Cult Epics

The Fernando Arrabal Collection

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on November 16th, 2005

Viva La Merte (1970) was surrealist playwright and all-around provocateur Fernando Arrabal’s feature film debut. Set during the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War, this is the deeply autobiographical (no matter how bizarrely presented) story of the a young boy whose father was betrayed by his mother to the security forces of the Fascist General Franco. Oedipal nightmares, extreme violence and brutal eroticism are present in force.These elements are present in the other two films as well. I Will Walk Like a Crazy Horse (1973) has a man suspected of killing his mother flee into the desert, where he falls in love with a holy man, and when the two return to society, our hero is disgusted by what he finds.
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Manson Family Movies

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on July 19th, 2005

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Synopsis

Shot in 1974, this is one peculiar piece of work. Springing from director’s John Aes-Nihil’s not altogether healy obsession with the Manson murders, this takes the rumour that the Family filmed their activities and tries to make it flesh. What you see is a series of very convincing-looking Super 8 mm reels of the Family doing their thing, culminating in re-enactments of the Tate-La Bianca murders. Frankly, I’m somewhat at a loss for how to rate this. The home movies look very real, right dow…
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Dead Leaves

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on July 12th, 2005

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Synopsis

The opening scene is a montage of a couple in love, while a voice-over reads Edgar Allan Poe’s “Annabel Lee” – a sure sign that things are not going to end well. Sure enough, in the next scene, the young woman takes a fatal fall while climbing after a kitten. The boyfriend cannot bear to part with the corpse, and off he goes with the body, making his way cross-country to the lake where we first saw them in love, and all the time the corpse and his mind are slowly rotting away.

Chee…
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School of the Holy Beast

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on July 8th, 2005

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After a wild night with a man she just met, Yumi Takigawa enters the convent of St. Clore as an apprentice nun. She hasn’t joined out of religious conviction. Her mother was a nun here, and died under mysterious circumstances when Takigawa was born, and she has come here to find out what really happened. She encounters all the necessary ingredients of a nunsploitation movie: lesbians, a lustful priest, plenty of whippings, lashings of torture, and tons o’ blasphemy

Watching this 1974 film (based on a comic series) is to realize that the terms “over the top”, “blasphemous”, “delirious” and “outrageous” are sorely inadequate.
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American Gothic

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on June 7th, 2005

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Synopsis

Inspired by the Grant Wood painting, “American Gothic” is a 24-minute experimental horror short. Director Carlos Batts explains in his intro that the idea is that the farmer in the Wood painting killed his wife, and is now consumed by guilt. This is conveyed through a collage of surreal images, mixing Magritte, Goth and splatter, with a soundtrack that mixes portentous poetry and death metal/industrial rock. The latter isn’t a completely successful fit, partly because of audio limitations (s…
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Love Rites

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on March 23rd, 2005

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Hugo (Mathieu Carrière) sets out on an errand, but is sidetracked in the Paris metro whenhe chances upon the seductive Myriam (Marino Pierro). Their eyes meet, he follow her, theybeing to chat, and a dance of seduction ensues. They make their way through Paris to anapartment where they have sex, and then nothing turns out as Hugo expected.

That’s about it as far as plot is concerned. So what? you ask. You wouldn’t expect anythingmore from an avowedly erotic film. Don’t be fooled into thinking that the rest of the film is anorgy of naked flesh, however.
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Bettie Page Collection, The

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on February 15th, 2005

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Synopsis

Cult Epics has done a real service by assembling this boxed set. While I would hesitate torecommend each disc on its own, as a collection, this is a valuable historical document, andBettie Page fans should be in heaven.

Bettie Page Bondage Queen is probably the strongest collection, assembling some 25bondage shorts by Irving Klaw (complete with voice-over introduction). Klaw contributes somemore shorts (of Bettie dancing) to Bettie Page Pin Up Queen, b…
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Bettie Page – Dark Angel

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on December 2nd, 2004

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Synopsis

This is an episodic biopic about Bettie Page, moving from her glory days as a model for the pin-up photographer Bunny Yeager and fetish actress for Irving Klaw, maker of B&D shorts. All is well until a Senate investigation into obscenity, and Bettie herself pines for more mainstream, respectable roles. A fair bit of running time consists of B&W recreations of lost Klaw films, with Paige Richards doing a credible re-creation of Bettie’s look.

This is the very textbook definition of …
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The Beast

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on November 8th, 2004

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The setting is the home of a decaying family of French aristocrats. The Marquis del’Espérance (whose name is deliberately ironic) is desperate to marry his son Maturin to heiressLucy Broadhurst. Their marriage is in the will of ancestors, but with many conditions. Maturin’sgreat-uncle is desperate to stop the marriage, believing for some reason that it will kill Maturin.Meanwhile, Lucy has vivid dreams of Romilda de l’Espérance who, two centuries before, had avery erotic encounter with a beast in the woods.

Frivolous Lola

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on September 14th, 2004

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Synopsis

Lola (Anna Ammirati) delights in turning heads in her village, engaging in such antics as riding her bike with her skirt billowing up behind her. The men all think she’s great, while the women aren’t so fond of her (though the woman working on her wedding dress would clearly like to get to know her better, if you catch my drift). Her main problem is her fiance, who, much to her frustration, refuses to have sex before their marriage. Then there’s her stepfather, who seems more than appro…
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Vintage Erotica Anno 1950

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on March 24th, 2004

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No surprise that in Master and Commander and Pirates of the Caribbeanwould trigger the re-release of older pirate movies. And oh look: those two hits are the firstthings mentioned on the blurb!

Synopsis

The title is self-explanatory. What you have here is a series of 15 short film from France. Thelonger vignettes is the expected bag of tricks: straight, lesbian, bondage, threesome, etc.Interspersed amidst the hardcore are short burlesque dances. The case boasts…
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Death Bed – The Bed That Eats

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on November 3rd, 2003

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Synopsis

In a cellar (all that remains of a great mansion) lurks a demonic bed. Anyone who lies on it will be eaten (and being eaten involves being surrounded by yellow foam and dragged down into yellow liquid limbo and dissolved). Trapped behind his own painting is the ghost of artist Aubrey Beardsley. He witnesses the bed’s depredations (and his narration explains the plot to us), but there is nothing he can do to stop the evil. That, more or less, is the plot. The 80 minutes meander along, and the…
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In a Glass Cage

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on September 13th, 2003

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Synopsis

Klaus (Gunter Meisner) experimented on children during WWII, and he continues his terriblesexual crimes in Spain for years after the war. Consumed by self-loathing, he throws himself offthe roof of a tower. His suicide attempt fails, but he is confined to an iron lung. A mysteriousyoung man named Angelo (David Sust) arrives at his home, and insinuates himself into thehousehold as Klaus’ nurse. Klaus’ wife Griselda (Marisa Paredes) is distrustful, but his youngdaughter Rena …
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Tinto Brass Collection, The

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on August 8th, 2003

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Synopsis

There are three movies here: Miranda, The Key and All Ladies Do It(whose Italian title, Cosi Fan Tutti sounds much less awkward). Though taking place indifferent periods (the first two are set in Fascist Italy, while the third is more modern), all threeshare some similarities in terms of plot: a dark haired-beauty has a long series of eroticencounters, but her true love belongs to one man. Handsomely mounted, with nice attention tocolour and costume, the…
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Pig

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on December 28th, 2002

There isn’t really a plot, as such. In collaboration with director/photographer/scripter/editor Nico B, co-director/composer/writer Rozz Williams works out his serial killer fantasies through the images of a pig-faced man torturing another. The big influences here are equal parts Eraserhead-era David Lynch, the surrealist films of the late-20s-early-30s (especially Un ChienAndalou) and the contemporary piercing/SM scene. In fact, there are moments where this plays like an artsy infomercial for the latter.
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Miranda

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on September 15th, 2002

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Miranda flits between four men, trying to find the right lover and husband (to replace the onewho died in during WWII). And so we move from one nicely dressed set to another, for onebadly dubbed sexual encounter after another. Pretty, but dull.Audio

The sound is mono, and gets off to a rocky start, with a lot of hiss and static in thebackground as the credit music plays. The hiss diminishes afterwards, but you will have to put upwith the dubbing and wildly anachronistic dialogue.
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