazen Salon Kitty (1976) and had it screened for Guccione. They’d found their director. Also on board was production and costume designer Danilo Donati who supervised the manufacture of 3592 costumes, 5000 handcrafted boots and sandals, and wigs made from more than 1000 pounds of human hair! Donati was also in charge of a full-scale Roman vessel, complete with 120 hand-carved oars, the largest prop ever built at the time, at over 175 ft long and 30 ft high, and the stadium arena which spanned the length of three US football fields, and featured the notorious “headclipper” execution device that was five storeys high and 150 ft wide! That’s right, Guccione was sparing no expense! 

Gore Vidal was appalled at what was happening to his baby; gone were the muddy streets and dirty togas, replaced by majestic palaces and glamorous ladies-in-waiting. He resigned from the project and asked for his name to be removed from the movie, but Guccione had always intended for Vidal’s name to give the movie a veneer of respectability, and refused to discredit him. Later Guccione would alienate director Tinto Brass when he had him locked out of the editing suite. Caligula was quickly running into trouble and out of control. Principal photography was completed at the end of 1976, where it then entered a protracted post-production hell. The most infamous part of which was Guccione adding several minutes of inserts (pun intended) of sexually explicit footage he shot himself to take the movie to the next level (or baser level, depending on your sensibilities), chiefly in a legendary Sapphic tryst, and during the imperial bordello orgy sequence. 

I remember seeing full-page ads in my father’s secret stash of Penthouse magazines for several years before Caligula was finally released. The most commonly seen version was the R-rated theatrical cut which had all the graphic sexuality removed and was also the version released domestically on VHS. In 1999 the original uncut 156-minute version was released on DVD. However, neither of these versions do any justice to the intended shooting script, which was the heavily-tampered Gore Vidal version. And this is where I use the “disaster” description again. Not so much because the movie was ultimately a box-office failure and created so much disdain, but because Bob Guccione’s arrogance and ineptness lead him to constructing the movie in the editing room (after banishing Tinto Brass), ruining any kind of narrative continuity or cohesion which Brass had established during the principal shoot. Guccione and editor Nino Baragli chose many shots that were never meant to be included (zooms, out-of-focus shots, etc), cut up scenes and put them in the wrong order, deleted background characters, cutaways, and re-dubbed some scenes with entirely new dialogue! The final cut was three hours (with the lesbian and bordello scenes lasting twenty minutes each!), but that version only ever played at a few private trade screenings, and all traces of it vanished (oh, the humanity!)

Guccione had put together an impressive cast; Malcolm McDowell as the repugnant Caeser, Peter O’Toole as Tiberius, his ailing father, Sir John Gielgud as Nerva the elder, Helen Mirren as Caesonia, plus Teresa Ann Savoy and John Steiner who had been in Salon Kitty. Rounding out the rest of the support cast were mostly Italian actors, and Penthouse pets. After the movie was released both O’Toole and Gielgud wanted to disown the movie for its outrageously lewd and lascivious content, which only gave the movie more kudos within the underground circuit. Other actors who were considered for parts included Charlotte Rampling, Katherine Ross, Peter Firth, Orson Welles, Isabelle Adjani, Jack Nicholson, and Maria Schneider, who was actually cast (as Drussila) and shot some scenes only to walk off-set and quit in disgust when she discovered just how much nudity was actually required of her (apparently she’d not been happy with what Bertollucci had demanded of her on Last Tango in Paris).

Caligula is an extraordinary movie; the sumptuous sets and art direction, the saturation of mood and tone, the melodramatic performances; the whole production looks and feels like a strange phantasmogorical pantomime, a fabulously grotesque parade and elaborate façade of excesses and indulgences. Caligula is a marvel of decadence in every sense of the word; gorging on hedonistic pursuits, amidst the decay of morality and sensibility. The narrative is disjointed and at times infuriating in its lack of continuity, but it adds to the perverted fantasy of its depiction of history. That’s not to say much of this didn’t really happen, but I’m pretty certain the glamour of pagan Rome is an anomaly. 

Caligula is a movie to be admired for its set-pieces rather than a successful narrative. It is a movie to be experienced, to let its sensual decadence pour over you like sticky molasses and rich claret. There will probably never be another movie quite like it, despite the continuing desire of filmmakers, such as Gaspar Noe and Catherine Breillet, to make sophisticated adult movies that might crossover into the mainstream (I know, I’m one of them). These kinds of movies will always exist in the shadowy territory of underground, transgressive cinema. And perhaps that’s the best place for them, otherwise we have to listen to fuddy-duddy prats like Roger Ebert who walked out of his screening, yet still reviewed the movie, describing it as “sickening, utterly worthless, shameful trash. If it is not the worst film I have ever seen, that makes it all the more shameful: People with talent allowed themselves to participate in this travesty." He gave it zero stars, and ended with a quote from another viewer who told him "This movie is the worst piece of shit I have ever seen.” 

But hey, one person’s trash is another’s treasure. Or in my case, the deepest, trashiest of pleasure treasures, with absolutely no guilt attached. All hail, Caligula!

Dressed To Kill

US | 1980 | Directed by Brian De Palma

Logline: A mysterious blonde woman kills a psychiatrist's patient, and then pursues the prostitute who witnessed the murder. 

It’s been nearly thirty-six years since Brian De Palma released his giallo-inspired, assault on the senses, tagged as “the latest fashion in murder”. It excited and offended audiences when it was released, and had to be trimmed considerably in order to avoid an X-rating in the US. 

The movie kicks off with little shame; a controversial opening sequence features attractive, middle-aged Kate Miller (Angie Dickinson) in the shower while her husband, Ted (Norman Eveans) is shaving. With the steamy hot water cascading over her body she gazes through the translucent shower stall glass and caresses her breasts and masturbates. A male figure emerges from the steam behind her and clamps one hand over her mouth, while his other presses her own hand against her crotch. Kate squirms and writhes in shock. Is this a sexual fantasy or a real violation? Suddenly we cut to an overhead shot of the married couple in bed, Ted humping away on top of Kate. He finishes, gives his wife a peck, and slips out of bed, leaving Kate all hot, bothered, and unsatisfied. 

After a brief chat with her science geek son, Peter (Keith Gordon), Kate has a therapy session with Dr. Elliott (Michael Caine), voicing her sexual frustration and complaining of her husband’s lousy skills as a lover. Dr. Elliott listens intently, and arranges the next session. Kate then spends time appreciating modern art at the local museum. She finds herself flirting with a silent stranger, who hides behind sunglasses and entices her into his waiting cab. Against her better judgment Kate indulges in afternoon delight at the man’s apartment. 

Call-girl Liz Blake (Nancy Allen) sees the aftermath of an horrific murder and glimpses the killer in the elevator mirror. Cynical Detective Marino (Dennis Franz) is on the case, as is Kate’s son Peter, who fashions an elaborate camera set-up in order to capture the killer leaving Dr. Elliott’s office, since the doctor has received phone messages from one of his unhinged patients, Bobbi, giving details of the murder. 

Brian De Palma has often been criticised as a misogynist, and a director of style over substance, and Dressed to Kill (even in title) is ripe fodder for this analysis (in French-Canada it was re-titled Pulsions). But De Palma will be the first to jump to his own defence, stating his technique is simply employing the most honest, direct method in telling a story for the big screen, and that women are more compelling to watch (and kill) on screen than men. 

Most of De Palma’s movies are excellent examples of the power of visual storytelling. Alfred Hitchcock was a master at film narrative, elaborate mise-en-scene and succinct film grammar. Dario Argento, like De Palma, is another director who is pigeon-holed as a Hitchcock rip-off merchant. In no way are either of these directors mimicking Hitchcock, they are appropriating a striking and efficient method of storytelling that Hitchcock championed. Filmmakers, like all artists, borrow (steal, pay homage, whatever) from those that impress them. If there is any criticism to be laid upon De Palma (and the same goes for Argento) is that despite their mastery of the medium, they’ve also delivered as many turkeys as they have peacocks. 

Dressed to Kill both struts and gobbles. During the long museum seduction sequence one could be confused into thinking they’re watching a strange midday TV romance with Pino Donnagio’s full-blown score. Just like nearly all of Argento’s movies Dressed to Kill’s special effects are unconvincing; the blood looks like bright paint. But like Argento, I can’t help but be seduced by De Palma’s widescreen compositions and virtuoso set-pieces, his expert command of tension and suspense, and his red-blooded sensuality. De Palma would revisit many of the same elements in the inferior Body Double (1984) to absurd and risible effect. However Dressed to Kill’s psycho-sexual overtones make for a far more intriguing and provocative movie. De Palma leaves the psychological door ajar, but allows the carnal light to bounce off the blade poised in the darkness. This is artful exploitation. 

Just like in Psycho (1960) - the biggest influence on Dressed to Kill, although the story is gleaned from an experience De Palma had as an adolescent when he followed his father around with recording equipment trying to catch him out as an adulterer - De Palma throws a red herring to the audience early on, and then pulls the carpet out from under them when he kills off his apparent lead character less than half an hour into the movie. He also successfully confuses the hell out of his audience by having the character of Bobbi, the transvestite and suspected psycho-killer, voiced by William Finley (from De Palma’s 1975 Phantom of the Paradise), although in context it can be explained as one character’s subjective hearing. 

Nancy Allen, De Palma’s girlfriend at the time (they’d got together on the set of De Palma’s 1976 Carrie), looks undeniably alluring in black suspenders, brassiere and stilettos, but her performance is painful at best. She’s one of the great thorns in Dressed to Kill’s side. Her scenes with Det. Marino (Dennis Franz, unconvincing and thankless),  and, in particular, the utterly pointless scene at movie’s end where Liz discusses transsexuality with Peter (only to offend an elderly woman in the background in an ill-conceived attempt at humour), only highlight her limitations as an actor. Michael Caine, on the other hand, delivers one of his more under-rated performances (a role originally offered to an enthusiastic Sean Connery, who was unavailable).

WARNING! ENDING SPOILER ALERT! 

When Bobbi is shot by police and real identity is revealed, the movie could’ve ended there. But no, there are another four endings! We have the aforementioned café conversation scene between Liz and Peter. How about ending right there? Nope. We’re then presented with a surreal scene depicting Dr. Elliott’s escape from the insane asylum where he strangles the nurse, to the cheers of the lunatics watching from the railing a floor above, and he unzips her uniform (revealing sexy suspenders underneath, what a surprise!). Is that the shock end! No, now we have a POV approaching Liz’s house where she is showering inside. Bobbi, in nurse attire, has entered the house and is waiting. Liz senses danger, and spies the nurses’ shoes just outside the bathroom. Oh no! She tries to sneak quietly out of the shower but Bobbi is actually right beside the shower and slices a razor deeply through Liz’s throat. Surely the shock end?! But no, Liz jumps awake screaming in bed, and Peter runs to her side. It was just a terrible nightmare! But something’s not quite right … 

Hey, the movie may not have exactly aged like fine wine, but there’s still much to savour (even if it is just the final ten minutes!)

The Beast

La Bête | France | 1975 | Directed by Walerian Borowczyk

Logline: The daughter of an aristocrat travels with her aunt to a country estate to be betrothed to the wealthy young heir only to find herself distracted by family secrets and perverse fantasies.

The Beast is the perfect mélange of high art and deep trash, from a decade where the boundaries of good taste were pushed to the edge of the envelope, only to be caressed and folded back. High art, because the movie’s approach to the subject matter was years ahead of its time; and deep trash, because the shocking and lurid nature of the subject matter was treated in a pretentious or, more often, unintentionally absurd fashion.

The late Polish director Walerian Borowczyk’s ludicrous tale is a forest-and-mansion-bound phantasy of the most beastly indulgences; a netherworld of turgid dressing room dramatics, and animalistic lust and desire bordering on the macabre. Yes The Beast is a beast all of its own. No other movie quite like it. Leave your sensibilities at the door would be a sensible suggestion, and keep your tongue gently probing into the side of your cheek.

The plot of the film is slight to say the least, but the imagery, mood, tone, and ultimately its sensual deliverance, is what provides the movie with its cult revelry, its vulgar poetry; leaving the clutches of her aunt Virginia (Elizabeth Kaza), the English heiress, Lucy (Lisbeth Hummel), explores the French estate and discovers a secret family history. Later she dreams of musical fancies, in particular the pretty countess Romilda (Sirpa Lane) abandoning her harpsichord to find a lost wee lamb, then being stalked by a large sexually-ravenous ursine beast that first skins the lamb, then lusts after Romilda herself.

More importantly Lucy later comes to realise that the man she is to marry, Mathurin (Pierre Benedetti),  might very well be the beast of her (decidedly naughty) dreams himself; some kind of lycanthrope, perhaps. The patriarch, Pierre de l’Esperance (Guy Trejan), of the wealthy, but crumbling aristocratic brood may have more than his spirits raised. Oh, the humanity!

The Beast began life as an 18-minute short filmed in 1973 and was intended for the director’s ambitious erotic compendium Immoral Tales (1974). Instead Borowczyk decided to construct a feature around the short. His stylistic and surreal sensibilities are like a lewd and lascivious cross between Tinto Brass, Roman Polanski and David Lynch. As a maverick visionary the director has made a striking paean to bestiality and wayward desire; his adoration runs wild and wicked indeed!

But Borowczyk doesn’t suffer offended fools gladly, kicking his film off with an extended sequence of a large black stallion rogering several mares. The camera catches the equine’s throbbing beasthood several times, as well as the mare’s pulsating pudenda; the director’s mind is in the stable’s trough it seems! But this is Walerian Borowczyk. His movies penetrate the mind like a bad feverish dream. You can’t help but return to the more outrageous, dark, and sexually-charged elements of his movies, as the sumptuous and vivid cinematography only provokes the viewer’s aesthetic demands.

The Beast is a strange and peculiar curiosity, oh yes. A satirical dream of animal ravishing, and amusing inter-racial (and inter-species) couplings, that suggests – like only a sophisticated sexploitation art flick can – that women fantasise about being ravished by bear-like beasts with enormous secreting erections until eventually the animal expires and the woman escapes with barely a scratch upon her alabaster thigh.

The Canyons

US | 2013 | Directed by Paul Schrader

Logline: A jealous young movie producer suspects his lover of cheating on him and slyly infiltrates her connections in order to expose her.

On paper this read as the great erotic neo-noir; Paul Schrader at the helm of a low-budgeter, Bret Easton Ellis as the scribe, Lindsay Lohan as the femme, a male porn star as her nemesis, an uber flash hillside pad, the dappled light of California, the dangerous edge of Tinseltown. Stir in a heady dose of jealousy, manipulation, bisexuality, intrigue, and deception, and everyone should be home and hosed.

But The Canyons unravels long before the noose tightens. There is so much more promise than deliverance, the house wants to grind, but the meat remains wrapped. Well, mostly. There is definitely a sleazy allure, a seedy appeal, a hint of provocation, and a flash of the merchandise. And therein lies the Rub; considering the agent provocateurs onboard this production, why wasn’t this played to the sordid hilt?!

Christian (James Deen) is a classic Ellis character, a cool, detached, egocentric trust fund kid with a loose career as an independent producer working on the outskirts of Hollywood. His latest film project features Ryan (Nolan Funk), a matinee idol-esque player who is having an affair with Christian’s lover, Tara (Lindsay Lohan). To complicate matters, or maybe just to grease the situation further, there is Ryan’s girlfriend Gina (Amanda Brooks), and Cynthia (Tenille Houston), an ex of Christian’s who is still his fuck-buddy.

I was waiting for a character from one of the screen adaptations of Ellis’s novels to turn up, perhaps Tara might bring home Vic Ward (Kip Pardue) for a threesome, or Christian might bump into Patrick Bateman (Christian Bale) coming out of his therapist’s office, or Blair (Jamie Gertz) might be smoking a cigarette at the next café table. Or maybe even Ellis himself might stroll past on the footpath and glance knowingly at the camera.

Funny that, because two of the characters in The Canyons do just that: turn and gaze straight into the lens, the eye of the camera, breaking the fourth wall, in a way reminiscent of the self-reflective tearing of the reality fabric that he does so brilliantly in his novels Glamorama and Lunar Park. It is these two moments that seal the Ellis stamp on the movie, and the overall tone and atmosphere of the movie. It’s a shame Ellis wasn’t game enough to really push the boundaries. Or perhaps he was, but Schrader felt it necessary to reign in some of the excess.

There’s full-frontal nudity, mostly male, though it should be duly noted that Lohan does not deliver the full monty. The movie’s most sexually provocative scene, a foursome, is much tamer than it should have been, with an earlier scene being the movie’s most notable “NC-17” moment; a random guy casually jerking off on the sofa whilst watching Christian go down on Tara.

Performances are precarious; James Deen was surprisingly convincing, considering his most prized asset was kept under-wraps for the most part. Nolan Funk oozed charisma, and tries hard, while the movie’s real star, Lindsay, gave off a Norma Desmond air of worn out quiet desperation, her once striking good looks lost behind foundation and heavy eye shadow, many years of heavy partying. She’s 26-going-on-46. Lohan is the movie’s anchor tearing through the loose sand on the seabed as the movie crashes on the surf.

The Canyons’ dreamy visual narrative of drifting camerawork, soft pastel cinematography, and a languid mise-en-scene is the movie’s best feature, and the imagery that lingered longest, and had the most symbolic resonance, was the opening montage of lost suburban movie palaces and cinemas, those that have become derelict, shuttered up, abandoned. They appear occasionally through the rest of the movie, as momentary visual interludes, a poignant motif of desertion, estranged melancholy, social decay, and glamour gone west.

This is not an exit. It’s Ellis courting Tinseltown. Rock and roll. Deal with it.

The Canyons screens as part of the Sydney Underground Film Festival, tonight, Sunday 8th, 7:30pm, Cinema One, The Factory Theatre, Marrickville. 

Saturn 3

US | 1980 | Directed by Stanley Donen

Logline: Two off-world scientists are terrorised after a jealous imposter arrives at their remote station and assembles a giant robot assistant.

I’m really quite fond of this curious piece of cosmic debris, not just because of the presence of svelte Farrah Fawcett (R.I.P.) and the chutzpah of Harvey Keitel. Saturn 3 is hopelessly derivative, with a clunky narrative, and some dodgy special effects. But it has a fascinating history.

The basic plot has Benson (Harvey Keitel), a psychopath on a mission, killing Captain James (Douglas Lambert) gruesomely (with little regard for plausibility), then impersonating the astronaut. He travels to Saturn 3 (is it an asteroid or is it Titan, it’s never made clear) with his large trusty canister (which, inexplicably, wasn’t sucked out into space in the bizarre locker-room-cum-airlock). Upon arrival he introduces himself to the two neo-hippie scientists, Adam (Kirk Douglas) and his partner Alex (Farrah Fawcett), who are in charge of a large hydroponic research station (Earth is over-populated and food is now being sourced off-world). There’s also Alex’s mutt, Sally, and a couple of service robots in the facility.

While contact with Earth is blocked due to a 22-day eclipse, Benson/James makes immediate lustful eyes for Alex (hey, who wouldn’t?) and repeatedly tries, in the most uncouth and vain manner, to get into Alex’s jumpsuit, much to Adam’s restrained chagrin. While he bides his time Benson assembles and initiates the helper, Hector, the first in the "Demi-God" series of robots. Hector is an eight-foot tall humanoid hulk with red and blue liquid in tubing running from foot to head (well, actually Hector doesn’t have a head, instead a pair of electric eyes on a swivel-stick), and a bulky metal casing protecting the canister Benson brought with him, which is revealed to hold a massive amount of brain tissue taken from fetuses – thus perfect for programming.

Benson, however, prefers to have Hector operate from direct input; a flesh-jack – cortical stack - at the base of Benson’s neck, thus Benson can communicate and instruct Hector, telepathically. Of course this means Hector is infused with Benson’s unhinged, homicidal nature, so it isn’t long before Hector is on the rampage and although Benson is accountable, the huge whirring killer-bot is out of his control.

Saturn 3 was the project of legendary production designer John Barry (Star Wars, Superman), who envisioned a lush and dark precautionary tale of the future. He provided the story and was the movie’s initial director. However the budget was cut back during production because of spiraling costs on Raise the Titantic! from the same film company.

According to imdb.com Barry was fired after creative disputes with Kirk Douglas, however I’ve also read that it was Barry's untimely death during production that led to legendary director Stanley (Singin' in the Rain) Donen take over. Donen apparently wanted to downplay the exploitation elements of the movie, so unfortunately a couple of intense scenes were cut before release: Adam and Alex killing Benson in a fantasy sequence (possibly after dropping the classic Blue Dreamer pills) and a rather gory sequence where Hector dismantles Benson’s body, which would explain a memorable production still of Hector with Benson’s severed head slotted over his/its own swivel-stick head.

The last quarter of the movie is incredibly clunky and the ending is very abrupt. There’s also a big jump in the narrative time-line that leaves the viewer going “Huh?” With seven assistant directors and six assistant editors I can’t help but wonder what the movie’s original rough-cut was like: no doubt far more interesting, visceral and dramatic. Indeed, renowned British author Martin Amis penned the screenplay, although from the finished movie you certainly wouldn’t be able to pick it.  

However, for all the dodgy parts of the movie there are elements that are intriguing, even cool. While the opening spacecraft sequence is shamelessly lifted wholesale from Star Wars, the font used for the title that precedes it is way funky. Benson’s approach to the asteroid/moon is B-grade indeed, but the decontamination chamber effect is visually striking. Adam and Alex’s outfits - costumes really - are risible (Farrah’s wardrobe and hair design is lifted straight from the pages of Vogue, yet her character is meant to be entirely naïve), yet Benson’s green spacesuit is very cyber-industrial-chic. The design of Hector, apparently inspired by the drawings of Da Vinci, is creepy and menacing, but unfortunately the “metal” is very plastic in appearance.

There are only three main actors (if you don’t count Douglas Lambert’s token appearance), and the performances are uniformly horrible. Not surprisingly the movie was nominated for three Golden Raspberry awards: Worst Actor (Douglas), Worst Actress (Fawcett) and Worst Movie. Kirk Douglas pulls more ridiculous facial expressions than a clown, Farrah spends more time delivering a wimpy “Uh” or “Oh” rather than her soft-spoken drivel, while Harvey Keitel appears to be sleepwalking, and, very oddly, had his voice re-dubbed by British actor Roy Dotrice. Curiously there is not a complete cast list at the end of the movie, so Douglas Lambert is not mentioned, and the poor fool who stumbled around inside the robot suit was never given due credit.

Still, like any deep trash, I pluck what I need; Elmer Bernstein’s score is okay, and hey, you get to see a brief glimpse of Farrah’s lovely naked breast, and then her sumptuous nude body in silhouette, which set my pubescent mind racing when I first saw it back in 1980! Mind you, you’re also subjected to 64-year-old Kirk wrestling Harvey buck-naked.

Yes, Saturn 3 seriously malfunctions, its space junk body dragged around like Achilles did through Troy with the slain body of Hector; Martin Amis throwing a little literary metaphoric weight when he has Adam explain to Alex the connection. The movie was shamelessly trying to capitalise on the horror-sf success of Alien (1979), yet has none of Ridley’s expert command over look, feel, mood, and tone. Some of Hector’s robot moves are impressively executed, and the gore effects, especially the severing of Benson’s hand and Captain James’ demise, are decent, but the rest of the effects are mutton dressed as lamb (and to think the movie was released in a 70mm blow-up!)

I only hope one day a special edition gets released with all the deleted scenes, an in-depth director’s commentary, and Harvey and/or Kirk commentary. It might sound crazy, but the movie deserves better treatment than the full-frame, no-frills DVD release that’s been floating around for many years.

Even better, a remake, or should I say re-envisioning, with a bigger cast, and more adult content! I might even start work on a spec screenplay myself ...