The Washing Machine

The Washing Machine
Original Title: Vortice Mortale
Directed by: Ruggero Deodato
Italy /France / Hungary, 1993
Thriller / Drama, 87 min
Distributed by: EVS Entertainment

Years ago when I was working in an underground video store that stocked, supplied and distributed uncut import tapes of great genre pieces, I once read a synopsis that said that this movie was all about a haunted washing machine. Obviously I tossed it to one side and decided that Deodato had lost it completely – how could the man responsible for such beautiful and grim masterpieces have sunk so low to make a movie about a haunted washing machine?

Fifteen years later I can laugh at my naive arrogance and actually enjoy this movie for what it is and finally get over that faulty synopsis that made me stay away from this piece for a decade and a half.

Inspector Alexander Stacev [Philippe Caroit] finds himself in an unnerving and disturbing place when he arrives at an apartment housing the three Kolba sisters; the eldest, Vida [Katarzyna Figura – a polish actress who almost made a lead part in Robert Altman’s The Player 1992 - lost it to Greta Scaachi, but later starred in his Prêt-à-Porter 1994 and Roman Polanski’s The Pianist 2002], middle sister Ludmilla [Barbra Ricci] and little sister Maria [Ilaria Borrelli].

The three women have a complex tale that they tell about businessman Yuri Petkov [Yorgo Voyagis – also seen in Ugo Liberatore’s Nero Venazio (Damned in Venice) 1978 and the Augusto Caminitio directed Klaus Kinski oddity Nosferatu a Venezia (Nosferatu in Venice) 1988] who is supposedly Vida’s boyfriend but has gone mysteriously missing. Drunken Ludmilla claims to have found his body chopped up and stuffed in the washing machine – hence the English title – but the police find no obvious evidence and more or less laugh at the women who apparently have no case for the cops to get involved in. But there’s obviously something more going on than is being told here, as the sisters start to lure Alexander into a complex web of mystery, seduction and treachery. One by one they approach him with strange tales of what happened that night, and even though he’s resistant at first he can’t help himself from being drawn in as they one by one seduce him.

At the same time Alexander’s assistant Nicolai [Laurence Regnier in his only ever screen credit] starts picking up Intel that leads back to the missing Yuro Petkov. A suitcase filled with jewellery and cash is obtained during a heroin bust, there are indications that Petkov was involved in counterfeit rackets and other dodgy business. And it also becomes apparent that Petkov had insatiable lusts for all three of the Kolba sisters which further complicates the possible murder case, as it could have been any one of them that might have killed Petkov him… if he’s dead that is, because there’s still no body found. Stacev get’s drawn into their web of deception as he tries to figure out what actually happened to Petkov and at the same time tries to keep a professional distance to the three women constantly trying to seduce him, although that barrier is breaking down for each encounter he has with them…

I feel that many of the Italian post Giallo movies - not all, but many – that came in the late eighties, early nineties had lost the flamboyant style and image system of the great Gialli period. Instead they had become diluted messes that depended more on cheap shots of nudity, poor effects and piss poor scripts rather than using the traits as beneficial characteristics to the narrative. It’s almost as if they couldn’t’ really get over the Giallo genre being dead, and just fused it with all the wrong things, instead of being arty and lustful pieces they became silly and sleazy in all the wrong way flicks. Although some directors took did step away from the Gialli traits and go for the good old classic thriller that once inspired the Giallo instead, and in that move they took all the seasoning that is associated with Italian genre cinema with them. Ruggero Deodato’s The Washing Machine is one of those movies and instead of trying to be a wishy washy post Giallo flick, it goes right into the thriller genre and gives it a decent Italian make over.

It’s fairly obvious that what we are dealing with here is a very Italianized take on Paul Verhoeven’s Basic Instinct 1992. But where that movie only had one antagonist and that one scene that made it infamous, Deodato’s The Washing Machine triples the raunchiness and chucks in three insatiable and seductive female antagonists instead. It would be easy to say that the women here are objectified and only seen as male fetishes for our voyeuristic obsessions, but that would be wrong, as this movie is indeed about strong, powerful women who all share a common goal – to open their own burlesque club. And you can’t criticize a movie that tells a tale of strong, determined women for being chauvinistic and sexist can you!

The Washing Machine surprises me, because it’s a lot better than I imagined it to be. Compared to the likes of the exceptionally poor Phantom of Death 1988 it’s easily one of Deodato’s better later works. It catches my interest with its enigmatic story and it’s who dunnit narrative. And this is exactly how flashbacks should be used, as part of the puzzle, for with each flashback we are given further clues to who and why, even in the red herring flashbacks that deliberately throw us of course.

Script wise it’s a decent little piece that Luigi Spagnol put together. Spagnol had previously worked with Aldo Lado on Rito d’amore (Love Rituals) 1989, and after a brief presentation of characters there’s a natural interest to see where this movie will go. And the age old question Who Dunnit? is still posed. Even though Deodato himself may not be very fond of the movie and find it one of his weakest pieces – mainly due to weak actor performances and a rushed production, I rather enjoyed it, and sure there are some pretty awful acting moments, but overall it’s all good and there’s no feeling of it being rushed at all.

I only have one major question with the movie, and that’s whatever happened to the Irina [Claudia Pozzi] character? She has that shock reveal, threatens to take her life and then vanishes from the movie with Alexander’s gun... It leaves some questions that never really get answered, but at the same time it works as an effective tool to show the arc of Alexander’s character, and prepares his final descent as the ending moves in. A cynical ending that sees him walking away from the positive values through degeneration to negative values.

Being a co-production between the Italian ESSE. CI Cinematographica, French EuroGroup Film and Hungarian Focus Film; the choice of shooting the movie in Budapest was a wise decision as the location brings an automatic, cold, dark Gothic aura to the piece. There’s a few beautiful shots of authentic Budapest locations, like an outdoor baths, and the bridges. And I love the wide shots of the huge stairwell where Vida handcuffs Alexander to the railing before forcing herself upon him. There’s quite fair amount of somewhat Argentoesque visuals throughout the flick. High angles looking down on the action, which give an enhancement to the voyeurism subplot. For what it’s worth Sergio D’Offizi’s cinematography is certainly some splendid work, and the movie does look really good. There’s a lot of shadows and depth to the compositions which surprisingly, or rather not as D'Offizi usually delivers some excellent cinematography, but in the context that this is commonly referred to as a bad movie, look absolutely superb.

There’s a great use of suggestive subplots running through the movie, such as the S&M theme – which could have been explored further, especially after the one major reveal that Alex shoves in the face of his long-time girlfriend Irina. As she’s devastated by his confession of having affairs with all three of the Kolba sisters, he opens up his closet and exposes a large collection of whips, spank panels and other S&M attire. She obviously freaks and takes off, but then it’s never discussed again. But this is how subplots work, and it’s also a possible key to why Alexander falls for the sister’s fiendish erotic game. He’s obvious into the kinky shit, and when they one by one more or less dominate him, he falls hard. Vida dominates him, Ludmilla throws herself at him repeatedly – which he sees no real challenge in, and Maria seduces him and taunts him until he almost cut’s all bonds with his former career to be with her. This leads up to the series of sudden twists at the end of the movie, and his underlying sexual preferences may possibly be what finally becomes his downfall.

Claudio Simonetti’s score is brilliant. It’s very much in the vein of his previous – and later – electronic scores. It definitely brings a very Italian aura to the movie, which I’m convinced helps it along. Because the soundtracks to these movies are terribly important, and there’s something that is significant of the time period, but still not as determined as say the periodic hard rock that many others went with at the same time. Instead the rather powerful and potent score that brings some of the Goblin magic with it to the movie enhances the overall Italian atmosphere that this movie holds.

Then there’s that piss poor and deceptive English title, The Washing Machine. What moron decided to call it The Washing Machine? Wouldn’t a straight translation of the original title Vortice Mortale have been better, wouldn’t Deadly Vortex have worked just fine? Sure there may be some line of thought that the cryptic title The Washing Machine was suggesting some metaphorical and symbolical innuendo like many of the classic Gialli did with their titles, but I still feel that it’s a piss poor title and Deadly Vortex would have been a much better choice.

The Washing Machine was the last feature that Ruggero Deodato directed before returning to the world of Television. It’s a decent last flick, as it’s quite entertaining, it’s got a good enough and engaging story, a fair amount of nudity and eroticism and a little nod at Deodato's previous cannibal themed movies, which make it a great entry into the late thriller – post Gialli catalogue. The latest feature project that he Deodato's been connected to officially these past years is Cannibals, a loose sequel to the 1980 masterpiece. But this is also a movie that’s been proposed for half a decade without any major progress, so only time will tell if Deodato will succeed in presenting us with yet another fascinating piece of Italian genre cinema.

Image:
Widescreen

Audio:
Dolby Digital 5.1, English dialogue or Thai dubbing, optional Thai subtitles.

Extras:
Trailer.

Here's the opening titles and Simonetti's score.

Immoral Tales

Immoral Tales
Original Title: Contes immoraux
Directed by: Walerian Borowczyk
France, 1974
Drama/Erotic, 103min
Distributed by: Studio S. Entertainment

I do hold a soft spot for the movies of Walerian Borowczyk even though I’ve only seen a handful of them, and I'm nowhere near being a completist on his works at all. But there’s something about his movies that appeal to me beyond the regular art house/exploitation fare.

It may have to do with the underdog element due to the fact that the critics turned their backs on him and suddenly stopped praising his work when he got to bold, or it could be that he created some of the most artistic and visually stunning pieces during the early years of his career. Possibly it’s the melancholy that I find in his work, just like in several of Jean Rollin's films. There’s something else in these movies that sets them apart from the common exploitation flick. I’m not sure what, as it’s more a feeling than something concrete, more abstract and imaginative just like those movies of his that I like. Ones that invite the audience to imagine more than shown on the screen, that plug into that primal voyeurism that we all share. Or it could simply be because that his movies certainly are pieces of art.

You can’t watch a Borowczyk movie without thinking about art, as his movies are saturated with the presence of art. Art was a major influence on Borowczyk’s works since he was a young child, and it shows in his films. Born in Kwilcz, Poland a decade after the First World War, the teenage Borowczyk followed his childhood passion for art and took up studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków. There he painted, produced large amounts of lithography’s - some that ended up as movie posters - and started experimenting with bringing those graphics to life through stop motion animation. Pretty soon started to make a name for him self after some of his movie posters won the Polish National Prize for his graphic work in 1953.

In 1959, Borowczyk emigrated to Paris where he continued his exploration of art, this time primarily focusing on his animation. His movies (many co-drected with Jan Lenica) took on a more violent atmosphere almost like personal nightmares – as in Les astronauts 1959 which he co directed with French visionary Chris Marker and holds a style close to those animations associated with Monty Python, blending photographic material and stop motion. And it’s within these early, animated shorts that one clearly can see how Borowczyk has been a strong influence on Terry Gilliam. Gilliam states that Borowczyk’s Les jeux des Anges (The Games of Angels) 1964 is one of the ten best animated films ever. After a series of acknowledged, praised and award winning surreal dark short animated films, and his first full length animated feature film Theatre de Monsieur & madam Kabal: un film dessiné pour les asultes (Mr. & Mrs. Kabal’s Theatre) 1967, Borowczyk took the step out to full length live action pictures.

The 1968 feature Goto, I’île d’amour (Goto, Isle of Love) about the brutal dictatorship on a small island in the tropics is filled with random destruction and frivolous viciousness as the movie tells a tale of isolation, sexual fetishism and the struggle for power, all woven together in an almost Kafkaesque state where everyone has a name that starts with the letter G.

Goto, I’île d’amour is packed with the themes that Borowczyk had explored earlier, and would use throughout the main body of his work to come. Borowczyk continued experimenting with familiar themes and imagery in his movies – both in long and short form, and was still a quite popular and appreciated director. After Blanche 1971, which won the Interfilm Grand Prix at the Berlin International Film Festival in 1972, Borowczyk’s work started to be viewed upon through a different pair of goggles. Where Blanche may have used the themes of human sexuality and lust, it steered clear of actually portraying it on screen and kept it more a suggestive part of the narrative, that was all about to change with the anthology film Immoral Tales.

Even though Immoral Tales became a quite successful film, especially in France where it was the second most popular film on the year of it’s release, it unfortunately also set Borowczyk up as the fall guy for negative criticism against erotically themed films, when his former protagonists suddenly became antagonists and voices where raised against the sexual and evocative content of the movie – content that wouldn’t raise any eyebrows be it made today, so perhaps Borowczyk was ahead of his time as the contemporary art house films frequently use graphic eroticism and similar themes in their portrayals of the human psyche.

But I also feel that it’s valuable to bring attention to the scene of the time period that Immoral Tales was released into focus here. In the mid seventies, the novelty of porn chic was wearing off, and the backside of that once popular oddity was now revealing itself. And with it there obviously came a backlash that would eventually thrash the makers of arty erotica – and cheap sexploitation too for that part. This is probably why critics had a hard time determining what Borowczyk’s films where at this stage in his career, because where they do appear as visualized art house pieces using the busted taboos of free sexuality, they can easily be read as something completely different, even though there’s not really much graphic material in Borowczyk’s films at this period. And not wanting to be praising the wrong kind of movies, the critics turned their backs instead.

But instead of praising the natural sexuality and suggestive eroticism of the art house movies, his next movies where scrutinized in the same light as the quickly degrading porn genre. So when Borowczyk continued to explore themes of human sexuality, greed, and absurdist subjects with his next feature La Bête (The Beast) 1975, all of the art house credibility that he once had was shattered and Borowczyk would never really regain the momentum that he once was recognized for.

The movies that followed - like the highly underestimated and perhaps lost masterpiece La Marge (The Margin) 1976, definitely damaged by the reputation of The Beast, Interno di un convento (Behind Convent Walls) 1977. Lulu 1980, a take on the Frank Wedekind sex tragedies immortalised previously by G.W. Pabst as Die Büchse der Pandora (Pandora’s Box) 1928, and the terrific Udo Kier showcase Docteur Jekyll et les femmes (Dr. Jekyll and His Wives) 1981, to name but a few - all more or less just passed by and never really received the attention that they deserved. The once favoured master of Polish art house cinema had now rapidly been abandoned and never managed to regain the stature that he once had.

Borowczyk sadly became remembered as a simple exploitative maker of smut than the true visionary artist that he indeed was at one time. He certainly did make some poor choices at the end of his career in my opinion, but one thing that mustn’t be forgotten is the importance that Walerian Borowczyk had, and the part he played in bringing Polish Cinema to the international significance that it has held since the early fifties.

Immoral Tales, possibly the one that started the backlash of Borowczyk’s career – as mentioned he received a fair amount of negative criticism for the film, and it was banned in Germany amongst others - is a good old European art house anthology movie, the kind of movie that allows directors the power to move from short story to short story and getting the message through in the shortest possible time. You’ve seen them before, Pasolini made a few of them, several of Fellini’s films where in that mould, and then there’s the Italian/French collaboration movies like RO.GO.PA.G 1963, and Histoires extraordinaires (Spirits of the Dead) 1968, even Mario Bava’s I tre volti della paura (Black Sabbath) 1963 and the Dante/Landis/Spielberg/Miller film Twilight Zone the Movie 1983 uses this form to share short stories in a feature film length. It’s an effective way to make a bunch of short features that hang together by one common theme.

And just like those mentioned above, it is also a very stylish and lush movie, sensuous and sometimes stunning with its visuals. The title – Immoral Tales - is a play on recently deceased Eric Rohmer’s Ma nuit chez Maud (Six Moral Tales III: My Night at Maud’s) 1969, as Borowczyk originally had planned to have six short pieces to the film. Only four made it into the movie and a fifth later got used as that surreal dream sequence in the 1975 shocker The Beast - but that's a later story. Like many of Borowczyk’s films, the four episodes, which portray sexuality in four different decades, are filled with symbolism and strong themes, the main theme for Immoral Tales obviously being various forms of immoral sexuality.

It’s a pretty varied movie, where the four segments are of equal varied quality. I find the Erzsébet Báthory segment, set in 1610 starring Paloma Picasso - daughter of Pablo as Báthory, in her only acting role, to be the high mark of the film, and even though the three other tales, the contemporary Le Mareé, Thérèse Philosophe set in 1890 and the closing saga placed in 1498 - Lucrezia Borgia, are entertaining in their own way's, they don’t quite reach up to the high quality, beautiful cinematography and stunning imagery of the Erzsébet Báthory segment.

The visuals, and themes that later led to the destructive criticism are merely imaginative visuals. Where Borowczyk insinuated and suggested these themes in Blanche, he goes one small step further in Immoral Tales, but a step that still doesn’t cross the line. It’s still in decently good taste and never gets obviously exploitative – he stays safely inside the realm of the art movie. It is seductive and suggestive without ever going fully graphic. With that said, there are some heavy topics and themes at play here, and the full battery of Borowczyk’s symbolism and subtext come to the screen. There’s depraved sexuality, incest, criticism towards the papacy, symbolic connections between sexuality and spirituality, murder, deception and prevailing pessimism. Also the recurrent themes of greed, deception and failure to dominate, which frequently appear throughout Borowczyk’s movies are here too.

I would guess that the main reason for the movie’s negative reception (apart from France) is quite possibly due to the fact that Borowczyk chooses not to condemn any of the acts portrayed in the segments. Instead he plugs into our own voyeurism and simply let’s us observe events with no actual resolution, as nobody in the movie is held responsible for their acts. There is no indicator of remorse responded anywhere in the movie, and it in some ways becomes something of a cold statement. Strong emotions blended with bitter proclamation - it’s a confusing, but fascinating cocktail. Which together with the religious subtexts probably is why the critics turned their backs on the film and the filmmaker, and what a shame that is, as they obviously missed the point of the wonderful art that Borowczyk was creating, because a movie that triggers emotions outside the context of it’s narrative has definitely done it’s job in the outmost way.

Image:

Widescreen 1.66:1 – Anamorphic

Audio:

Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo. French Dialogue. Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish and Danish subtitles optional.

Extras:

Borowczyk biography and filmography. The theatrical trailer, photo gallery, trivia about the film, and trailers for other Studio S releases.

Walerian Borowczyk's Immoral Tales is due for Scandinavian release through the good people at Studio S Entertainment on the 12th of May 2010, and can easily be picked up from SubDVD.

And for more on the films of Borowczyk, check out Jeremy Richey's magnificent Moon In The Gutter.

Skräcken har 1000 Ögon

Skräcken har 1000 Ögon

Aka: Fear has 1000 Eyes,

Sensuous Sorceress

Directed by: Torgny Wickman

Horror / Eroticism, 73 min

Sweden, 1970

Distributed by: KlubbSuper8

If I ever had to single out a bunch of Swedish Exploitation flicks for an uninitiated fellow cineaste, then this would be among the few selected. The movies of Arne Mattson and Bo A. Vibenius in all respect, but Torgny Wickman’s Skräcken har 1000 Ögon (literally, Fear has 1000 Eyes) is one of my favourite Swedish exploitation flicks. Not because it ‘s very scary, neither is it especially erotic either, (there’s more nudity on the TV these days) but I dig it because it holds a magnificent ambience, it is a great document of a very special time in cinematic history and is pretty dammed near the witchcraft/occult/ exploitation flicks that directors like Renato Polselli and Luigi Batazella where churning out a few years later. Perhaps mostly recognised for his 1969 shock/documentary/educational/explicit study Kärlekens Språk (The Language of Love) 1969, Wickman's Skräcken har 1000 Ögon is something completely different, and the first ever attempt at combing eroticism with horror produced in Sweden.

Starting with a close up of dripping blood and the words “I hereby dedicate myself to the devil!” being written with the blood there’s a tone set for the movie which gets right to the point, there’s no need fiddling about and wondering what the heck this movie is going to be about, as it’s all there in an awesome opening sequence. The movie contains a fair deal of witchcraft, occult references and the complementary nudity to go with pagan rituals is all there. But for the most of the time there is more to be asked for, like a short scene where the village doctor’s x-ray plates show one of the villagers wearing an inverted cross. We already know who it is, Hedvig, and there’s nothing made of the find but a shallow “Do you see what I see? An inverted cross!” And there’s no name on the plates…” remarked by the Doctor and his staff. It’s opportunities like this that make the story feel somewhat wasted. Never the less the movie is quite fun anyhow, and sometimes you don’t need a perfect story to enjoy a movie. Especially if the movie holds a great atmosphere, has a splendid cast and a fabulous score to keep the mood flowing.

Sven [Hans Wahlgren] is a vicar in a small village in Sweden, he and his pregnant wife Anna [Anita Sanders, who had a short career in Italy and held both smaller and larger roles in movies by Fellini, Pasolini, Tinto Brass, Alberto De Martino and Pupi Avati] return home from a trip to Spain to be greeted by Sven’s aunt, Barbro [Barbro Hjort af Ornäs, who not only stared in many Swedish erotica movies (keeping her clothes on of course) but also acted in several Bergman movies too] Shortly after, their friend and maid Hedwig [the stunning Solveig Andersson] moves in with them. Andersson who you may have seen in the leading role of Wickman’s previous film Eva – den utstötta 1969 (Eva: Swedish and Underage), which also featured Wahlgren, and Hjort af Ornäs. She can also be seen as Christina Lindberg’s bordello mate in Bo A. Vibenius extraordinary Thriller – En Grym Film 1974 (Thriller - A Cruel Picture, Aka They Call Her One Eye)

Anna is suffering from her pregnancy, she can’t sleep and she’s having strange visions, and hasn’t slept for ages. She can’t stand lying next to Sven who sleeps like a baby all through the night. Hedwig starts her manipulation on a small scale suggesting that Sven could sleep in the library as to let Anna rest in peace. Obviously Anna suggests this to Sven who without any major objections gathers up his stuff and shuffles into the guestroom. Needless to say Anna turns up in her sexiest nightgown (definitely a Jean Rollin moment if ever there was one...) and after seductively slipping it off glides into his bed for a hefty session of lovemaking… but is it really Anna?

The movie ponders on; Hedwig seduces both Anna and Sven. In between sessions of seduction she’s tormenting Anna with fake visions, like the great scene where she exchanges the ordinary baby leggings that Anna is knitting for a three legged version! Anna find’s it screams and faints. The sinister Hedwig, switches back to he ordinary pair and claims that Anna imagined it all. To make things worse Hedwig keeps a bunch of self crafted Voodoo dolls that she uses to torment Anna, and even drives Barbro to her untimely death as she discovers Hedvig’s hidden past. Even the warm homely bread gets used as an ominous tool of Hedvig’s witchcraft. The seduction/mind games progresses until the threesome have a full-blown orgy after Barbro’s funeral where Hedwig going all in makes Sven smash a crucifix and then carves an inverted cross on the naked torso of Anna.

Plot wise the movie is in shambles. In at nutshell the problem is that there is never any real value at stake, Hedwig has no apparent agenda. She just sells her soul to the devil, seduces Anna and Sven the Vicar and goes about corrupting them, which also kind of fails, Anna leaves the house by her own free will with out any major obstacles but crawling up on the kitchen sink. Sure Sven smashes a crucifix and chucks it on the fire to keep them warm during the final orgy, and he’s already been unfaithful to his wife with the Seductive witch, but it’s not of free will as he’s put under Hedvig’s spell and has no recollection of the incidents at all when the firemen pull him from the burning vicarage. There’s never a conscious decision to abandon his faith as its all Hedvig’s doing. The same goes for Hedwig, she never really has that agenda written out, apart from selling herself to do the devils work. But opportunity is there, even though it is completely ignored by Wickman in his script. Was she planning on taking Anna’s child? Did she want to corrupt the vicar? Or what? We never know as the movie ends with the naked Hedwig laughing at the fire brigade and police officers outside the burning rectory, during their feeble efforts. It’s a strange and confusing ending. Neither do any of Hedvig's foes really make any honest threat to her, she easily manipulates Anna into believing that she’s going insane, and every other major threat is taken care of in the next scene. Sure she kills off her antagonists, but that’s all she does, there’s no build or suspense created around it.

Supposedly Wickman based his screenplay on a series of events that happened in a small rural village where he spent his childhood, and that could be the case, there’s nothing to prove the opposite.

Now perhaps the movie doesn’t make much of an impression with today’s standards, as it solemnly finds a spot somewhere in between the nudie-cuties/ roughies of Doris Wishman, Russ Meyer, George Harrison Marks and the wave of innovative porno chic movies that where to be produced a few years later, both in Sweden and outside it. The novelty of porno chic decimated the demand for soft erotic imagery; especially as full hardcore could be seen on the big screen in almost every major city. But there is a certain charming innocence to these movies of the past as they explore how far they can go without crossing the border. Ironically they could have gone much further with the events about to take place.

Skräcken har 1000 Ögon was one of the first really genre specific movies out of Sweden that I saw many years ago after a dear friend gave me a few VHS tapes with Swedish titles he demanded that I watch. (This guy was amazing at locating former starlets of the seventies and getting interviews with them for the magazine we used to work for back then. Christina Lindberg was one of them he profiled in the magazine. He’s still a, finger on the pulse guy, currently working for one of the leading Swedish movie magazines.)

I had always ignored Swedish film, apart from the mandatory; Ingmar Bergman, Vilgot Sjöman and Victor Sjöström, so these tapes really blew me away! Watching stuff like Bo A. Vibenius Thriller – En Grym Film 1974, Arne Mattson’s Smutsiga Fingrar 1973 (Dirty Fingers) and Wickman’s Skräcken har 1000 Ögon 1970, opened my eyes to a complete new world in my own backyard. Yes backyard, as these movies where shot in and around Stockholm, and a ten-minute walk from where I lived at the time. And the basic fact that these movies where shot in the same studios as Bergman used is exhilarating. I’ve said before that a whole bunch of Swedish directors vanished under the shadow of Bergman’s marvel, and that’s where you find these guys.

Although I’m sure that VHS version of Skräcken har 1000 Ögon was longer and contained more nudity, and it’s often rumoured that there was a longer print, which could partially be responsible for the erroneously quoted 99 minute run time. But for there to be an additional almost half-hour there has to be a whole load of stuff missing, I’m only missing a few longer scenes of seduction, especially the one where Sven pulls the wig of Anna only to reveal Hedvig. Then again there could be a whole lot of shagging in 26 minutes of missing footage so perhaps that rumoured longer version could have contained the sex Wickman was accustomed to directing. It’s a teasing thought, but producer Inge Ivarsson says in the interview featured on the disc that he had to hold Wickman on a short leash so that the “erotic” elements didn’t get out of hand. So presumably the longer print is a figment of wishful thinking, and if there were an extra half hour of skin and smut, the movie probably wouldn’t have faded into oblivion shortly after it’s release.

What I find so fascinating about the movie is how obvious the Sweden + Nudity + Horror epithet worked so well as a marketing banner. According to producer Inge Ivarsson the movie regained all it’s costs on the international market alone, which he also claims was the prime target audience for these flicks and the two words Swedish Erotica will even today receive a joyful grin from people acquainted with the genre. There was a huge market for Swedish erotica overseas, and recently this retro niche has been rediscovered with the advent of DVD. I think it would be fair to claim that starlet’s of the seventies, like Christina Lindberg for an instance, have a larger fan base now then all those years ago. Well perhaps not the same kind of fan base at least.

Yeah, in many ways The movie is a kind of cute and innocent flick, and all credit has to go to Wickman and Ivarsson who at least tried to create the first erotic horror ever produced in Sweden, and I say cute in the context to Wickman’s previous movies like Kärlekens Språk and Eva - Den Utstötta and his later ones, as he just like so many other directors that had been dabbling in erotica, ended up directing full blown porno’s at the end of his career. Also to that discussion there’s the fact of the casts of these movies. There are many really great well known and recognizable actors seen through out these movies, many beloved Swedish faces and names, even though there’s some nudity and erotic subplots going on. Even a few international Swedish stars, Stellan Skarsgård to name the most renown of them all, participated in these movies. There’s almost the same type of mentality as the Japanese actors took when they where only offered pinku roles during the pinku era of Japanese Cinema. They took it at face value, a job is a job and you do the work that is requested of you as an actor. This is quite an admirable approach to your acting career, as a few years later actors in movies containing eroticism and sexually graphic imagery where considered porn actors and that brings a complete different set of luggage with it. Eroticism to enhance your story, and a story to motivate your eroticism is one thing, but when fuck scenes after fuck scenes are all that your movie is about it’s no longer interesting

Finally the biggest surprise of the film comes with the soundtrack! The score that Mats Olsson put together for this one is a fantastically suave new-Jazz groove strut that definitely could have been found on Italian Giallo and Poliziceotti flicks of the time. Great stuff that someone should re-release some day, it’s a winner to say the least.

Image: Originally shot in 1,66:1, but brought into some kind of semi 4:3 full screen in the scan.

Audio: Swedish dialogue, Mono. Unfortunately as I have whined about before no subtitles at all are available on the KlubbSuper8 DVD’s.

Extras: Bolmört i mitt öra (Henbane in My Ear - the intended original title), a nine minute short interview with producer Inge Ivarsson and Klinga Wickman about he movie and the actors. A few deleted scenes (once again perhaps from that legendary longer version?) unfortunately without any audio, a whole load of still from the movie and behind the scenes, Biographies for cast and crew and theatrical trailers for Fear has 1000 Eyes 1970, Anita 1973, and Kärlekens XYZ 1971 also available from KlubbSuper8.com