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From Robbe Grillet I loved Successive Slidings of Pleasure when I saw it a few years ago, but my viewing habits were not so... debased at the time. Curious how I would react now with a rewatch. I quite liked Trans Europ Express as well, but that one is not so... perverted.
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It's probably been over a decade since I've seen both, but you can't argue with Newman's performances.
Evil Dead Trap (Ikeda, 1988)
One of the pleasures of Evil Dead Trap is seeing a convergence of several lines of influence. There are the fingerprints of David Cronenberg, whose Videodrome is cited early in the movie. The heroine, who works for a late night investigative program that seeks out edgy, extreme content, receives a snuff video in the mail and decides to dig further. There are the great Italian horror directors. The colour schemes bring to mind Mario Bava and Dario Argento, with aggressive use of filters rendering much of the movie in monochrome, generating a certain frisson from applying such a bold visual style to such a grimy setting. And there's a scene of Fulcian eye trauma, which paired with the POV delivery we associate with classic giallo, knocked me on my ass like I haven't been in quite some time. There's a little Sam Raimi sprinkled throughout, with frantic camera moves providing a kinetic manifestation of the sinister atmosphere. And there is perhaps a bit more Cronenberg, although I wouldn't dare to reveal the specifics.
And one can perhaps see subsequent movies echoing certain attributes. In a featurette included on the Unearthed Films Blu-ray release, Calum Waddell suggests that the presence of a cursed object (the snuff tape here) might have influenced the use of the same trope in Ringu. Waddell also cites a rumour that Oliver Stone was a big fan of the movie, and when you see how this movie swerves between film formats and colours, one can speculate that Stone might have drawn a bit from here when creating the fever dream aesthetics of his '90s classics. And staging this level of brutality in this kind of isolated, decaying setting does bring to mind a similar juxtaposition in Hostel.
I bring all this up not to knock the movie for being derivative, but to suggest that for certain horror fans, this will be like a trip to the candy store, where you grab a little bit of everything and try to fit them in your giant trenchcoat Marge Simpson style and hope it doesn't explode from the pressure. (Okay, that was a candy convention. I apologize for pivoting my metaphor mid-sentence.) And the movie is quite well executed, with gruesome, creatively staged violence and a palpable atmosphere from its crumbling abandoned military base setting. There's a sense of real evil in the air, enhanced by the almost disembodied acts of violence perpetrated against our protagonists. I think the movie stumbles a bit when it includes a scene of sexual violence (which is ugly in ways that ultimately don't feel justified by the time the movie concludes), and some of the supposed adults behave like horny, idiotic teenagers from slashers, but the latter at least provides for some humour. (A choice line: "Don't worry, the sun's still up. Dracula won't be out until dark.")
Now, this did not occur to me during the movie, but in that featurette, Waddell offers an interesting political read of the movie, suggesting that it's a metaphor for dealing honestly with Japan's imperial past and the search for truth. In that sense, one scene proves especially potent. The heroine hides behind a car as the villain leaves with the corpses of two other characters. She sees a chance to escape and starts on that path, hesitates, goes back in the car. She retrieves a flashlight, steadies her nerves with a cold brew. And then she goes after the villain.
I kinda can't wait though, past hints and now your review have me pretty revved up for it.
That being said, the premise sounds intriguing. Along those lines, have you seen Black Mass AKA Messe Noir? It's a French pornographic short film from the '20s about a satanic orgy. None of it is terribly shocking, but there's a nice Haxan vibe to the whole thing.
There are...sites. 
Gotcha. I'm a bit naive on this sort of thing but something like that, 1920s Haxan Porn, I feel like that's something I have to see in my life.
1. I know "erotica" has existed ever since we invented cameras but I was not aware that folks in the 20s had taken things to this level already. Nothing left to the imagination here.
2. I wonder what the target audience for this would have been. Or rather, where would one screen this thing back then? An art gallery, maybe. I haven't really researched it.
A genuine curiosity, that's for sure.
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For me it's one of those things that is fascinating just because it exists, but not necessarily because of its actual "quality" as a film. But definitely thought-provoking. Some of my thoughts that were provoked:
1. I know "erotica" has existed ever since we invented cameras but I was not aware that folks in the 20s had taken things to this level already. Nothing left to the imagination here.
2. I wonder what the target audience for this would have been. Or rather, where would one screen this thing back then? An art gallery, maybe. I haven't really researched it.
A genuine curiosity, that's for sure.
1. I know "erotica" has existed ever since we invented cameras but I was not aware that folks in the 20s had taken things to this level already. Nothing left to the imagination here.
2. I wonder what the target audience for this would have been. Or rather, where would one screen this thing back then? An art gallery, maybe. I haven't really researched it.
A genuine curiosity, that's for sure.
And yeah, I guess I'd always thought of old time erotica in terms of the goofy softcover/fetish loops you'll glimpse in the odd mainstream movie, so an explicit hardcore movie from this era feels a bit startling, even though there's no reason it shouldn't exist.
Unfortunately I can't seem to find much else about this movie, but I suppose it's better left shrouded in mystery. Adds to the atmosphere.
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And yeah, I guess I'd always thought of old time erotica in terms of the goofy softcover/fetish loops you'll glimpse in the odd mainstream movie, so an explicit hardcore movie from this era feels a bit startling, even though there's no reason it shouldn't exist.
Unfortunately I can't seem to find much else about this movie, but I suppose it's better left shrouded in mystery. Adds to the atmosphere.
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I think this is a great example of how mid-century morality, from like The Hays Code through the last gasps of Nixonism and then Reaganism, obscured what the world was really like for so much of its history. It's like, it only takes maybe two generations to come up under a new moral code to think that that is the way things have always been (and also that it is right).
When I read The Big Sleep, for example, I was just shocked. Because it predates all of this and so it's about porn and homosexuality and murder and then you see the movie and, thanks to the Hays Code, it is completely neutered. I honestly don't even remember what the movie's conflict was about, like what the "crimes" actually were. But it leaves the impression that "things were much tamer before" when in fact they were only much tamer during a particular period, from basically the 1940s through the 1960s.
I mean, you think flappers didn't do anal? Please.
When I read The Big Sleep, for example, I was just shocked. Because it predates all of this and so it's about porn and homosexuality and murder and then you see the movie and, thanks to the Hays Code, it is completely neutered. I honestly don't even remember what the movie's conflict was about, like what the "crimes" actually were. But it leaves the impression that "things were much tamer before" when in fact they were only much tamer during a particular period, from basically the 1940s through the 1960s.
I mean, you think flappers didn't do anal? Please.
There was some lost genre movie that was discovered in a brothel in the past decade, I think. I want to say it was something appropriate, like a Jess Franco movie, but I could be wrong.
Nothing is quite like a proper version of The Passion of Joan of Arc being lost for decades, only for a legit copy to eventually be randomly found in an asylum.
Nothing is quite like a proper version of The Passion of Joan of Arc being lost for decades, only for a legit copy to eventually be randomly found in an asylum.
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Nothing is quite like a proper version of The Passion of Joan of Arc being lost for decades, only for a legit copy to eventually be randomly found in an asylum.
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I think this is a great example of how mid-century morality, from like The Hays Code through the last gasps of Nixonism and then Reaganism, obscured what the world was really like for so much of its history. It's like, it only takes maybe two generations to come up under a new moral code to think that that is the way things have always been (and also that it is right).
When I read The Big Sleep, for example, I was just shocked. Because it predates all of this and so it's about porn and homosexuality and murder and then you see the movie and, thanks to the Hays Code, it is completely neutered. I honestly don't even remember what the movie's conflict was about, like what the "crimes" actually were. But it leaves the impression that "things were much tamer before" when in fact they were only much tamer during a particular period, from basically the 1940s through the 1960s.
I mean, you think flappers didn't do anal? Please.
When I read The Big Sleep, for example, I was just shocked. Because it predates all of this and so it's about porn and homosexuality and murder and then you see the movie and, thanks to the Hays Code, it is completely neutered. I honestly don't even remember what the movie's conflict was about, like what the "crimes" actually were. But it leaves the impression that "things were much tamer before" when in fact they were only much tamer during a particular period, from basically the 1940s through the 1960s.
I mean, you think flappers didn't do anal? Please.
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Babyface 2 (De Renzy, 1986)
So, normally I don't watch the second movie in a series before the first, but I made an exception here for a few reasons. The first Babyface has middling reviews from my Letterboxd circle, and is full of people I don't know and have no strong affection towards. It's also an hour and forty-six minutes long. Ninety minutes is the perfect maximum length for a porno, allowing for enough plot to work as a movie and enough sex to succeed as an example of its genre. Anything longer than that can be a challenge from my experience, as that precise alchemy can be harder to achieve with that extra runtime. You get too much excess fabric on a shirt and it goes from roomy to baggy and shapeless. In contrast, Babyface 2 has great reviews from my Letterboxd circle and a bunch of people who I enjoy seeing for reasons of varying skeeviness. It's also eighty minutes long. You go in for the ninety minutes and get ten of them back. You can't argue with those savings. So it is with a heavy heart that I decided to skip the first movie and go right to the second.
There is enough plot as far as these things go. The great Lois Ayres goes with her friend Lynn Francis decked out in cheerleader gear to meet her boyfriend Kevin James at the race track. (This is NOT the Kevin James who appears in Happy Madison productions, but the one who starred in such genre classics as Cafe Flesh and Taboo II.) Ayres and James drive up for a romantic rendezvous to a dirty, unkempt shed. After this, they part ways. James proves to be a pretty lousy boyfriend when he joins his friend Tom Byron and immediately hooks up with a pair of total babes. Ayres instead goes to a bachelorette party for her friend Careena Collins, where we're joined by the great Taija Rae, the great Kristara Barrington and a bunch of other people who are alright I guess. This scene is actually one of ways that the movie distinguishes itself, in that it actually devotes time to the friendship between these characters and the chemistry they have with each other. While it helps that it holds off on the sexual activity for a certain amount of time (the raciest this section gets is Ayres using a vibrator like a massager; we also get a character juggling a pair of Ben Wa balls and other wholesome sex-toy-related shenanigans), you do get the sense that these characters are actually friends and not just people who are eventually going to have sex for the purpose of the plot.
Of course, that does happen, thanks to the arrival of Jamie Gillis as a disheveled male stripper, who threatens: "If I get this thing hard, it's gonna put a spell on you. Every one of you girls is gonna be overcome with lust." In a movie with a uniformly great looking cast, Gillis looks impressively awful, seemingly in dire need of a shave, a shower and a clean shirt (he sports a stained undershirt and a pair of boxers). It turns out that Gillis wasn't kidding, and soon all the ladies are under the spell of his magical dick powers and start frantically having sex. This is witnessed by Marc Wallice, a friend of James and Byron who was supposed to be doing "homework". He breathlessly reports his findings to his male buddies, including Collins' fiance Jerry Butler. They arrive at the house trying to get to the bottom of this, and I suppose they do, in that they spend the rest of the movie fearfully running around the house as they get pounced on by the ladies, one by one. There's some heroic acting here by the gents as they try to look scared at the prospect of sex with Taija Rae, Kristara Barrington, Lois Ayres and the rest of the female cast.
Now, this movie doesn't have any higher ambition than being a good **** film, and I will give credit where it's due and say it's quite enjoyable on that level. The second half of the movie is basically one giant orgy, a setup I've found quite boring elsewhere but found engagingly executed here. There's lots of dramatic lighting and sound effects to evoke thunder, lightning and Gillis' dick magic (we get lots of evil Gillis laugh as well), and the movie nicely keeps the energy level up while avoiding monotony with the individual vignettes. In particular, there's an intriguing improvisational quality to a scene between Gillis and Collins, where you can get a sense of his thought process real-time. The laughs come steadily and in full force, and there's a nice summertime vibe holding the thing together, making it surprisingly fun to hang out in. If you like any of the performers involved, I can report they're all quite charismatic and enthusiastic here, even Candie Evans as a narrator of suspect reliability who sadly sits out most of the action. Maybe in Babyface 3 she'll get her revenge.
Now, I must note that I always like seeing Lois Ayres, and this movie is no exception. She gets to bring some of that classic annoyed sneer, and sports a great hairdo and nice turtleneck sweater to boot. (Her new-wave coiffure stands out starkly against all the brillo pad / plasma ball 'dos sported by the other ladies.) But the movie does raise one issue with her involvement. In one scene, a character watches Ball Busters. I have not yet seen that movie (although given the talent involved, I suspect I'll enjoy it), but I understand it also stars Ayres, with an even more imposing hairdo. Now, is the Ayres in Babyface 2, who like most of the other characters goes by her real first name, the same one who stars in Ball Busters? It would have been nice if Evans, instead of spewing probable lies about the proceedings, provided a definitive answer to this question. But as it is, we will never know.
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I just noticed Bloody Muscle Bodybuilder in Hell is getting a Blu-ray release. Have I seen it? No. Do I own it? Multiple international copies of the DVD, actually. I've been saving it for... roughly two years from now as a blind watch to spring upon friends. Here's to hoping it stays relatively obscure.
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I just noticed Bloody Muscle Bodybuilder in Hell is getting a Blu-ray release. Have I seen it? No. Do I own it? Multiple international copies of the DVD, actually. I've been saving it for... roughly two years from now as a blind watch to spring upon friends. Here's to hoping it stays relatively obscure.
Anyway, look at these posters.
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Went to add this to my watchlist...and it's already on there. Foiled again!
Anyway, look at these posters.
Anyway, look at these posters.
The first one is the cover of the DVD I have. The second looks like it's the cover of the Blu-ray.
I wonder if that's on your watchlist because I talked about getting the DVD before and asked if anyone had seen it.
Or if it's just coincidence. If the former, I need to start finding more shite. I also need to start reconciling the fact that I can't wait to blind watch a lot of my horror collection with friends because... that might take decades (or at least a decade. I don't know how many of the movies I bought I've seen at some point in my lifetime).
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Rock, have you seen A Chinese Torture Chamber Story?
Looks like it's on the Internet Archive in a decent print, might check it out soon.
Also, I see the name of the director...
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