My dearest of friends, please, draw nearer. No, nearer still--yes, that’s it, close enough that you can hear my faint whisper, for I have a word whose mere utterance can shake the very foundations of our ignorant society: nunsploitation. That’s right, dearest readers, once again the Duke of DVD returns from up on the mount to bring you what you need! The honeyed drippings I bring you now aren’t silly rules etched upon stone tablets by a faceless and impotent god, heavens no! They are instead of a movie that may well be the paragon of a genre we hold most dear, a shining beacon which causes us to lift our palsied hands and turn our faces towards its radiant beauty, tears streaming down our faces as heretical bliss takes over.
Friends, when auteur and nunsploitational genius Jess Franco's Love Letters of a Portuguese Nun dropped through my mail slot with a resounding thud, I snatched it up with much alacrity and sprinted to the Ducal theater, clutching it to my chest possessively, like a man who had just bought the severed penis of a mass murderer from a rather unscrupulous coroner in order to dip said penis into a river upstream from his hated neighbor’s lands, thus letting the evil drift down to murder all of his enemy’s cattle, children, and crops. One does not let such a prize out of one's sight, and I didn’t intend to with the DVD copy of this movie, I assure you! I settled down in my chair to bask in the glory, but little did I know how depraved a movie I had in store.
Let us explore, shall we?
Love Letters of a Portuguese Nun starts off with young Maria (Susan Hemingway), a 15-year-old tart who lives alone with her mother and who likes to run around the woods with her boyfriend, laughing and flirting like a whore. She’s doing just that when her boyfriend manages to steal a kiss before they are surprised by the outrageously evil priest Father Vicente (William Berger). He chastises the youths for their wicked ways. Maria asks what she’s done wrong, and Father Vicente replies, “You didn’t offend me, child, but what about God?” What about God, indeed, sir! He drags young Maria back to her mother’s house and fills both of them full of such lies that Maria’s mother gives her up to a convent--one that Father Vicente just happens to hang out in. Not only does he hoodwink Maria’s mother into letting her go, but he also takes all of their savings, claiming it as a “dowry” to the convent. Mama mia!
"Yes, yes child...that's how you churn the Lord's Butter!"
Father Vicente whisks Maria away to the Serra D’Aires convent, a very castle-like edifice out in the country. Very quickly, she is interviewed by the Abbess (Ana Zanatti), who insists on everyone referring to her as “Most Eminent Priestess,” a moniker that should raise a few eyebrows. In full view of the priest, the head nun insists on doing the ol’ tried and true Virgin Finger Test™, by making Maria hike up her skirts so that the Abbess can ram a cold, twisted finger into the virginal honeypot Maria carries around with her. (Nota bene: besides being an entry requirement to most of the Vicar’s social gatherings, the Virgin Finger Test™ can also be fun at Bat Mitzvahs, retirement parties, office gatherings, and presidential inaugurations. Ask for it by name!) The Priestess notes the absence of under-garments, a state Maria says is because of how poor she and her mother are. The Priestess replies “Were you tempted because you weren’t wearing proper under linens?” Now how many times have I heard that?!
Satisfied that Maria is indeed still bearing an intact hymen--or was, anyway--the Abbess sends her off to her new room, whereupon two nuns immediately enter and recruit Maria into a devotional kissing game. Heyo! What a convent! Maria is then made to go to the confessional, which amounts to a curtained-off corner of the main church. While all of the other nuns sit in their seats, Maria recounts her sins to Father Vicente. He very quickly steers her to the lewd, and she finally admits to having a dream in which she performed fellatio upon a boy. Father V loves this form of shrift, needless to say, and begins playing tug of war with cyclops right there in the booth! His fevered moans get louder and louder as Maria talks more and more about playing the skin-flute. The rest of the nuns titter with laughter as Father Vicente finally achieves sexual release inside his confessional--something the Vicar does daily, I might add.
Maria is informed that over the next three days she can’t wear any clothing, and instead must be wrapped with thorny vines, in order to pay some sort of penance for her sins. Some nuns strip her and help wrap thorn-bush limbs around her supple breasts and hips. During this time we are also informed that a nearby castle is inhabited by the Grand Inquisitor, who no doubt employs a ruthlessly fanatical devotion to the Pope, and whose arrival I was totally unprepared for. Later that night, we learn just what kind of party they're throwing at this convent: we see the Priestess praying to Satan, and we also get an extended lesbian scene that would raise the Devil’s own putrid cock like a daisy after a big rain.
"No, Father, I've never been in a confessional with a Hole of Glory. How does it work?"
Maria’s boyfriend shows up, hoping to entice her home. I thought we’d get some scene in which he’s found out by Father Vicente and made to stroke it over a fire or something, but nah, Maria vows to stay and drive the wickedness from her soul, and the poor boy leaves empty-handed and full-bollocked. Around this time we get a positively evil scene in which the Priestess gets mostly naked and engages in a Satan-summoning ritual, which involves placing a bowl full of baby’s blood (we’re told) directly under her hoo-hoo, and she writhes in ecstasy while two nuns pinch her nipples and otherwise rub up and down her body. The spell works, for we get a tiny glimpse of one of Satan’s hands, which look just like a normal hand, except it’s covered with so much curly thick hair that perhaps Franco intended for Satan to be a Wookie.
The latest Parish fashions.
Meanwhile, Maria finally wises up to the fact that Satan appears to have cloven-hoof-hold in this particular convent. She writes her mother a desperate letter, asking to be rescued from the rampant lesbianism and overt, unapproved fuckery going on. Unfortunately, the High Priestess intercepts her letter, and reads it aloud to the lecherous Father Vicente. As punishment, Maria is stripped to her smallclothes and made to stand in a small wooden cell. Before you can say “Hello, Vicar!”, Father V saunters in and forces Maria to reenact her dream--on his cock! Now how is she supposed to say her Hail Marys around a mouthful of uncut heretic man-meat? HOW, I ask you?!
"The power of CO--uh, Christ... compels you."
Finally, the promised event is nigh! The night that Maria loses her virginity to His Infernal Majesty. The mood is set: blacked out room save for a few sputtering candles, a dozen scantily-clad nuns moaning and rubbing themselves, and above it all the High Priestess holding court. Bizarrely, the High Priestess situates herself on the central altar and positions soon-to-be-not-so-chaste Maria directly behind her, so that Maria is leaning on the High Priestess’ back. Soon, the Devil Himself shows up, played insanely well by the hilariously-yet-appropriately-named Herbert Fux. In Franco’s world, Satan is the quintessential ladies' man, clad in a red silk body-suit and sporting cape and hairy hands--only he also has a giant dong coming out of the center of his forehead! In fairness, one assumes this was supposed to be a horn, but to me it looked like a rubber phallus attached to Satan’s face, which only added to the awesome. Maybe Satan needs two dicks, as there's so much 'sploiting to be done! Indeed, when he starts rogering Maria, the High Priestess also seems to be really enjoying things. At any rate, the vile yet somehow sexy deflowering is complete.
"You're staring at my forehead junk, aren't you?"
The next day, Maria is in tizzy. Her queries about the previous night’s activities get laughed away, with the Priestess claiming Maria has dreamed it all. Did she? Who cares! Maria flees the convent, heading into the nearby town, where she finally talks to someone ostensibly in power: the Mayor, a corpulent hog of a man. Offering to help her, he takes her off in a wagon, and Maria promptly falls asleep, confident that her fat savior will take her home. Instead, he hauls her back to the convent, into the waiting grasp of Father Vicente, who assures the mayor he did the right thing.
Where canned tomatoes come from.
The Priest and Priestess waste no time in punishing Maria. They drag her to the Inquisitor (which caught me completely by surprise!) and he sets about stripping her naked and tying her to the rack. Lots of torture ensues, and I was really wondering as to why they were all going through this farce until I realized that the Inquisitor suspects nothing ill about the Priest and Priestess, and isn’t himself in on all the Satan-lovin’ that’s going on at the convent. He’s simply doing his job and wringing a confession out of a naked, nubile young teen, a hallmark of the Inquisition for decades.
"Before we begin, could you please sign this insurance waiver?"
Soon, Maria signs a confession, admitting she made the whole shitstorm up and indeed loves Satan and all his many wizards with every inch of her blackened heart. Satisfied, the Inquisitor decrees that she’s die by fire the following day. Maria is left alone to think on her ruined life, and for some reason is also left a pencil and plenty of paper. She writes a last-ditch letter, detailing all that she’s been through, and then tosses the letter out a window, hoping some errant wind will carry her missive to someone who gives a flying fuck. As luck would have it, a foppishly dressed dandy is just at that moment riding by on his palfrey! He reads the letter, and gets as stern a look on that his lead-powdered face will allow.
"Dear sir or madam, you might be the next winner of The Inquisitor's Clearing House Sweepstakes! WTF?"
The next day, Maria is hauled out before man and God to answer for her supposed crimes. Inquisition guards stand ready as Father Vicente, the High Priestess, and the Inquisitor look on. Maria is tied to a stake and the fire is lit under her, but what’s this?! A giant gay riding a horse arrives with a few men of his own, demanding that Maria be set free. As it turns out, he’s the crowned Prince of Portugal! What fucking luck Maria has! (Well, except for being buggered by the Devil...) Of course, the Inquisitor immediately believes the Prince, and orders Maria cut down and the Priest and Priestess arrested! They in turn flee, running through the castle only to finally be cornered by Inquisition troops inside the church’s inner sanctum. Free-frame, the end.
Friends, the title of this movie conjures all sorts of images. “What Love Letters?!” you bleat, “I was hoping for some sexy letters detailing the cunnilingus rituals of the notoriously horny nuns of Portugal!” And you would be right to be vexed so, as I too was expecting something similiar. Instead, the love letters in question appear only to be missives to Maria’s mother asking for help, which of course never got mailed, let alone delivered, and the other being a letter tossed out a window only to become the genesis for a Deus Ex Fancypants.
In my aristocratic opinion, any normal nobleman would have read such a letter and immediately handed it to the Inquisitor as further proof that Maria fornicated with Satan. Oh sure, the rest of the convent needs be put to the stake as well, I mean, they were in on it, and the High Priestess regularly has sexual congress with the Devil too, so of course they all have to go.Then again, perhaps I can see the Prince’s end of things. Maria was forced, was she not? Despite having her cooch pumped full of midnight black semen, perhaps she does deserve leniency. The altruistic Prince was simply doing the chivalrous thing. Of course, he can never, ever, dip his wick into Maria’s befouled nethers--one thing you do NOT want is Satan's Sloppy Seconds--but I’m sure she’d make a fine dishwasher in the royal kitchens.
Once again, folks, Jesus Franco brings us the good stuff. His use of color, framing, and light are unparalleled in my mind. He just gets things right, all the fucking time. And the sets! I’ve probably said this before, but apparently all of Europe is rife with awesome castles, churches, and convents, just sitting there waiting to be used for movie-making purposes. Or defiled by hot Euro-babe fleshmongers, as the case may be. I loved this movie from start to finish, and firmly enshrine it into the Nunsploitation Hall of Awesome. Stop what you’re doing right now, and go get a copy for yourself. You will not regret it, my dearest friends. When has the Duke ever steered you wrong? (Except for that commercial I shot for Dandy Dan’s Coat-Hanger Home Abortion Kit. I was drunk ok? I lost a bet!)
"Yes, I'll help, but I insist on being paid in donuts."
"Wow...I DO have a nice rack!"
Butt on Satan's Claw
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Love Letters of a Portuguese Nun (1977), Or How To Get Fux'ed By Satan
Monday, December 13, 2010
Black Candles (1982): or, Sometimes You Get the Goat, and Sometimes the Goat Gets You
Spoiler: yup.
Originally titled Los ritos sexuales del diablo (The Sexual Rites of the Devil), Larraz's film is jam packed with dysfunction, depravity, and sex sex sex, sprinkled with enough outrageous cult-centered shenanigans to keep horror/exploitation fans happy. You want an old dark house filled with evil family secrets? You got it. You want a hapless, disbelieving heroine menaced by a Satanic cult with its fingers in every strata of village society? Happy to oblige. You want necro-incestuous dream sequences and an extended sex scene involving an actual, factual goat? Step right this...waitaminnit, what kind of fucking sicko ARE you?
| "It's a family heirloom. My grandmother had it fashioned from the first farthing she made as a prostitute!" |
Despite her misgivings about her sister-in-law's interests and her already burgeoning suspicions about her brother's death, upon being shown to her room Carol immediately strips down to lingerie and knee-boots to make sweaty Eurolove with her sacrilegious hubby, who in these scenes looks a lot like an Italian Jamie Gillis. A hot and bothered Fiona fondles herself while spying on them through a peephole in the wall, making good the old saying that the lady of the house comes first. And third. And fifth.
| Helga just had an orgasm. And boy, is she pissed about it! |
That night Carol dreams of wandering the estate's gardens in her white stockings and garter belt, followed by her brother's ghost. After a few vaseline-coated fish-eye lens shots and some nonsensical jump cuts, she finds herself in her bedroom, suddenly having hot passionate sex with her dead brother! Fiona pounds on the door, then teleports inside to make out with Carol while her brother licks her legs. She wakes up in a sweat, and 15 minutes into the movie we've already sent the "taste" bar through the floor.
Think there's nowhere to go but up? Keep dreaming.
| "Well here's a bush that needs tending!" |
Lest you think these Satanists are all talk, we cut almost immediately back to the barn, where the brother's lover from Scene One lies on a tuffet of hay in her knee-high, fringed suede boots (and little else), waiting for--wait for it--A GOAT. And if you're thinking they won't go there...well, I didn't think so either. But here we are.
| "Wait, Mr. Larraz...what's my motivation?" |
Turns out the goat's...erm, stuff...is needed for their ritual, which is some convoluted thing to make Carol believe she's going crazy before she tumbles to the fact that everyone around her is actually worshiping the devil. Which is a long way to go for Gaslight, but I guess just because you're a devil worshiper doesn't necessarily make you a great planner. Still, I shouldn't judge too harshly, since the plan seems to work like goatbusters: Carol sees all kinds of crazy visions (though nothing as crazy as what the audience just saw), and Fiona seduces Robert like a rabid minx, several times, finally making him a member of their coven. (We know he's completely gone over to the dark side because he stops wearing the gold crucifix that has decorated his tufty chest mane for the whole flick--well, that and he forces anal sex on Carol, to her moderate, understated distress.)
You'd think there'd be no trumps left once you've played the Fucked By a Goat card, and in fairness you'd be right. The filmmakers give it a go, however, by having the middle-aged maid cuckold her drunken husband with a young farm hand--while the husband is right there in the bed, egging the sweaty stud on! Later the drunk tries to warn Carol about the cult, and for his trouble is skewered with a sword Edward II-style by his former friends. Thereafter it's a short trip to the Final Sacrifice, where Fiona initiates Robert into the coven by letting him do her on the altar (a fair trade, imo), then takes on the Evil Priest before they all hold Carol down for similar treatment and sacrifice. Completely overpowered by the cult and with no savior to be seen, it looks like Carol is doomed...
| "That's Fred, Sheryl, Bobby, Johnson...and of course you know our accountant Maury." |
In the excellent book Immoral Tales, authors Cathal Tohill and Pete Tombs quote Larraz on the director's opinion of Black Candles: "I don't like that film. That film made a lot of money...No one in that film could act. So what do you do with them? You put them in bed and have them jump on each other!" And that's bad because...? Still, from a serious artistic point of view, you can't really argue the point. The movie suffers from nonsensical plotting, bad dialogue made worse by the usual atrocious dubbing, and a cop-out ending of the sort that usually infuriates me. And to Larraz's point, the acting across the board is pretty bad, except perhaps in the case of Helga Liné, who is a fine actress in my humble and does what she can with an underwritten role.
That said, for fans of the more outrageous end of the Eurotrash sexploitation spectrum, Black Candles more than delivers the goods. The movie is jam packed with sex, most of it about as explicit as a softcore movie can get. (Though for what it's worth, the goat sex scene is pretty tastefully done.) In addition to the bestiality and backdoor forcing, Larraz betrays a real oral fixation here, with Fiona on the giving and receiving end of such on more than one occasion. (Ed. note: zang.) Most of the girls are gorgeous, particularly the young Satantic "vessel" (Lucille Jameson, maybe?) who displays remarkable dedication in a nonspeaking role. It's worth noting that Helga Liné performs several nude scenes, and still looks gorgeous in lingerie, thigh-high boots, and the altogether despite being over fifty years old at the time of filming. However, for the "full-length" shots, as it were, an obvious body double is used.
| "Don't mess with me, dear. I crap bigger than you." |
In closing, Black Candles is sexy, outre, never boring, and entirely MAD, and for that I can only salute it. Sure it has its shortcomings, but don't we all? 2.25 thumbs.
Some more photos from Black Candles (1982):
| Looks like someone's horny. |
| Markie Post in an early role. |
| She'll eat your heart out. |
| It was the last time Mario agreed to "go first" at Pin-the-Tail-on-the-Donkey. |
| "Honey, would you still love me if I'd had sex with a convict when I was younger?" "Why of course, darling!" "Well...what if I'd banged a goat? Like...yesterday?" |
| Resuscitate Me |
| "Relax, baby--I'm a professional." |
Thursday, June 24, 2010
La Papesse (1974): or, Dreams in the Whip-House
I had never heard of director/novelist/playwright Mario Mercier before I came across a copy of his 1974 movie La Papesse (aka A Woman Possessed), but what I saw in my initial viewing of this extraordinary film was enough to make me curious enough to go digging. A writer whose work was censored mightily in France upon its publication, Mercier was a spiritualist and eroticist whose tales of witchcraft, necrophilia, and sexual cruelty earned it comparisons to the work of the Marquis de Sade, specifically his infamous magnum opus 120 Days of Sodom (the inspiration for the just-as-infamous film adaptation Salò by Pier Paolo Pasolini). According to this excellent article on Esotika Film's website, the Censure Française thought just as little of Mercier's work in filmmaking, banning La Papesse from the start and calling it “nothing but an uninterrupted succession of scenes of sadism, torture and violence, and a total and permanent disregard for humanity, displayed in a crude and revolting fashion.”
Looking back from our perch on the apex of filmic cruelty here in 2010 such a pronouncement might seem a little quaint--the violence and torture on display is nothing compared to what goes on today, or even in American films of the same era (*cough*Texas Chain Saw Massacre*cough*). What the censorial board missed--and what Mad Movie Fans will appreciate, I hope--is that Mercier's film is a sexy, surrealism-tinged journey into a dark fairy tale that kept me fascinated and thinking about it long after the end credits.
Also: lots of boobs.
Laurent (Jean-François Delacour) is a frustrated artist, and like many artists in the 70s is not averse to wandering off the beaten path in search of inspiration. As it turns out these searchings--as they so often do in cases like this--lead directly to the hairy feet of SATAN. "Somewhere in the world," the narrator tells us, Laurent discovers "a cult whose ancient origins spawned in night." In the opening scene he is being initiated to this cult by Iltra (the gorgeous and enigmatic Geziale) and her henchmen Borg and Steve. The ceremony involves being buried up to his neck in a fire-ringed pit and having a bucket of snakes dumped on his head! Laurent screams like a little girl, which apparently does little to cement his cult-member status.Snake Bite
Back home, Larent gets into a dinnertime squabble with his fed-up red-haired wife Aline (Lisa Livane, I think), who's had it up to here with his pretentions to a "life of magic and spectacle!" Laurent thinks marriage should be "a rubber band, not a chain," a view Aline surprisingly doesn't share. Perhaps still smarting from his serpentine sissiness, Laurent decidees to man up and lay down the law: "Either enter my world, or I'll eliminate you!" Realizing too late that statements of this nature are likely to result in neither sex nor sammiches, Laurent storms off for his next cultish ordeal.
It's here we get our first taste of Mercier's transgressive sexual ideas: in an eerie, dreamlike wastescape, Laurent is strapped to a cross and brutally whipped by Borg till he passes out from the pain. At the same time Aline is plagued by BDSM nightmares, seeing herself similarly crucified (nude, naturally) and flogged by a group of gray-robed Inquisitors. Through the aura of a vaseline-smeared lens, Aline is taunted by her torturers--"Look, doggie, at the exit that awaits you!"--and then inexplicably aged 50 years before she wakes up in a sexy sweat, thankful it was all a horrible (?) dream. The whip-stripes on her back, however, tell a different story."Hi there--we're here to take your baby away."
Back home, Aline wanders into the woods and is beseiged by visions of malicious nature spirits and then chased by a couple of mysterious thieves, in a scene that reminded me strongly of the dreamlike imagery in Lemora: a Child's Tale of the Supernatural and Valerie and Her Week of Wonders. She stumbles back to the house where Laurent and Iltra are waiting for her. "I can't stay alone here, in this shack of misfortune!" she cries, and it just so happens Iltra knows a place where she can stay instead...Gnarly.
Aline is installed in the cult's communal living space/haunted curio shop, where heads hang from hooks and random cultists tear strips of raw meat off suspiciously-shaped hams. Iltra and the Witch Queen offer Laurent a bargain--let them have his woman, and he can be one of the gang. The painter is all to happy to take that deal, and so begin Aline's trials. First she's turned out into the woods again, nearly nude, while Borg attacks her clad in gladiatorial armor! She gets the best of the skinhead, whipping him into submission with a cat o'nine tails in a scene to titillate tops and bottoms alike. Steve gets similar treatment, cementing the movie's status as a BDSM-stravaganza.
I've mentioned the dreamlike atmosphere of the piece a couple of times, but it really bears emphasizing again. Mercier expertly creates a world that starts out weird but recognizable, then slowly, inexorably spirals into the the darkest realm of fantasy and fairy tale. The weird craggy landscapes, shadowy forests, and stylized acting all combine to nudge us further and further into the dream/nightmare world in which Aline is trapped, so that by the time the REALLY weird shit starts to happen, we're more or less ready to go along for the ride.Aline feels a little cross
Things go even further into BDSM Fantasy Land in the days that follow, as Aline is kept in the stable like a hog and forced to eat slop from a trough--which one of the male cultists had already pissed in for flavor. To add humiliation to...well...all that previous humiliation, Aline is then tied down, spanked viciously, and branded on the ass with a hot iron! Laurent, showing his first iota of human compassion for another person EVER, starts to feel bad about Aline's treatment, but is reassured by his Culty Mistresses: "Don't worry--she's being reformed!" Holy Story of O, Batman!
I don't know if Mercier was influenced by Vicar-fave director Jean Rollin's visual style, or their both being sex-and-fantastique-centric French directors in the 70s just meant they shared a lot of the same zeitgeist, but the cult ceremony scenes that follow reminded me very much of similar scenes in Rollin movies, specifically The Nude Vampire and Requiem for a Vampire. The cultists come down the rocky terrain bearing torches, all dressed in primary-colored robes (not as diaphanous as those Rollin favors, but still), and then cast Aline into an open grave. "In spite of you, you are our wife now!" the Witch Queen tells her, then sics the Charles Manson-esque Steve on her to consummate their "marriage." While the grave rape goes on, the cultists sacrifice a rooster (WARNING: ACTUAL CHICKEN SNUFF), and squeeze its blood into a golden chalice. Then, on cue, Steve interruptuses his coitus in order to add another kind of cock juice to the brew!
Okay, so maybe the Censure Française had a point after all.The cult recommends Cuivre Reserve Château Bottled Nuit San Wogga Wogga.
The Witch Queen's plan becomes clear when she preaches to the group: "I have a mission to prepare the women of all races"--to be sexy, sexy overlords, apparently. (And I, for one, welcome them!) Invited to give the Witch Queen "the kiss of submission," Aline instead bites her and runs off, chased by Borg and his dog. Making lemonade out of bloody lips, the Queen orders the Wild Rumpus to start--where "rumpus" here means "Nude Epileptic Seizures and Group Sex!"--and takes Laurent to her altar to impregnate her with the devil's child, or something.
Meanwhile Aline runs through another dreamscape to a dark cave, where Borg walls her in. Lost in the dark, she's visited by a green-winged, Nosferatu-fingered spirit "that eats sexual things"--luckily (?) for her, "eat" here is a euphemism."Please, just try to relax."
After this ordeal we come to an even wilder finishing quarter hour in which Laurent, feeling protective of his former love or else pissy about being left out of all the lesbonic fun, turns on the cult and tries to save Aline at last. But is the Witch Queen too powerful? Will virtue triumph over vice? If you were paying attention to Mercier's literary influences above, you might have an inkling as to the answer.
Also, you get to see the Witch Queen in a gold belt and silver finger extensions--and nothing else--being whipped by her cult as part of a final ceremony to bring about whatever prophecy they've been waiting for the whole time. Or else just because she's into it, which seems a lot more likely.Learn to Love It
This is a wild, WILD movie that came out of nowhere and knocked me over. Satanism, witchcraft, BDSM, fairy tale demons and wood sprites, hippie orgies and improbably ornate ceremonial gear (including Iltra's amazing breast-baring gown, complete with black-ringed fuchsia pasties)--this movie just really has it all. Add to that some gorgeous cinematography and even more gorgeous women, and bestowing the 3+ thumb rating on this one is a no-brainer.
If you get a chance to see this one, definitely take it. The version I had sported some occasionally clumsy subtitles (lots of male/female pronoun confusion, and occasional untranslated exchanges) but I could pick most of it up from context, and the visuals were the important thing anyway. Now I'm definitely interested in finding a translation of some of Mercier's novels, if they exist, and seeking out his other two films. If any parishioners have info on Mercier and his work, please let me know!
Some more great images from La Papesse (1974):With that belt buckle, I'll just bet he will!
Geziale: Smokin' Hawt
Witchcult Today
"When I give Borg the signal, you may feel a little pressure..."
You'd do it too
A little head for everyone!
I don't think she's talking about the World Cup, somehow...
"..but then I know you to be a Demonic Priestess bent on sexual domination, so clearly I cannot choose the wine in front of me!"
I'm sold.
The Big Borg Wolf
"Kermit was right, this sucks!"
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
The Demon Lover/Demon Lover Diary (1977, 1980): or, American Movie Goes to Hell
Before I take you to your regularly scheduled post, I have to give a major shout-out to the excellent and encyclopedic Bleeding Skull (http://www.bleedingskull.com). After an absence of too many months, those guys are finally updating again, bringing hungry fans like me more entertaining and informative reviews of the most obscure and awesome trash cinema you could imagine. That site was and continues to be a huge inspiration to me in my movie reviewing efforts, which is to say I shamelessly rip them off at every opportunity. Imitation, flattery, etc...
Today I'm ripping them off even more brazenly than usual, as their post on the first movie under discussion and excellent article on the second were the direct cause of my seeking said movies out. I'm so glad I did, and I hope you will be too.
The Demon Lover (1977, aka The Devil Master) is the kind of big-dreaming, gloriously inept movie that always makes me smile, sometimes with but mostly at the bravely deluded people involved. A standard "hippie devil-cult leader summons a demon for revenge on the Judases in his flock" tale, it was supposed to be the filmmakers' ticket out of their car parts factory jobs and into the Dream Factory of Hollywood movie-making. Unfortunately a lack of funds, resources, and basic talent prevented it from becoming the "masterpiece" director Donald G. Jackson and producer Jerry Younkins envisioned.
But fortunately for trash movie fans and serious film students alike, documentary filmmaker Joel DeMott brought her camera along when she and her cinematographer boyfriend Jeff Kreines traveled to Michigan for the shoot, for which Kreines had agreed to serve as DP. The resulting film, Demon Lover Diary (1980), records the sometimes hilarious, sometimes depressing, and often even frightening ways in which production on The Demon Lover went wrong, and is itself a priceless document of the pitfalls of independent movie-making.
First, our feature presentation:"Hi, I'm Laval, and I'll be your Devil Master this evening."
We open at the estate of cult leader Laval Blessing (Christmas Robbins, actually producer Younkins in a long flowing wig), where a bunch of wacked out hippies are gathered to get their kicks with the help of booze and devil worship. Upstairs Laval tries to convince a young cult member to participate in an orgy in order to "release energy" in order to summon a demon to do their bidding. When the nubile acolyte refuses and calls the other cult members to her aid, the whole occult study group falls apart, leaving Laval with one drugged-out Devilbabe with whom to work his magic. Turns out that's enough, as he's able to summon the demon anyway, which he then sets loose to get revenge on his former followers.
As the bodies start to pile up, a local police detective starts looking into the cult in an attempt to get to the bottom of these strange, savage murders. He gleans some information from a "white magic" cult with whom his wife has some ties, and then gets a hot tip from Damien, a disgruntled former cultist who is convinced Laval is behind it all. It comes to a head with a few former cult dudes and the detective descending on Laval's rural hideaway, only to fall victim to the Devil Master's mind-control powers in a (sort of) shocking bloodbath of horror. But when the demon demands his due, Laval finds out that Demonic forces are (surprisingly) not to be trusted.Frank Zappa: the Stunt Man Years
The flick also suffers from some pretty obvious padding, as when we get 10 minutes of Laval sparring with his Karate class and thereafter engaging in a barroom brawl with his dojo-mates, in a laughably-choreographed scene that has fuck-all to do with the plot. The only slightly redeeming thing about the movie are a few almost-effective effects scenes, as when one victim gets splattered over the hood of a car (driven by a friend who's either controlled by the devil or having a wild epileptic seizure) or the bloody aftermath of the dudes' self destruction. Also, the Demon costume is pretty fun in a Halloween Express kinda way, though the heavily distorted voice they use sounds more like Mel Blanc than Mephistopheles.
"No thanks, I've already had a Bloody Pamela, a Bloody Elaine, AND a Bloody Janice!""Hey guys, can you tell me how to get to the Dio concert?"
On the other hand, Joel DeMott's Demon Lover Diary succeeds, both as a piece of filmmaking and as a sort of horror movie. In fact it starts out almost exactly like The Blair Witch Project, as we watch Joel and dumpy lover Jeff Kreines packing up for the trip to Michigan to shoot the flick. We seldom see Joel herself on camera, but she narrates for us, both through the film itself and periodically through a conversational and effective voice-over. They seem like enthusiastic, slightly pretentious kids, excited to be getting out of the city for a while and having the opportunity to work on a real-live feature film. Their friend Mark accompanies them to donate his talents as sound man.A little something for the ladies
What's also clear is that Donald Jackson is a grade-A creep of the "might in fact be a serial killer" kind. Laying out the plans for the production, Jackson never misses an opportunity to make Jeff feel uncomfortable and Joel unwelcome, and his odd way of speaking is frankly unsettling. Here we also meet Younkins, who we learn has helped finance the film by purposefully cutting off one of his fingers for the $8000 insurance money! The group argues for a while about whether Joel should stay at the house to answer phones while they pick up the rented filming equipment, ramping up the tension even more.Director Donald G. Jackson: Am I Demon?
The equipment rented and everyone finally ready to start shooting the next day, Jackson takes the three kids to his parents' house, where they'll be staying while they work on the film. Jackson's mother is a sweet-talking country lady, but also a devout Christian--therefore Jackson forbids them to talk about the movie's plot, which his mother would strongly disapprove of. Also, he tells Ma that Joel and Jeff are married, another deception to smooth things over, and one which Joel is vocally uncomfortable with.
Once production starts, thinks go south with alarming speed. Jackson has drastically overestimated their shooting efficiency, and they quickly fall behind schedule. Younkins takes over directing the cast while Jackson concentrates on shot framing. Distractions abound, as the director takes off seemingly every other day to talk with local press about the "masterpiece" they're filming, pushing them further off schedule. Filming goes disastrously, with an improvised whipped cream fight threatening to destroy their rented camera, Younkins voicing loud disapproval over Kiernes' lighting set-ups, and the actors betraying their astonishing lack of skill at every turn. Jackson's sweet-talking mother shows her mean streak, blowing a gasket about the mess in the lodger's room and complaining about the noise they're making when they come in late. The tension, already palpable, becomes nearly unbearable.Behind the Scenes on Demon Lover
Of the small number of people who have seen Demon Lover Diary, many compare it to the 1999 documentary American Movie, and there are certain similarities. However, where Mark Borchardt and Mike Schank come off as lovable idealists pushing toward success, Younkins and Jackson seem more like deluded sociopaths spiralling toward failure, and taking everyone around them along for the ride. Jeff quickly sees that the movie is going to be a disaster, and contemplates leaving before Jackson offers them $1000 to stay and finish (they'd originally agreed to work for free). Worse, when news gets back to the factory that Jackson is filming a movie and not on sick leave, he runs the risk of losing his job. Totally obsessed with the movie, though, he bets all his chips on it, mortgaging his house and risking the welfare of his wife and three kids; Joel worries aloud for the children's future.
As in American Movie they meet some other eccentric characters along the way, such as the make-up man/actor who alternates living with his wife and one of his three girlfriends. There are long talks about marriage, about poverty, about lack of sleep, as the whole crew quiclkly succumbs to exhaustion. Jackson's megalomania runs unchecked, and the already troubled production suffers more for it. Eventually they find themselves--rather incredibly--at the home of rock legend Ted Nugent (!), where they borrow some of the rocker's arsenal of firearms for a climactic scene. Jackson's insistence on using live ammunition worries the crew, and rightly so.At Home with The Nuges
As I said earlier, the movie starts out like Blair Witch Project, and by the time things started to go wrong, I found myself thinking that, if it were a fiction film, by the end of the movie these protagonists would be running for their lives from their crazy director. It turns out I wasn't far off--when Joel and Jeff try to get Jackson to sign a contract promising their cut of any profits, you can almost feel the curtain of coldness drop between them, and this is soon followed by a genuinely surprising and chilling climax.
Demon Lover Diary is a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at an ill-fated production, and at the personalities and problems involved in any creative project. Joel DeMott's narration and editing move the story along very skillfully and briskly, in sharp contrast to the haphazard editing and pacing of Demon Lover. She also betrays some East Coast condescension fo the Midwesterners with whom they're working, which comes through as a kind of warts-and-all veracity. While I did wonder if some of the scenes were restaged, in the end it didn't really matter--perhaps they achieve through a little fudging what Werner Herzog has called "ecstatic truth." Even if not, they've made a gripping documentary.Younkins shows off his battle scars
Demon Lover is a 1.25 Thumb-worthy failure, but the documentary of its making is something else entirely. If you've ever wondered what kind of person makes movies like Demon Lover, this is the answer, and it's more entertaining and frightening than the movie itself. Picture American Movie as directed by Andy Milligan, and you're close. Demon Lover Diary is an unknown documentary classic. 2.75 thumbs.
Nota bene: while DeMott went on to make only one other movie, the 1983 documentary Seventeen, Donald G. Jackson actually had a little better luck as a director. There are 33 credits on his imdb page, including the Troma sequel Class of Nuke 'Em High Part II: Subhumanoid Meltdown (1991), the tantalizingly titled Lingerie Kickboxer (1991), and Roddy Piper-starring cult classic Hell Comes to Frogtown (1988) and its sequels. Dreams do come true?
Bonus links:
Bleeding Skull review of Devil Master (Demon Lover)
Bleeding Skull's excellent feature article on Demon Lover Diary
Bleeding Skull's review of Joel DeMott's second feature, Seventeen (1983).
Also, thanks to Kitty of Killer Kittens from Beyond, from whose March 2009 review I shamelessly stole the excellent poster graphic. ;)