La visita del vicio

I've picked up the DVD because I liked the weird cover. It wasn't quite worth it but it wasn't that bad either. The best thing about this "Spanish Emmanuelle" (that's what the producers expected from director Larraz) is the dream sequence in which a woman is placed inside some model of a horse. Well, you have to see it. It leaves everything to the imagination of the viewer and depending on how sleazy your mind actually is, the scene comes across as very naughty. Otherwise, it's harmless softcore stuff with a rather weak ending.

My rating: 4/10

I honestly don't know what I've just watched. Recommended for José Ramón Larraz completists only - anyone expecting the slow-burning exploitation/eroticism of his 1974 film 'Vampyres' will doubtless be disappointed with this.

A mildly sexual relationship develops between two young women, Triana and Lorna - and Triana is 'plagued' by dreams of a naked man on horseback. When he appears in actuality ... not a lot happens, all in a washed-out series of images (artistic choice or a sign of its age? Not sure). Shame, because it's an intriguing premise.

Possibly this film is notorious mostly for the image of a naked woman inside a wooden horse, which is being approached by another horse. It's enough to make the eyes water - but not much else remains in the memory. If you're persevering in the hope of a good ending ... I wouldn't bother. My score is 3 out of 10.

There appear to be several versions of this flick about. Within a minute and a half of the bemusingly cinematic opening the title was displayed as 'VICE MAKES A VISIT'. If only. The film is worth a few stars because quite clearly someone attempted to make a movie here and it wasn't necessary to turn it off after a few minutes because it was either home movie standard footage or the actors were like fish out of water. Well, the male lead was awful in every scene, but it must be suspected he was told to be some sort of brooding latino by the director. Anyway the nudity is not worth the watch, and the rest of this contrived nonsense obviously isn't either. However there are two scenes containing very good flamenco guitar playing, and the sulky would-be-rapist idiot riding around naked on a horse is laughably worth a watch. If you're lucky enough to catch the English dubbed version the accents are a real treat. Reviews suggesting the director or anything about this tripe is noteworthy are mysterious, as the film is basically tripe.

Unless you like dreamy softcore erotica and get a kick out of watching naked guys ride bareback on horses, THE COMING OF SIN has very little to recommend it to fans of Euro Horror like myself. I sought this out based on director Jose Ramon Larraz' reputation from other films of his like DEVIATION, THE HOUSE THAT VANISHED, VAMPYRES and the wildly over-rated BLACK CANDLES. I'll even admit to guiltily enjoying some of his later shockers like BITS & PIECES and the teen oriented SAVAGE LUST. While they are an inconsistent lot, the films do have two elements in common, specifically an air of artful creativity and some sort of a payoff.

THE COMING OF SIN is by contrast a long trip for an extremely short day at the beach. A fetching young gypsy girl with a penchant for sleeping in the nude comes to live with a ravishing aristocratic blond painter who very quickly helps her dark guest come to grips with her bisexuality, which is par for the course for these sort of things. Tension is added in the form of Chico, a Duran Duran lookalike who spends the majority of the film riding around completely naked on a horse. Like the girl he is also a gypsy and lives in a hut he made down by the river where he spends his time lying around waiting for women to wander by. Seems like kind of boring living to me but whatever, that's Spain for you.

Chico eventually joins the ladies at the house after some nonsense involving trampled flowers, lost necklaces, breech loading shotguns, 19th century figure painting, and the film's iconic dream image of the gypsy girl crouching inside a life-sized horse model. You sort of have to see it to understand what I mean but the running theme in the film is that none of the sumptuous imagery and erotic tension ever really pays off aside for some softcore fumblings. The movie's alternate English title VIOLATION OF THE BITCH has to do with the scene where Chico proves his love to the lady of the house by apparently buggering her while the family is over for a dinner party. Gee whiz!

All of it leads up to a climax of violence that happens for no particular reason at all, other than perhaps Larraz' wish to try and pull the rug out from underneath the trenchcoaters who would be flocking to the grindhouse to see the movie. The problem is that the movie -- while as sleazy as they come -- isn't really sick or demented enough to warrant some of it's reputation, and reading over some of the other comments here I wonder if perhaps the version I saw on a PAL format DVD may have been missing some scenes.

If anything this is sort of a Euro Sleaze couples movie, chock full of both female and male nudity, all of it very tastefully and artfully photographed. And hence the problem with it on a thematic level for those used to Larraz' more well-known work: It's a bit too tasteful and aside from the bizarre dream sequence involving the horse never really grabs the imagination. Which may have been the point -- to make a watchable little softcore that doesn't really push the envelope too much. The film was made at the end of the Franco era in Spain when overt sexuality was a no-no on the generalissimo's cinema screen and might have simply been an attempt to make a cheap little sex thriller with a cast of about eight people, and on that level it isn't bad.

The bottom line is that if you want to watch Euro Trash softcore without much in the way of plot you should give this one a try, as the film is endowed with the steamy soft focus look of a Penthouse spread. But if you are drawn to Larraz' horror work you'll be scratching your head and watching the runtime clock tick off waiting for something to happen. Unfortunately, not much does.

4/10

Here's another sumptuous-looking, highly atmospheric and sensuous fantasy from Spanish art-exploitation director Larraz, who was responsible for Vampyres, the finest of modern vampire movies. The scenes are bathed in soft-focus greens and ochres, emphasising the dreamlike pastoral setting and highlighting the players' striking emerald and almond eyes. The three main characters are gorgeous in unique ways, the Spanish guitar score is a perfect complement to the mood, there is one memorable surrealistic image, and the story is absorbing and quite unpredictable. Only the rather arbitrary ending is a let-down. A perfect example of the heights reached by 70s Euro-fantasy, with psychological and cultural subtexts intensifying the conventions of the erotic and horror genres.