Inferno Carnal

Inferno Carnal (1977)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Brazilian horror film features director Marins playing the lead role of a doctor who has acid poured on his face by his cheating younger wife. The wife eventually takes his money and runs off with her playboy lover but the doctor has his own ideas for revenge. This is a rather bizarre and surreal film, as one would expect from the director, but it's not as bizarre as you might think. There's a few gory sequences, mostly with the acid, but outside of this the film is more talk that anything else. Some would say that's a bad thing but it actually works here for several reasons. The first is that the entire subplot of the lover turning out to be a scumbag to the wife makes for some interesting twists. The talk also helps build up the wife's character to where we slightly begin to feel for her. This works perfectly because there are a couple twists at the end, which come out of no where and really work quite well. The lack of gore might keep some people away or disappoint those who do watch the movie so people should prepare themselves going in. Even at 82-minutes the movie begins to lose steam but I really respect Marins for trying something different and not just delivering your casual revenge plot. The film also manages several surreal moments, which usually gets done with strange sound effects, weird edits and some strange color designs. Even stranger is an actual eye operation, which we get to see in close detail, which will certainly have your eyes watering up. The story is told in a straight forward fashion, which again, might upset die hard fans of the director but I think if people give the film a far shot then they should enjoy it. The print shown on IFC is in good condition but the subtitles are disastrous as we get many misspelled words as well as several words that are incorrectly used.