Sweetie, You Won't Believe It (2020)

Director: Yernar Nurgaliyev

Screenplay: Zhandos Aibassov, Yernar Nurgaliyev and Daniyar Soltanbayev

Cast: Daniyar Alshinov as Dastan (Das), Asel Kaliyeva as Zhanna, Azamat Marklenov as Arman, Yerlan Primbetov as Murat, Dulyga Akmolda as Tarzan, Almat Sakatov as Kuka, Rustem Zhanyamanov as Petok, Yerkebulan Daiyrov as Kissyk, Bekaris Akhetov as Buzau

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Movies)

 

A horror film from Kazakhstan, Sweetie… is unconventional in that it prioritises itself as a comedy first for all its ghoulishness, presenting the worst day possible for poor Das (Daniyar Alshinov). With a TV in the background of the first scene, talking about the sex lives of chimpanzees and that, contrary to the belief fishing is about booze and gills, it is actually an important bonding ritual between men, the film already establishes its humour in the first scene, which is juvenile at times but done with a lot more sense of glee than laziness to it. It is apt for the tale itself, where Das is established in that scene as a stressed out guy.

Expecting a child, a credit card overdue, and a wife he loves but is the stronger voice of the pair, Das is just a guy drifting along, who just decides one day to run off with friends to fish to help sooth this issue. Despite two of them not knowing how to fish, and the van they travel in full of old school inflatable sex dolls, it will be a calming experience for him, and credit to the film, whilst this may have played up to the henpecked husband stereotype, when things go south for him, one of the reoccurring points is how Das is concerned for his wife and expected child. Despite his friends mocking him for being married, Das is clearly concerned about being there for his soon-to-give-birth wife even if he needed the brief break. Things just happen to go south beforehand.

With its deadpan humour, this feels like a crime comedy instead, as they accidentally bump into debt collectors, mostly related brothers, who were after a man they found hiding in a well. Despite the ominous gas station, with a Lenin poster in the back, which just gives off bad vibes, the immediate concern would be accidentally floating pass an accidental murder. It is embarrassing to have done so when you have improvised a floating vessel, attached to the main boat, using the sex dolls, but that you could be killed to hush up the mistaken murder just adds to the insult. Where this does become a horror film is that, within this premise, director and co-writer Yernar Nurgaliyev drops a Jason Voorhees-like slasher film killer into the midst of all this. He is a guy, with one entirely white eye and disfigured face, who wanders out of nowhere in the midst of the countryside, and introduces himself by doing some improvised optician work with a spike, and re-adjusting the human jaw to make the mouth wider.

With the closest thing to a resistance is one of the friends being a school enforcement officer, who is more likely to bolt it, Das finds himself in a farce between the likelihood of his wife given birth with him absent, and this Voorhees figure picking off the debt collectors one-by-one, leaving him and his friends last to pick off. With the debt collectors presuming they are responsible for the deeds as they are always there at the gristly murder scenes, there is an increased threat as well. Add to this the creepy gas station playing a part, as it involves someone being forced to become a husband and sire grandchildren to a grandfather who likes to watch his new grandson and granddaughter through the bedroom door, and for a film with some gruesome demises, it is played more with a sick sense of humour.

It is also a horror comedy which takes advantage of its resources, such as its wide screen presentation, where there is the great sense of isolation in the first two thirds in the middle of nowhere, contrasted by Yernar Nurgaliyev using some really cool visual flourishes. One of the best for me is a scene which extensively uses the camera attached to the actors, focused on their faces with the world moving around them whilst their panicked expressions are visually clear. The choice of music is also wildly varied, from rap to regional classic pop music, and it is used many times for perfect soundtrack cuts for jokes, like classical pop for an attempted hit and run that fails, or a beautiful use of a dream solo timed for a comedy moment of cowardice. The best way to describe Sweetie, You Won't Believe It is that this is the one slasher (adjacent) horror film where a fart nearly gets someone caught, and far from a moment of rolling your eyes at the childish humour, even the dick jokes and juvenile aspects work for the film. Especially with the one emotional current through this broad humour, this works, as Das has his friends calling him out for being a henpecked husband, to only at one point burst and proudly defend his marriage. This one emotional point in what is a purely comedic piece allows it to also be about older male friendship that just happens to have a body count.

Its director Yernar Nurgaliyev is someone who is prolific as well, which makes me delight in the film greater knowing this is not someone who was never able to make another film. He is someone whose career mostly is likely not getting picked up in the West sadly, as a figure who can juggle comedies and dramas in a clear willingly to make films for their own sake, but the one here which managed to catch attention did deserve it. It is obvious why, as beyond the nice sense of having a horror film from Kazakhstan which I would gladly revisit for its virtues, to add to the pin board of the genre from around the world, it clearly took distributors' interests for its nice plate spinning act of being as goofy as it is, with a distinct take on horror tropes, which everyone clearly did their best to make as good a film they wished it to be.

Hatching (2022)

 

Director: Hanna Bergholm

Screenplay: Ilja Rautsi

Cast: Siiri Solalinna as Tinja / Alli, Sophia Heikkilä as the Mother, Jani Volanen as the Father, Reino Nordin as Tero, Oiva Ollila as Matias, Ida Määttänen as Reetta

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Movies)

 

A Finnish film, teen female gymnast Tinja (Siiri Solalinna) has a seemingly happy family, but the symbolic incident of the start, a bird hitting their lounge window and then causing damage when it gets into the house, sets up the emotional circumstances within this family. Tinja exists with an idyllic life which is not her own, as alongside the sense of her father and little brother as complete disconnected, to the point of being a joke by the final act, she is being moulded by her mother (Sophia Heikkilä). Even if willingly, her mother is pushing her beyond her limits, a figure who in doing video blogs about their perfect life and wishes for the highest expectations, the perfectly manicured woman and former athlete who wants her daughter to train to be the best even if Tinja is clearly not the best gymnast, but ones who tries and enjoys it if she was allowed to fail without grief. The beginning establishes this tension, traumatising her daughter by snapping the bird's neck and demanding Tinja places it into the organic waste herself.

The bird however refused to die until, having dragged itself all the way back to its nest, Tinja is forced to put it out of its misery by turning its head into mush with a rock. Guilty for her part in this, Tinja takes the egg from the nest to hatch at home. The subtext is blatantly visible, as she feeds it her anxieties and stresses until it grows unnaturally larger, the chaos that will be caused when the egg hatched representing the straw which breaks the camel's back. It is not only having her enjoyment of trying as a gymnast grounded down by her mother which is the issue, but that she is also confronted by learning her mother is having an affair with a younger man with child named Tero (Reino Nordin). Whilst her mother becomes a more complicated figure as the film goes on, the egg grows from Tinja's perception of her mother's dominance and shock of this alternative life, leading to the hatching itself.

Credit to the production, whilst the product of this sadness is only briefly seen, the hatchling is an actual monster chick, as interpreted by director Hanna Bergholm with her collaborators, including the animatronic designer Gustav Hoegen, is rendered with puppetry in the brief time we see of it, part of this fascinating melding of a quasi-folklore story, adolescent fairy tale and gruesome horror. What suggests initially a heart warming tale of Tinja bonding with her giant monster chick, hiding it in her bedroom, even if we have to depict having her regurgitate food to feed the creature, goes out the window when it destroys the neighbour's dog, something the family without realising the cause of will hide the evidence of from the neighbour in probably one of the sickest humoured scenes.

Including even nods to puberty and growing up at least with one of the more broadly comedic scenes, there is significantly more nuisance here from the get-go with the story, with the director's film dealing with a broader folklore tale set in the modern day. There are a lot of nods and themes which become the many parts of its text, becoming far more twisted as the chick grows up to become more and more Tinja's doppelganger. Connected to her psychically, including that Tinja suffers the physical injuries the hatchling does, it is linked to her anger as well, and to the point of horror for Tinja as she cannot control its actions, such as when it will go out and maim a girl in her gymnastics' class fed off this anger.

One of Hatching's biggest virtues is the sense of all these characters being three dimensional. Tero for example, as a side character who could have been stereotyped in the worst possible light, but he is depicted as a kind man who shows sympathy for Tinja. It is understandable when he becomes violent when the doppelganger, thinking it is Tinja, is found taking an axe to his baby girl. Whilst the burden of the mother onto the daughter does not pull punches in the damndest, the relationship is allowed to connect when the mother realises the horror of what is happening, a figure unaware of her complicit involvement with only closeness coming sharing knives with Tinja to hunt hatchlings. What does add the cherry on the cake of Hatching, which however undermines this heart warming bond, is a pitch perfect and opening ended ending, a bleak one from a spooky ghost tale which perfectly gives you so many imaginary epilogues of what the aftermath of it transpiring would be for the family afterwards. With zero knowledge of the film beforehand, this was a case of a film catching me out of nowhere, and applaudable in its successes.

The Last Matinee (2020)

 

a.k.a. Al morir la matinée

Director: Maximiliano Contenti

Screenplay: Manuel Facal and Maximiliano Contenti

Cast: Luciana Grasso as Ana, Ricardo Islas as Asesino Come Ojos, Julieta Spinelli as Angela, Franco Durán as Tomás, Pedro Duarte as Mauricio, Yuly Aramburu as Maria Julia, Hugo Blandamuro as Hugo, Daiana Carigi as Maite

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Movies)

 

From Uruguay, this film is absolutely the creation of a director, Maximiliano Contenti, who loves horror films, and wanted to create a film in tribute to giallo and slasher films he has likely seen. As I will also nod to, as his filmography include non-horror films including documentary work on subjects like the Uruguayan jazz scene, this is a beautiful example of someone from a country whose cinema that is sadly ignored in the West bringing their own voice to the proceedings. "Beautiful" may be inappropriate for a film about a psychopath who kills is victims and steals their eyeballs, but as he is gleefully riffing on films which he proudly nods to in the film posters of The Last Matinee's central location, Contenti is still making a film as a Uruguayan creator and adding to the horror canon alongside the likes of The Silent House (2010).

As a premise, it is an easy one to start with for this Uruguayan-Argentinean co-production, that just when you think it's safe to go to a cinema, there is a serial killer in the aisles. Set in the capital of Uruguay, Montevideo, in 1993 on a rainy day, a mysterious man in black gloves eating the last pickle from a giant jar enters a cinema for its last screening of the night, all with terrible intent for his bloodlust and obsession with collecting eyeballs in that aforementioned jar. Already from the prologue, you get a good glimpse of the style of the proceedings. From the colour palette - bold primaries for a bag of sweets a kid leaving accidentally spills to the murky yellow walls on the stairway - to the neon, the world depicted is stylistic in an engaging way. The score, by Hernán González, fully nods to the fact this is a throwback tribute to older films Contenti has seen, evoking giallo and slasher films as a huge influence whilst being a tribute that helps the movie to have a distinct style.

The set up for potential victims is that Ana (Luciana Grasso) visits the cinema to greet her dad, only to be stuck taking the shift as the projectionist as her father is not medically okay to be doing ten plus hour shifts in the booth. Other characters among this slasher set -up is the kid who managed to stay behind to watch an illicit horror movie he is too young to see, the male and female couple who are awkwardly dating, the young adults already drunk on vodka outside, a girl called "Brooke Shields" in her attractiveness, and the old man who refuses to leave or pay because, out of reality, he believes he has already seen the films. With a real film playing within this one in a nice touch, Frankenstein: Day of the Beast (2011) with its director Ricardo Islas playing the killer himself, there is the growing tension as this figure is seemingly able to pick victims off in staff and patrons with the sick obsession with scoping their eyeballs out for trophies.

It is a really cool idea - horror films have metatextual nodded to their existence, and Contenti has a poster for one, Bigas Luna's Anguish (1987), which was famous for its scenes in a movie theatre, prominent in scenes alongside his first ever feature film Muñeco Viviente V (2008) and Dario Argento's Opera (1987). Unlike, say, Lamberto Bava's Demons (1985) however, which was a deliberately over-the-top film even in the horror canon, the tone is imagining a place in the dark or with people distracted where someone is carefully eliminating patrons quietly without anyone noticing. The film is more exaggerated than this, but this does provide a slow burn pace even within what is a pure style-for-style-sake horror tribute. It takes a while for actual gruesomeness to transpire, when two people get a spike between them to make their kiss more memorable, upping the violence and gore stakes, but the film is helped so much more because we are even setting up the small story beforehand. These characters get to exist to be someone rather than just pure cannon fodder, which was a problem you do find with a lot of original slashers where victims barely get any time to make their demises punch you in the gut. There is at least a sense of tragedy when people are killed here, even as archetypes, due to this pacing choice.

Also, even if confined to said cinema, it is already a pleasure to see a film from Uruguay just in terms of how the cast talk to each other, even the diegetic sound of cinema adverts and decor to set up the time period. Later in his career, Maximiliano Contenti would make another film about the capital of Montevideo, Hot Club de Montevideo (2023), a documentary about the titular club opened in 1950 dedicated to having jazz performed. That one detail really does suggest a great deal about him as a creator, how The Last Matinee itself like quite a few modern horror films is a tribute to the past. In terms to the choice of chronological setting, beyond removing mobile phones from the plot line, it also feels like a time, set in 1993, when he would have been around the age to have already been bitten by the bug of horror cinema in general as a man born in 1984. Even casting Ricardo Islas as the killer feels like a more profound choice as, whilst the flood gates for horror from Uruguay definitely grew from The Silent House onwards, some of the earliest from the eighties onwards were Ricardo Islas' own directorial work, making him a pioneer whose casting here feels even more beautiful as a nod of respect of his career as an innovator. Again, when he gets to eat an eyeball at one point and menace a child, that may not seem appropriate to use the term "beautiful" for, but with my admiration for The Last Matinee for these reasons, and also being a great piece of pure piece of ghoulish horror film making, it works in an appropriately perverse way.

The Substance (2024)

Director: Coralie Fargeat

Screenplay: Coralie Fargeat

Cast: Demi Moore as Elisabeth Sparkle, Margaret Qualley as Sue, Dennis Quaid as Harvey, Gore Abrams as Oliver, Hugo Diego Garcia as Diego, Phillip Schurer as Mr. Scream, Joseph Balderrama as Craig Silver

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Movies)

 

The best opening to this review came from the male cinema usher introducing this film. In my sickest glee, but sincerely as well for its director-writer Coralie Fargeat, this film has reached a wide audience for a director whose debut was only the film before Revenge (1917), a subversion of the controversial rape-revenge genre from the French director who worked on short films beforehand.  Her follow-up The Substance, seven years later, could be seen in multiplexes like the Odeon here in the United Kingdom, but I found it more practical to go to a boutique cinema. Even if part of a trend to sell cinemas as an experience, with more lavish food options and the ability to order for this or the bar during the opening trailers per screening, it allows one a little bit more access to more non-mainstream films, and the ability to sit on comfy sofas which, even as someone who doesn't mind the traditional cinema seats, I can live more with. This also allows the experiences to have greater weight, in the additional details such as staff that are friendly and seem to enjoy their work. You can learn of the patron, because they accidentally didn't get a spoon, eating their ice cream with their hands than asking for a utensil, or that this friendliness added the best punch line for The Substance where the male usher, a guy who clearly went to the gym but with our British sense of affability, warned the patron. That, if anyone came here to see the film for its buzz but didn't see the trailer or knew it was a body horror movie, they were in for something unexpected. I was aware, and warned myself, but didn't expect how The Substance turned out to be either, so that warning even added a punch line for me to make the viewing experience even better, something you wouldn't have gotten at a multiplex.

The Substance came from a Cannes Film Festival in 2024 which helped me feel reinvigorated in being a cineaste after a sense of malaise and personal depression which pushed me out of going to the cinema often for near three years. It was among a list of films just in the official competition, even if contentious in reaction like Francis Ford-Coppola's Megalopolis (2024), which all felt they were made with a sense of them being films made individuals who desired to bring their premises to the screen, films which even if a few were miserable failures would linger in memory and worth preserving, in the ideal if they all had virtues, years after. The Substance had an additional layer, in not only a body horror genre film getting into the Official Competition, but how it was the "return" for Demi Moore, the Hollywood actress of St. Elmo's Fire (1985) to G.J. Jane (1997) taking a bold step into this genre. The film itself is proudly of its body horror mould, which is something spectacular if needs to be considered in how, with a lot of mainstream publications covering the film because of Moore, there was a lot of eyes on a filmmaker whose first film caught the attention for genre and horror fans more. For starters, there is the danger to oversimplify its themes of objectification and commercialisation of women's bodies, and especially in terms of youth, as the film complicates it. Misogyny and these ideals are the catalyst to the film's main plot, where former film star and TV exercise show host Elisabeth Sparkle (Moore) is fired from her career by Dennis Quaid's grotesque TV station executive for being over her fifties, wishing to replace her with a new, nubile female host who is to be between twenty to thirty. There is however a lot more nuisance that can be lost if we just jump on the themes as they are without taking in what Fargeat also as the screenwriter adds to complicate this.

The objectification by creepy old men, or Quaid eating shrimp in one of the grossest moments in a film where someone regurgitates a breast, is just the push into a work with more complexity as Sparkle finds herself after a car crash introduced to the titular substance, a toxic green chemical which duplicates a younger version of herself dubbed Sue (Margaret Qualley) from her own body. It becomes as much her own conflict with her age and body dysmorphia, with even the broad caricatures of Quaid and most of the male cast telling within itself. It is a film of sleekness, with a bouncy Hi-RNG score by Raffertie and bold primary colours. Fargeat as a female director, who also co-edited the film to have the intensity of cuts as this film can  also have, crosses a line too that would be rightly criticised from male filmmakers of fetishising Qualley's body including her lips, let alone the nudity, in lurid close-ups. There are layers of pop artificiality here that even extends to the depiction of misogyny, where the TV executive's gross gender objectification is so comically ridiculous, with the finale at a New Years Eve TV show with kids in the audience yet nude exotic dangers onstage, that the caricatures in generally show how old and prehistoric these ideas are, to the point these weird gender beliefs of women come off more twisted for how ridiculous they are. Most of the men come off as immature children who never grew up in their beliefs in women, and in a world where a political figure like JD Vance rightly get hung and drawn online for old comments about "crazy cat ladies" not deserving political influence, the kind of thing you would expect from immature boys that thought cooties were real, you see how this attitude to sexism from men needs to be spoofed like this to get the point more sharply across than take it as severely.

A sincere "feminist" story of objectification would be useless, and digested in empty think pieces, where a film this more complicated in tone and proudly embracing the explicit practical effects forces you to think a lot more hard. Because it was more an explicit horror film, with the ending matching the likes of Society (1989) and Screaming Mad George's infamous "shunting" practical effects in terms of eyebrow raising sights, there was a danger of this being dismissed, but the fact that it managed to find itself in this interesting place as a big new film for 2024, with a significant choice as its female lead, without losing that edge. It is among those interesting "art house horror films" I always love, but this is the first one where, rather than David Cronenberg eventually, the tone eventually starts to fold its serious themes not in subtle moments of introspection, but the exaggerated perverseness that you would more likely find in a Street Trash (1987) on a significantly higher budget, those crop of divisive and lurid films' attitude to jaw dropping and gross visual spectacle, alongside the poppy and at times flair to the images, being used to convey the serious message that this has. This takes infamous moments like the "shunting" of Society, the man melting into a toilet in Street Trash or the fetishishtic body prosthetics of so many eighties horror films, including Cronenberg films despite their moments of cerebral coldness, to this really uncomfortable idea of women being objectified and objectifying themselves, not playing it safe when it can be so easy, as I could accidentally have done as a male viewer, to have a cretinous and oversimplify view which would be offensive to female viewers who could find so much more nuisance in the material.

It was a newspaper piece, a Guardian interview with Demi Moore herself for the film, which gave the film more weight when I eventually saw the film¹. She came to The Substance with no knowledge of the body horror genre¹, but developed an interest with the subject for reasons which added interesting flourishes to her performance and the final film which I kept in mind for the viewing. One of the most prominent is how this becomes a war between the older Elizabeth Sparkle and her young idealised self Sue as the story progresses, with Moore noting how even if with the chance to relive a better life as a young woman again, Sue takes the job as the new sexy aerobic star and kowtows to the same misogynistic creeps who fired Sparkle in the first place, happy to such up to the same people for a sliver of attention. The Substance itself, playing into the central conflict, is promoted by the unseen creators' advertising with the caveat that even if two people are created from the cell duplication process, they are the same person and should not forget this. They must have seven days each per their rotas, with the other staying in a semi coma with food intravenously sustaining them and the spinal fluid of Elizabeth required to keep Sue stabilised. Even with this distinct logic, playing into an aesthetic of a new anti-aging cosmetic with the substance's slick and minimalistic packaging, there is a more arcane nature to the premise. I can easily imagine this as an old fairy tale from old Europe, where even if cultural and time differences were to be found, themes even if added with future audience perspective visible within the central theme of how, like so many fairy tales and Monkey's Paw/morality horror stories, the downfall is rarely because the magical/unnatural item is inherently the cause, but because it eventually gets abused or the worst sides of people ruin the balance.

This is where a psychological edge plays out where the real horror lies in the schism in Elizabeth's mind, the idea Sue is still her even if they seemingly are different people. A story exists where she and Sue can co-exist, can defy natural laws of aging, and have a happy conclusion, but the conflict and the horror of this genre film itself, even if spurned by the misogyny of men and ageism, is the self inflicted desire for personal attention Sparkle was infected with when she came into stardom and could not purge herself of when the fame ends. Her younger self, as Demi Moore realised in that Guardian interview, is trapped in the need for fame and glamour, willing to still follow the empty lifestyle and praises of gross old men, and in her need to do so, starts to abuse the contract to the point it physically starts to age Elizabeth. The real horror here, not the icky prosthetics, is when Elizabeth started to feel bored and depressed, jobless, even in a luxury apartment earned from her fame and stuck in front of a TV. Food, one of the few things not considered a taboo like sex, is effectively a more socially acceptable narcotic for depression, and some of the body horror is Coralie Fargeat as much showing its preparation and mess in a grotesque form, including the least expected place a chicken drumstick can be found as a sick gag scene. Those moments, including Elizabeth not finding happiness with the one nice guy, a goofy if sweet older high school friend, when she decides not to go on a date is legitimately sad and the real terror of the film. Stuck with her youth glaring at her outside on a billboard, it uses the lack of subtlety of horror cinema's visual form more effectively, in how youth in culture is used and fetished, turning into a plague for older people to feel trapped within aging bodies.

The film escalates to the absurd levels to contrast this without losing these themes, and this is where I also have to praise the two female leads for their commitment, as The Substance has to juggle these serious moments to the fact both actresses are going to be within extensive prosthetic body suits by the ending. Margaret Qualley was someone I had barely registered in films I had seen before 2024, but argubly 2024 could be her year as an MVP for me, least one of them, in terms of an actor with an incredible range in all four films I have seen in 2024 at the cinema up to The Substance. Including Yorgos Lanthimos' Poor Things (2023, but January 2024 British theatrical release) and Kind of Kindness (2024), and Ethan Coen's Drive-Away Dolls (2024), within a year I have seen Qualley show a level of elasticity and ability to shift roles within three different directors, from the eccentric accented comedy role with Coen to Lanthimos' idiosyncratic duo, that makes me now want to see her have a successful career with a lot of awards involved. Starting off with a dancer's background and having a link to Hollywood's past, as the daughter of Andie MacDowell, she had started long before 2024, but this is a run of four films that impressed me, more so as with The Substance, you also have to factor in her comfort in being able to do a role as with Sue. Whether in skin-tight Lycra or full nudity, to be able to be hyper-sexualised onscreen would have been a challenge, taking the fake artificiality of her character to its extreme alongside all the primary colours and arch lustiness.

Demi Moore is also taking risks for this too, playing the polar opposite in Elizabeth Sparkle, feeling like an abrupt and amazing inclusion of a huge veteran Hollywood actor in a film with the level of explicitness with full commitment fully felt in her performance, her vulnerability in the Elizabeth character as pointed. There is a shade of What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962), Robert Altman's psychodrama of pitting the real rivalry between an older Betty Davis and Joan Crawford against each other, but unlike the "Hagsploitation" movement which came out of its success, which is dubious in a negative sounding way in how it used older actresses from classic Hollywood cinema, Moore and her character Elizabeth Sparkle are incredibly sympathetic, whilst Margaret Qualley plays the young evil Betty Davis tormenting the older. The one moment where Moore channels a Joan Crawford-like mania, when Sue was already abusing their relationship to harmful effect, is a gleeful moment including its French director-writer mocking her own country's cuisine in a grotesque (and high cholesterol) moment where Moore is almost a cackling witch over pots.

The film, never expecting it with no context before of Fargeat's previous film, goes to a level you normally don't find in Cannes Film Festival competition entries. We have had the controversial films with extreme horror and sexual content, like Lars Von Trier's Antichrist (2009), but after the end credits, I couldn't help but hope somewhere Frank Henenlotter, the director of notorious genre films like Frankenhooker (1990), learnt of this film clearly indebted to his cinema among others, and has been able to see this. As an official selection film of prestige, with Demi Moore of all people in its centre, I hope he was cackling with glee when, without spoiling too much, what could have ended perfectly as a horror anthology story conclusion in its macabre form decided to instead take it further. As I get older, I am starting to love even indulgent movies which break the two hour mark into two and a half, and a horror film at two and a half hours is a rare chimera almost unheard of for the genre. Ninety minutes is usually the golden number for the genre, so those that are longer are fascinating for me to see exist, as they have more time to extend and flesh out their content. Where this extensive length comes from, with spoilers if not to ruin everything, is the appearance of "Monstro Elisasue", the creation of old school prosthetics which almost evokes the ending of Tetsuo The Iron Man (1989) in two characters being melded into one, if here of flesh. There is also a blood geyser of such length and amount this clearly had been indebted, or at least paid tribute to, Peter Jackson's Braindead (1992) for overdoing the fake blood, a film that notoriously left one New Zealand film studio set so stained it lingered in the flooring years after. It is indulgent as hell, and I admit the soundtrack (least in the cinema screening) did become excessively loud to the point of off-putting, but indulgence is acceptable when you bear witness to the final act that ended as it did. The crowd I was with were not really people used to these films - there was shocked laughter, amazement of what they witnessed and likely discussion afterwards in the bar, and even I, already respecting the film, was knocked back that it ended as giddily twisted as it did. The film only won a Best Screenplay award at Cannes in the official competition, but I do see The Substance as being one of the films that will have a lot to be talked onwards. Coralie Fargeat should have had to wait seven years to get the film off the ground, but what the film does when it finally came was an incredible success. It was for the better that the reviews from that initial Cannes festival were way too subdued from the press, and that warning happened just before my cinema viewing from an usher, as they added perverse cherries on this wonderfully gory cake of ideas.

========

1) ‘We can be violent to ourselves. Brutal’: Demi Moore on body image, reinvention and her most shocking role yet, by Charlotte Edwardes for The Guardian, published September 14th 2024.

Poor Things (2023)

Director: Yorgos Lanthimos

Screenplay: Tony McNamara

Based on the novel by Alasdair Gray

Cast: Emma Stone as Bella Baxter, Mark Ruffalo as Duncan Wedderburn, Willem Dafoe as Dr. Godwin "God" Baxter, Ramy Youssef as Max McCandles, Christopher Abbott as Alfie Blessington, Kathryn Hunter as Madame Swiney, Jerrod Carmichael as Harry Astley, Hanna Schygulla as Martha von Kurtzroc, Margaret Qualley as Felicity, Vicki Pepperdine as Mrs. Prim

An Abstract Candidate

 

There was something perversely delightful in seeing Poor Things in a multiplex in the afternoon, rather than at night at a specialist cinema. Despite having been a big prestige production, with a Best Picture nomination at the 96th Academy Awards, we are still dealing with a horror/dark comedy with very adult content and subject matter, sexually explicitly and proudly weird. Based on the work by Alasdair Gray, an acclaimed Scottish author and artist, and involving Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos, behind transgressive and idiosyncratic productions in his homeland like Dogtooth (2009), it makes me proud that a director I always admired in Lanthimos managed to find a way to enter the British film production industry, with this a British-US-Irish co-production, and not yet compromise his interest in the idiosyncrasies and weirdness of human behaviour.

What we get is a retelling of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein if taking the next logical step in how, once Victor Frankenstein created his being, the being becomes Dr. Godwin Baxter as played by Willem Dafoe, a begrudgingly accepted member of Victorian society and a teacher of human anatomy and surgery in London. Central to the film, as a huge contributor as a co-producer and the lead, is Emma Stone as the logical extension of the Bride of Frankenstein, or in this case the Daughter of Frankenstein in Bella. It is a slight spoiler, but she is a woman who originally committed suicide, throwing herself off London Bridge, only for Baxter to resurrect her with the mind of her unborn child in her womb placing the mother's mind, bringing to life a figure who starts as a grown woman with the mind of the child until she begins to mature psychologically. One of Baxter's students Max McCandles (Ramy Youssef) is hired to record her progress, falling for her but with Bella herself always the central character, as her growing self awareness leads her to want to leave the house she has lived in all her life.

It is fascinating to see Lanthimos break through over the years, and here he gets to have the most visually ambitious of his work, an alternative Victorian era world where Bella is our centre, beginning to grasp the world around her slowly in a confined and artificial world under a father she literally calls God. Her journey, played as absurdist and deliberately provocative, is learning back to Dogtooth in the prologue, under her loving father's thumb until he relents to let her have a worldwide affair with a chad named Duncan Wedderburn (Mark Ruffalo). Dogtooth was about a patriarchal figure forcing a confined world on his adult children with their own logic, but here there is the inverse to that film where God relents and lets her, after her discovery of adolescence and her sexuality at the dining table, go off with this womaniser aware of the necessary to let her grow. To the growing frustrations of Duncan, Mark Ruffalo eventually becoming one of the funniest figures in the film for how increasingly exasperated he becomes, Bella's journey becomes existential as she grows and learns of the world in her own way.

The obvious themes, set in the Victorian era, is definitely with "civilised" society as reflected in all the men in Bella's life, how she is meant to be to them in terms of acceptable behaviour and manners, but it does avoid locking this theme to the past, thus neutering the thought experiments of this theme, entirely because this is also set in its own exaggerated world. This forces one to experience Bella's journey personally without necessarily the danger of a realistic historical depiction of the past possible to use as a distancing tool to how this still connects to the current world. It becomes more hypothetical, with its incredibly luscious set designs and fictional worlds, Lisbon turned into a fantasy land with cable cars in the air, but still dealing with the problems which Bella starts to pick up from around herself, all whilst growing awareness from her impulsive interest in the outer world to awareness of others and empathy. I have heard of readings of her as well in terms of the autistic spectrum which, as someone with autism myself, should have been obvious but does consider how much nuisance needs to be considered, from a female viewer with autism, to give a proper reading on this. Certainly, with Bella, though she is initially set up as the child-woman who gains weight to her life as she matures, I do see something I have come to develop as I become older as an autistic person, seeing normalised behaviours meant to be rational as more increasingly subjective and even questionable in their acceptable in behaviour ticks. This is reflect especially here with the taboos Bella casually cuts down as pointless as she learns basic pleasures, learns about her sexuality and her liberation, and all with eventual self awareness. Even if her own perspective separate from others, which is bolstered by the profane sense of humour, hers is a progress towards to better.

It is a great performance by Emma Stone. Committed certainly and willing to work with a sense of complete trust and skill to pull it off, as was the case for the likes of Angeliki Papoulia in his earlier made films, it is not for the obvious aspects like the numerous scenes of nudity which makes this a difficult role, but the initial version of her as a child-woman which she documented was insanely challenging to accomplish without some emotional strain¹. With the help of the script by Tony McNamara, hers like everyone's dialogue is full of idiosyncratic language alongside her own idiosyncratic movements, really needed together to make Bella succeed as a character. Wordplay to her distinct turns of phrase filter through the many subjects she has to deal with, such as her befuddlement of not behaving as she is supposed to be to men, or the wrongs of sex work as a credible method of liberation for her and for pay. This is alongside that idea earlier mentioned, as an autistic viewer, that you can see her finding the negatively weird and irrational behaviour which is supposed to be "normal" with the curiosity I and likely others on the spectrum have felt.

At one point in Lisbon, especially with the distinct costume designs by Holly Waddington, I could not help but think of Frank Henenlotter's Frankenhooker (1990), a deliberately tasteless title for a ridiculous premise he literally had to create within seconds in a pitch meeting but made into a memorable horror-comedy, but this becomes the logical progression of what that film hinted at but could not get to. That being how male figures built the perfect woman literally and metaphorically, a daughter surrogate here for Godwin and a perfect lover Duncan, only for her to become fully of her free will, a force of energy stomping around whilst the men are the exasperated ones who cannot comprehend she will not just be their idealised template for them to own. Ruffalo, who got a Best Supporting Actor nomination alongside Stone for Best Actress at the Academy Awards, is the perfect figure for this, the erudite git who gets the funniest lines when he cannot control and dictate what Bella is as a person, finding her way in her own logic and prodding his contradictory mood swings.

You tend to forget, when multiplexes are a place of usually teen friendly films, that we still can have very adult films in violence and sexually explicit themes once in a while, but normally not screened in the middle of a pleasant afternoon, especially when this gets to Bella eventually learning the complex realities of life and how to be empowered whilst working in a brothel in France. The deadpan nature depicting this type of content, even moments of extreme violence, however has been with Yorgos Lanthimos since his earlier films. What I did not expect him, whilst his cinematographer Robbie Ryan was inspired by Francis Ford Coppola's 1992 adaptation of Dracula², was to also have gone from a template for the New Greek Weird Wave of films of stark minimalism to possibly being inspired by Tim Burton all whilst retaining his own maximalist style.

The first act, Bella's childhood before she leaves her father's home, is almost entirely monochrome with a fish eyed lens to distort the world around her. A part of this helps lead the viewer gently into this world, as much as a film with prominent CGI effects alongside the practical ones as Godwin's home is populated with incredibly strange and well done animal hybrids never explained but he clearly created, like bulldog chicken hybrids or the duck dog. Burton is apt a comparison as, whilst sexual desire only occasionally crept into his films, Burton liked played with the macabre and sickly humorous, and with some of his films being as gory as this occasionally gets into, there is unexpected bedfellows with this film even if we get into themes of its own creators. Lanthimos is not that different in the morbid humour here, barring that he adds as well his own touches, his own influences in the artistic style of the film and his interest the viewing humanity like a scientist watches bacteria under a microscope, examining their weird behaviours since Kinetta (2005).

The more explicit politics is different to Burton too, at least in how they are treated here openly, really cemented when we get to Bella being on a ship between oceans and beginning to learn the harsh realities of life through a legitimate cynic played by Jerrod Carmichael. It never becomes heavy handed here due to the sense of humour this introduces between these moments, be it Mark Ruffalo having a meltdown learning his money has been donated to charity, to the brothel Madame in France played by Kathryn Hunter, covered in tattoos, having a frank and thoughtful attitude to her profession, open to Bella's inquisitiveness and for all her female employees whilst with a habit of playful love bites for her young female employees. The one moment where this gets close to heavy handedness to a detriment is addressing Bella's origins, needed to close her arch and introduce Alfie Blessington (Christopher Abbott), who is arguably a stereotype due to the little time we get to fully flesh out his true evil. Of her past, he represents what is evil, the colonial soldier who says Jesus would beat her up with a baseball bat, as her husband from the past, for her sins, and yet abuses his staff for fun and believes in female circumcision. He is still worth having as he presents the last example of masculinity needed to be castrated in the film, the toxic patriarch, and the one closest to the period setting whose form still sadly permeates Western culture, the colonialist who with his home full of weapons and appropriate African icons distort the likes of the Christ's teachings to be pure white male empowerment fantasies, that of dictating the world to everyone not Anglo-Saxon or male. He is the true villain, as even Godwin for his crimes, including trying to create a new Bella, becomes in a nuisance to the film's virtue the father to her daughter she accepts and loves even for all his mistakes. In contrast, Blessington is the figure you need to see who makes even Ruffalo's Duncan just misguided. He argues, for a film already close to two and a half hours, that it needed to be three hours, to deal with the real challenge that enforces Bella's full growth as a figure, particularly as we could have gotten into more explicit issues of class conflict and colonial attitudes, and without losing the resolution we get, [Spoilers] involving goat's brains [Spoilers End].

In context to mainstream cinema, the stereotype rather than the reality including the image perceived of Best Picture Oscar nominees in the past, Poor Things is magnificently bonkers, transgressive and visually resplendent cinema that is to be appreciated. It is a delightfully expressive film, dealing with grim subjects still of the director's cinema but at a point he was able to escape being stereotyped to one form of cinema only. He fully emphasises the true meaning of the auteur theory, that this is his film but where we have to rightly credit as well the differences that came from the figures who contributed to this specific film - great performances, great scriptwriting, great production design from the sets to the model shot work, and a great score from Jerskin Fendrix, making his debut here in composing for a film, who at times evokes the scores Michael Nyman enriched the films of Peter Greenaway with, a huge compliment from my part to nod to. With knowledge Lanthimos tracked down Alasdair Gray before his 2019 passing to adapt the novel, only to learn of Gray's admiration of Dogtooth the film itself¹, adds a wonderful emotional bow to the work, which this was clearly a labour of love for Yorgos Lanthimos. He was able to clearly make a film without compromise, and Lanthimos and everyone in the production of this should pat themselves on the back, on the image onscreen or behind them, for the accomplishment.

Abstract Spectrum: Eccentric

Abstract Rating (High/Medium/Low/None): None

=======

1) Exclusive: Emma Stone and Yorgos Lanthimos on Creating a Woman Free of Shame in Poor Things, written by Emma Specter and published by Vogue for May 31th 2023.

2) Poor Things’ cinematographer on lighting a sex comedy, being inspired by Francis Ford Coppola, written by Jason Struss and published by Digital Trends on December 9th 2023.

Smut Without Smut: Satanic Horror Nite (2021)

 

Including reviews of Sacrilege (1971), Satan’s Lust (1971) and The Devil Inside Her (1977)

Directors: Ray Dennis Steckler (Sacrilege); Zebedy Colt (The Devil Inside Her)

Cast:

Sacrilege:

Jane Tsentas as Cassandra; Gerard Broulard as Jay; Ruthann Lott as Maria; Charles Smith as Lucifer

 

Satan's Lust:

Judy Angel as Pamela Goodright; Ron Darby as Boris; George 'Buck' Flower as Manheim Jarkoff; James Mathers as Wayne

 

The Devil Inside Her:

Jody Maxwell as Hope Hammond; Terri Hall as Faith Hammond; Dean Tait as Joseph; Zebedy Colt as Ezekiel Hammond; Renee Sanz as Devil's Crony; Chad Lambert as Nicodemus; Nancy Dare as Rebecca 'Becky' Hammond; Annie Sprinkle as Orgy Girl; Rod DuMont as The Devil

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Movies)

 

I’ll buy you a dildo for Christmas.

Smut Without Smut, a concept created by American Genre Film Archive, works around the issue that erotic cinema would be off-putting for some, but have their compelling aspects even if unintentional. This is significant even in a serious way as, with the uncensored versions of three of the films covered as they were included in the AGFA Blu Ray release, these films represent a side of filmmaking for all their amateur and absurd tones which will be deeply problematic for some. It is worth putting ahead of time as, especially as actual hardcore films, some people will not feel comfortable (or want to) sit through work which have openly non-consensual scenes even if all these films are truly ridiculous times to witness, openly too silly (or frankly shambolic) to take seriously baring. They are from a different time, even if sadly pornography has its sleazy edges still to this day, so all these films have to be taken with a pinch of salt even in their cut-down Smut Without Smut versions, which will not be possible for all to stomach. Those who can, like myself, will witness truly strange works.

To be blunt as well, some people will not feel comfortable (or want to) sit through extended scenes of real sex if with the artificiality that it is acted out sequences which are prolonged and in gynecological detail. In mind the tone will end up having to be lowered to review these, but wanting to take into seriousness the content, even thought pornography has still a lot of distasteful content to it in tone, these films have moments for all their goofiness you would prefer not to have in them, as much as some people just do not want to watch a man’s hairy testicles up close for a prolonged five to ten minutes. Satanic Horror Nite is closer to what the point on this concept was as Smut Without Smut’s prequel. That one was before AGFA started releasing their mix-tape works to physical media, instead having a double bill of Things to Come (1976) and The Dirty Dolls (1973), two softcore sex films where the removal of said sex scenes made little sense. That title was only logical for outright porn, tackling the sordid world of hardcore that Something Weird Video accumulated alongside their other exploitation film libraries, in this case centering on the obsession in the seventies with Satan and the Devil throughout a lot of these productions.

The compilation version follows The AGFA Horror Trailer Show (2020), another early mixtape from AGFA in which it is initially set up as an actual cinema showing, starting with trailers including in the intermission, not surprisingly going for the obvious sex innuendo with the food trailers but with legitimately idiosyncratic trailers which come some of the best parts of the production altogether. Americana from a different country to mind, such as one for a Wizard of Oz Head Shop, or the obsession between these mixtapes with finding as many trailers for cinemas made for Toddy, a chocolate drink that could be served cold or hot, are an obsession I am developing through works like this. More popular in the likes of Brazil to Argentina, Toddy chocolate drinks were pushed in the USA in these types of trailers, such as one here which is an animated trailer like  an old sixties cartoon about firemen. There is even a Pac Man parody for another concessions stand food advertisement which is also memorable.

This is not about gluttony however, but the sin of lust, and trailers for other hardcore films even if one or two does at least produce a Count-Erotica film which immediately warns you of some of eye-popping content. Even if everything in the Smut Without Smut cut is softcore, the sight of a man humping into a rabbit hand puppet for what is a Count Dracula parody immediately is memorable whether you want it to be or not. These films, uncut versions as well, are weird for how they can straddle the line between legitimately sleazy, progressive, deeply dated and problematic, but also very quaint or weird, where “Englebert Humpsalot” for a pseudonym on the credits time stamps the films to their era or even earlier into the sixties, like a Carry On joke.

Sadly the first film in the compilation, Hotter Than Hell (1971), is not among those included in their full cut which is a shame as it presents itself as a sitcom about demons, presided upon by a Satan who is closer to a gregarious Saint Nick/Green Man figure, whose desire to corrupt the folks up above is less eternal damnation but orgies and sex even in the underworld. This feels like a sex romp comedy which just happened to end up with real sex, boing sounds and all, between demons magically appearing for women or being helpful to frustrated female psychologists. There is already though an inherent issue with Smut Without Smut in context too that, yes, splicing out all the hardcore scenes, alongside making some of these barely over fifteen minutes each between five films used, means that so much tonal context let alone story plotting is lost, which becomes a significant issue with appreciating it as a work by itself.

Sacrilege probably is not a film you would gain a lot of from having all the sex back in, but it is the most notorious of the trio as it is directed by Ray Dennis Steckler. Steckler, infamous for the likes of Rat Pfink and Boo Boo (1966), did make some porn films in his career, and starting with a nude woman (barring gloves and a cape) gyrating to drones and string instruments to the camera, we are absolutely in a strange territory even next to the other films involved in this collection. This woman, in the form of a more humble witchcraft enthusiast in more clothing, will temp a man reading a book in the countryside for what is a played satanic sex ritual. There is not a lot else to talk of, baring that he reads books on witchcraft, and that she has a Siamese cat named Lucifer who is the aforementioned Devil and starts a nice trend of cats in these films. There is also the weird decision to have our witch make erotic cat wails, which is probably one of the strangest aspects of any of the films as this happens even in the sex scenes.

The reason Smut Without Smut exists is that Sacrilege, bluntly, will force you to look at the lead’s testicles in close up for a long period of shots, which is not for everyone. The paradox with hardcore, which this mixtape has to work around, is that porn drags because of its hardcore scenes of actual sex but without them, not in terms of wanting to arose the viewer but for their tone, you cannot really cut around them depending on the film used without potentially losing so much of their tone, or feeling as here they abruptly change scene. Again, and with the desire to not repeat this repeatedly, these films do present a taboo nature when our male lead calls a female friend to join over when possessed by sex, the playing to a non-consensual nature to these scenes in all the films mentioned in this review something which is going to offend people, more so because of the uncut versions having real sexual acts transpire even if they are highly choreographed. Sacrilege out of the three full films I saw is the most lacksidasical, but this would still be seen as a taboo for some still even if that  the film in context, the repetitiveness of the sex scenes themselves, undercut the potential grimness with monotony. The film by the ending also possesses a very squeaky table the scene of the Satanic orgy plays out on top of, and jazz drumming on the soundtrack mixed with soundtrack pieces for a silent adventure serial, which is a realm of strangeness in itself, which cannot defend these to someone who feels sexual fantasies like this are indefensible, but do undercut such a film by reveal how absurd it is as a fictional piece, real sex or otherwise. For Ray Dennis Steckler, it definitely becomes an idiosyncratic production to watch if an acquired taste even next to the others in this. Its compilation version would probably suffice for most, but uncut, the repetition and tone becomes its weird aura.

As mentioned, there are films here which were not included as extras in their full feature form, Sexual Awareness (1974) one of these, about a religious sex cult.  A lot of clearly missing from its cut form, a fragment of curiosity that really does not stand out, and again, about a cult that use hypnosis, this does emphasis that with a childlike naivety in a lot of these films’ cases that they touch upon fantasies which many may find completely unacceptable. It emphases sexual fantasies as a complicated and at times difficult thing, notwithstanding the fact that pornography even into the modern day has problematic aspects, especially when it comes to fetishing race, where we do not willingly face these with the complexity they need as much as rightly challenge them. None of the films in this, though a few have some eyebrow raising and sleazy moments, can be seen as anything but utterly ridiculous, entirely artificial and able to dismiss as from another time in look, especially as  Sexual Awareness in the Satanic Horror Nite cut is played for all its awkward pauses in acting and non-sequiturs, alongside in the intermission afterwards subtly playing to the only innuendo in the trailer choices, with a hotdog advert terms which are far more explicit then one would presume.

Satan’s Lust, which thankfully comes with another cameo by a cat also minding its own business, tries to be a murder mystery with obvious culprits shown in their criminal act from the get-go, a Satanic cult whose murder of a female victim has people sniffing in on them. Those people are Pamela Goodnight and Wayne, who are investigating the strange death of a woman named Carla who was working for Satanic Films, a movie studio in Los Angeles who were not hiding their purpose in being an evil satanic cult. This film, even in mind to The Devil Inside Her really going for eyebrow raising moments, is arguably the skuzziest of the lot as, baring a few romantic sex scenes, which involves their leads shaking their heads in slow mo, this definitely is the one where any concern for trigger warnings is appropriate, Pamela Goodnight probably as put upon as anyone can get in terms of a secret sexual satanic cult. Even in mind that, with legitimate suspicion on my behalf from all the cutaways, that faked fluids were used to be polite about it for scenes, this does become even sleazier the further along it goes, barely over an hour for a film reduced to fifteen minutes or so without the scene. It manages to have a scene that is problematic and twisted in capitals when someone is unconscious for the sex scene, and the perpetrator is thinking of an eleven year old girl, which is gross as that sounds in mind to how slapdash it also is, especially as said scene is also pointless for plot reasons to ever have. The version in Smut Without Smut form is more ridiculous for what it is, emphasis the non-sex scenes as being an ultra low budget genre film with the lack of these off putting edges to deal with, like one’s sex partner to one’s horror turning into a skeleton mid way through. If you could not get the tone, that these films are incompetent for the most part with actors just earnestly going through them, it is completely understandable why those here would still be uncomfortable to experience. This is also in mind that Satan’s Lust does have its own ridiculous moments which could only be laughed at, the most inappropriate use of Yellow Submarine by the Beatles, as an instrumental piece, finding itself here of all places the most obvious example of this.

Out of all the films, whilst with some of the most shocking content, The Devil Inside Her is the most ambitious of the trio as well, trying to be an actual film with a knowing transgressive streak at its heart. Set in 1826, a normal puritan farming family is undercut by the fact that, among the two daughters, one is romantically attracted to a young man, whilst the other is jealous of this. The father neither helps, as even kissing in broad daylight is enough for him to call one of these daughters a “harlot” and punish her with naked whipping, but the pleas of both sisters invokes Satan to appear, as depicted with KISS makeup, spike leather neck and wrist pieces, and the horn. Obviously this is again a film where its attitude to sex has dated extremely, but it is one that feels deliberately transgressive rather than being sordid; even if Satan is depicted nude barring boots, using a backwards talking masturbation ritual to turn into the love interest for both women, there is a clear knowing sense of provocation here not just from the film’s clear low views of this form of Christianity it depicts, even having Satan having the last words with God in the finale that, as long as people are sexually frustrated and he is the first on call, he will always get to the mortals first. Tellingly, its director Zebedy Colt has a compelling history which likely explains this, in that this was someone who clearly was bringing a lot of provocation to the production knowingly; birth name Edward Earle Marsh, he had two parallel careers, a musical and acting career including in several small Broadway roles, with his homosexuality something which he explicitly showed in music about romance and love between men, contrast with his directing and acting roles in hardcore porn, including having of all people a young Spalding Gray, famous for his acting and monologue work among other things, in a role in Farmer's Daughters (1976)¹.

With Satan able to shape shift, this is where the film gets more over the top and memorable. The film certainly has an imagination – where as the jealous sister goes to a witch for a love potion, we bear witness to some vivid dialogue such as the concoction using “the menstrual fluid of a Persian harlot” and Nicodemus the parrot who transforms into a human being, needing to be "milked" to finish the love potion. There is still a lot here which would be considered shocking for people, playing to how Satan disguises himself as members of this family, brining in some shocking concepts such as incest but two really out-there moments, one more acceptable in certain areas of erotica, a golden shower, which takes place at the Satanic orgy in the finale between consenting Satanists, but the other involving consensual use of vegetables which is quite a surprise. This in the Satanic Nite Orgy loses all of this, but also a lot of the tone, where this film which may be still indefensible for its content and tone still possesses a lot more in its tiny budget in terms of tone. It is telling that, even if it goes for the happy ending where the religious win, clearly horny Satanists were the ones we were supposed to be cheering.

The actual Smut Without Smut cut is a fascinating and fun ride to witness, but honestly, it can be argued to be a failure. There will be films people would prefer to have cut down into non-hardcore films to be able to enjoy their cheesy natures, and these versions will be easier to screen at cinema presentations, and more power to those both, but it really gets into the difficulty with what one does with hardcore adult cinema as a concept. There is still taboo some have with the concept of these films, let alone if they have any artistic merit, contrasted by the dichotomy of how one of their trademarks, emphasis on lengthy explicit depiction of the sexual act, is not something that is meant to be experienced for many as an actual film, rather than for titillation, but also is how their stories are structured around them if they have actual stories, making it insanely difficult to not undercut the tone and mood by splicing out the sex. Softcore cuts of these films are still made, which is telling in terms of the market for them, but Satanic Horror Nite also emphasizes the practical issues here that, wishing to re-edit these films for consumption, what this is just is censored cuts in a compilation, with not anything which could have emphasized the disjointed results on purpose and had for fun, such as more Satanic porn film trailers or jokes based on old advertising for drive-ins. I admire AGFA still releasing this, but it is telling that, not films to just jump into as they could be deeply off-putting for their content, the uncut versions are far more fascinating for what strange and sordid productions they are, one in The Devil Inside Her managing to be compelling for its clearly artistic goals among also being porn.

 

====

1) The Many Sides of Zebedy Colt from Queer Music Heritage. This is NSFW for some of the archive materials included in the page about Zebedy Colt's life.