A bunch of burned-out, washed-up ex-pats live out their existence in a Spanish Coastal town, ignoring the natives and bitterly waiting for better days that never come. The locals practise weird rites and old crones walk the streets. Kids are found drowned or worse. Strange hippies descend on the town to seduce the ex-pats. There's barely and plot and the ending just raises more questions.
Dennis Hopper plays Chicken, a burned out drug addict with the manic personality of Dennis Hopper. Chicken keeps seeing his mother everywhere and has all sorts of crazy crap going on in his head. Carroll Baker plays a washed-up actress whom we first see having a pee into the sea after a drunken night out. She keeps waiting for a call to go back to Hollywood. Some other guy plays an ex-RAF officer waiting out his days getting drunk with his wife. Oh, and then there's the middle-aged gay guy firing out snide remarks left right and centre.
We get to see this lot living some sort of budget-level Fellini type lifestyle almost independent of the locals. The hippies seems to spark of some sort of killing spree by someone, but don't be fooled into thinking you're going to get any resolution from this one because while there are a few bloody murders, we never really get to find out who did them. Or why, for that matter. It's all very arty and surreal.
What makes it watchable is Dennis Hopper being insane and Carroll Baker trying to outdo him by being the same. In fact, I've never seen Baker more animated. She even lets out a blood curdling scream at a dinner table when she isn't the centre of attention. Her character is continually on the move while reminiscing about past times (she even relates an encounter which sounds exactly like something Harvey Weinstein would do!) while getting progressively more drunk and depressed.
What's it all about though? No idea. There's some gory deaths here (including a kid being crushed and a nasty impalement up the jacksy for one character) but...can't help with any explanations.
