The Eurocult Film Thread

And God Said to Cain...

Antonio Margheriti was clearly trying something new here: a brutal and overblown Gothic Western that would be, in his own words, “more Sicilian than American.” He already had form with the Gothic, having produced a brilliant Italian horror in the early tradition of Riccardo Freda and Mario Bava (Castle of Blood); Westerns, less so: Vengeance, his first go, was a dull sketch, quickly forgotten. But …Cain is different -- as in, “special”; almost malformed.

At times, it hardly hangs together at all. A “tornado” rips through the (ghost) town, banging a few windows shut and blowing bits of hay around; and yet the weather is wild and murky, emitting tangible menace. Stock sets collapse and random tints confuse night and day, but this merely adds to the uncanny clammer, the surreal malevolence.

The film is gritty and primal, partly because there wasn’t much money, but also because the savage natural imagery (rattlesnakes and screaming birds and swirling dust) offsets the lavish Gothic kitsch of Acombar’s family melodrama. This unsettling, unbalanced triumph is Bava-esque -- the chiming bell, ringing through the eye of the storm, as maddening and ominous as The Dripping Tap.

Misfits, cripples, petty criminals and murderers are co-opted by a germinal crime dynasty: then, in both Gothic and Sicilian tradition, these core bonds are attacked with the full force of supernatural or cosmic vengeance. “A ghost returns,” intones Maria, the tramp who cheated Klaus Kinski’s avenging apparition, Gary Hamilton, “and he’ll have only one desire in his heart…REVENGE.”

This is the third of Kinski’s great Western roles, after Tigrero’s fey, clinical chill (The Great Silence) and the ribald mania of El Santo (A Bullet for the General). Gary Hamilton’s history is all ruin and betrayal -- extreme trauma that strips all human layers away. So reduced, the character is absurd and one-dimensional, but internal power can be glimpsed through Kinski’s hard blue eyes, in which tears turn to silver darts and flash through the dark.

I'm going to post a suite of reviews by a long-lost DVD maniacs Nazisploitation fan who happened to be a very good, funny writer. I post these reviews not because I condone te genre in question -- you wouldn't catch me watching this filth -- but simply because, before vanishing from the face of the earth, he was shaping up to be the Lester Bangs of Eurosleaze. So, because it is very entertaining, silly writing, it seemed worth sharing.

These are in sequence of when they were written, so you can enjoy Aaron getting into his stride. Infantile, yet articulate, in his fashion.

SLA - SHE WOLF OF THE SS:

The "short-bus" of cinema. This tasteless exercise in filth directed by the genius Don Edmonds stars Diane Thorne as the insatiable Ilsa, a ruthless, barbaric death machine that sobs during sex while clutching at her face. Shot in secrecy on the sets of Hogan's Heroes, this nasty puppy scores a perfect 100 on the ick meter and is certainly fun for the whole family. Watch the vomit meter rise as this puke fest turns from ugly to uglier, as decency plummets and taste flies out the window. Whippings, scaldings, nudity, sleaze, filth, trash, and experiments, and even features a lovely scene of the great Dianne Thorne springing a leak on a fellow Nazi Officer. It's ending is a tear-jerker. Beautiful. A+

SS HELL CAMP (THE BEAST IN HEAT):

Christ above us. This masterpiece of depravity fell apart in seconds. I originally passed this off as shit and sold it, but decided that I was in fact fond of this shit and decided to buy it again! Featuring heart warming, show stopping and appalling use of stock footage of war mixed in with scenes of a Neanderthal beast-man eating pounds of poon and discolored pubic hair, this pig fuck of a film is certainly shit flushed through bad pipes. I could feel my I.Q. plummet and for a minute I could have sworn I forgot what 2 + 2 is. It's 6, isn't it? Pick it up and puke your guts out. Features the wonderful Dr. Krast and lots of Nazis, experiments, and weird shit. 100 on the ick meter. This one shit all over me.

SS EXPERIMENT LOVE CAMP:

Now this one's cute. Not only is the warden ugly as a hat full of shit, but this family fun fair features a poor Nazi named Helmut who gets his balls AND helmut lopped off for falling in love with a fellow prisoner. But behold, his balls survive intact - integrated right onto the underbelly of a fellow Nazi general. With wonderful lines of dialogue such as "What have you been doing with my balls?", this wonderful crystal goes right on the shelf next to The Simpsons. A picturesque, touching little movie with shocking perversion and nastiness, you'll want to shower up afterwards, and I mean; scrubbing hard with soap bubbles and all of that shit. However, you may find yourself wanting to bathe in all of this one's demented and feeble minded glory, as I did. Scores high on the mess meter, and equally as high on the piss, shit, and vomit meters.

SS CAMP WOMEN'S HELL:

Inferior, unworthy, negligable and undesirable. A film of a primitive stature. If this film had to go out and find work, they'd place it on disability. Acting? Plot? Story? Who cares? A festival full of delights and lots of Nazi sex parties, along with women spread out based on looks and thrown into prostitution or head vises! It's got knuckles to the guts and other putrid sights such as women fed to fire. Tie it all up with recycled footage from the last film, and you've got one delightful little yarn - a tale spun from the imaginings of a toilet itself. Deporable and silly. It's like the funny girl that smelled bad in class, but you couldn't help but sit by her.

ILSA - HAREM KEEPER OF THE OIL SHIEKS:

God damnit. Dyanne Thorne returns reincarnated as Ilsa in yet another beautiful and revolting tale of slavery, debauchery, and confusion. Equally as perverse as the last one, and upchucks minute after minute with wonderful dialogue and ghastly sights. We get to see two nude black women fight some guy in this chunkblowing epic. A purely uncivilized and hostile movie, but still light and fluffy, unlike the last, which made my balls hurt.

RED NIGHTS OF THE GESTAPO:

That's about how I feel about this sleaze fest kiddies; anyone looking for grue and ligaments, you may want to look just a little further. The movie will drag for anyone with just the slightest interest in the genre, but for die-hard fans like you're All Mighty Sultan of all things sleaze and shit, it's a worthy addition to the selection. Plenty of eye popping moments and laughs to be had. A 1970's Volkswagon shows up in this one, a Nazi laps milk from a lactating titty, and part of Hitler's face gets cut out of a picture. I'm not too sure where the reviewer got the price tag from, but certainly this DVD can be bought for around 15 on eBay, or with a little searching. The ending to this picnic basket was superb (as is common with these). Well worth the price, but $27's too steep.

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GESTAPO'S LAST ORGY:

Well, friends, it is at my behest that I write this to you, being the sultan of sleaze that I am, and what with this film being the main vein of Nazisploitation and the one everybody has seen or either talks about the most, ultimately, does this film live up the hype?

Sadly, no. Not at all. Whatsoever.

I'm left to wonder whether or not I watched a completely different film than the rest of the folks in the aforementioned thread, as I am completely shocked that I didn't care for this in the slightest. I found it to be an absolute chore to sit through, a complete and utter snooze fest, and I even watched it with friends while pounding down the beers. Not a good sign.

Let me start off by stating what I did like about it. The dialogue was about the best out of any of the Nazisploitation films I've seen. It's blunt, offensive, and brutal. It had a great, strong story and the score was *phenomenal*. Many stand-out, show stopping sequences include a woman fed to Dobermans while a female officer licks her lips, but in my version, this was poorly edited, and much more was left to the imagination than actually shown. We also get to witness another chick getting cooked up atop a Nazi dinner table, but the lead-up to the scene had about the longest dialogue sequence in history, and a film that clocked in at roughly an hour and a half long felt more like a 2 1/2+ hour long marathon, no shit.

The scenes between Starker and Lize, how ever few there actually were, are stand-outs and the dialogue he spits out at her was absolutely phenomenal writing coming from a film of this stature. However, for every scene these two encompassed, we are treated to ten more very long scenes of people on boats or people talking, and quite a few very unlikable slow motion shots. There's also an overtly long sequence with Lize having roll-around sex with a doctor, and at this point, I had to hold back everything within me to keep from fast-forwarding through the majority of this. I couldn't tell you how many times I tossed and turned.

I must also add that the version I have of this is an "extended version" different from the "Last Orgy Of The Third Reich" edit, or other previous edits, I'd imagine, which may have contributed to what seemed like a hike of a running time. I don't know. What I do know is that I will still pick up the Exploitation Digital disc in March just to satisfy my curiosity as to what version of this I actually did see.

But, lo and behold, I was not impressed. Women's Camp 119 was far more stark, definative, and brutal than this film, and people's memories seem to almost have the two switched. People on the thread also seem to be understandably confused about Gestapo's Last Orgy, often times confusing it with similarily named titles (Red Nights Of The Gestapo) and even directors.

For me currently, Ilsa: She-Wolf Of The SS is the end-all-be-all of the genre, followed closely by Love Camp 7 as well as SS Hell Camp for pure unadulterated insanity, and the subsequent Sergio Garrone classics.

But again, my version is elongated and I feel that a tighter cut would have made the film damn near poetic. It's too hard to tell. I see the appeal in the film; however, I felt the effects were somewhat shoddy, and not in the fun, fluffy, campy way they come off in other films of the same genre, do to the fact that this film takes itself way too seriously.

I also went into this with a different expectation of the film than what I felt actually delivered. I will give this another go in the future, compare the versions, and see what happens then.

LOVE CAMP 7:

Now this is more like it. Sleaze camp perfection. This sick puppy blows Gestapo's Last Orgy clear out of the water. Not only did it have the greatest Kommandant next to Ilsa, (who's voice matched almost to the T that of Peter Sellers "Dr. Strangelove") this little gem was made all the more competent with outlandish, brutal dialogue, a superb, well acted story, and unspeakable nazi horrors! Women are strung up in whipped in this sickie, about two women sent to Love Camp 7 for "zee pleasura of zee officers of zee zthird ra-la-reich." Plenty of titty munching scenes throughout this one, it was briskly placed and definately deserves a spot on the wall and in your heart.

SS GIRLS (a.k.a. Private House Of The SS):

God, I love sleaze. Sometimes, there's so much trash and sleaze in this life that I just can't fucking take it. It makes me want to pull out my hair and claw at my eyes, there's so much of it. Sleaze. Filth. Trash. Doom. And terror.

SS Girls has this to offer and more, and even features our goofy tit fuck freak retard in a cameo role from Women's Camp 119, another Shakespearean masterpiece. Dr. Krast from SS Hell Camp shows up as well, and we're given hysterical beatings, a montage of sex and debauchery as only a Nazi film can deliver it, a Nazi with a fucked up eye who enjoys mixing blood with his Cogniac, crowd pleaser sex scenes, award winning production and costume design, a woman carrying a fake baby they don't even attempt to pass off as real, another Nazi that looks like Anthony Perkins, piano playing, and Nazi's tried for treason. The score is one of my all time favorites (the end title theme), and one number sounds like the instrumental version of "My Guy" by The Supremes, who are the subject of a new film starring Eddie Murphy and Jamie Foxx. This also features a show stopper of a sequence in which one of the Nazi officers, sees a girl outside of a window (which the footage of this girl is hysterically used over and over) and the guy runs off into the night shooting his Luger after her. He had to have fired 100 rounds. Suddenly, Nazi's are jumping out the window after him, and an all-out orgy of violence and shootings occurs, in which the term "unnecessary" should be promptly used. The film also had a *fantastic* ending to boot, which takes place after a dialogue sequence betweeen two German officers who have discovered the war was lost, who stand amongst a mass suicide occuring in the background. Once the room goes quiet, the one officer sticks out his hand, realizing his number is up, as the other places a gun into his palm. He aims towards his chest and fires. Arguably the best ending in the genre next to the power shower of gore in Women's Camp 119.

Aaron C stamp of approval. 5 Stars.

HOLOCAUST 2: THE MEMORIES, DELIRIUM, AND THE VENDETTA:

I don't know what in the blue blazes FUCK was happening in this movie, but what I do know is that we are subjected to a Nazi couple being drilled to death, lesbianism, LOST-like flashbacks (only these are to prison camp atrocities, which wouldn't do well on TV), stripping and strangling, whippings cut with shots of children singing, and a fat guy having a heart attack after having his feet licked to death by a goat. The sleaze-meter topped off during the sequence when a crying woman attempts to escape the prison camp, throws a fit and tantrum, then drops to her knees to suck off a Nazi officer. A minute later, he riddles her body with bullets, promptly devasating her. I mean, who hasn't gotten a blowjob and wanted to blow the chick away immediately after? This one gets the Aaron C stamp of approval, although half the time I wasn't quite sure what the hell was happening, but it was a nice departure from the formula of WIP nasties that I continue to knock off of the "to-watch" list. Put a few beers down during this one. 4 Out Of 5.

BARE BEHIND BARS: ***** 5 Out Of *****

Before I begin my review on this one, I thought I'd take time out to let you all know that I love this genre. Yes, with all of my heart do I love a good and nasty WIP sleaze film. That being said, I have to say, for the record, that Bare Behind Bars was the single fucking greatest life experience that I've had second to sex. Why? Because I almost came while watching it.

Bare Behind Bars features women playing ball. It features inappropriate use of a water hose on women. A nurse that likes to sniff her fingers. A morbidly obese woman who serves soup that looks like a corpses bath water. Then we witness an onslaught of the following; nudity, whippings, beatings, sleaze, raspberry pudding, filth, trash, decadense, depravity, sin, debauchery, confusion, chaos, pukefest, crap, shit, dykes, water hoses, random dildo, sloth, gluttony, perversion, putridness, beatings, soapy suds, shower scene, lesbian scene, firm titties, do-your-tits-hang-low-do-they-wobble-to-the-ground titties, tan lines, random object removed from anus, dildos passing between cells on clotheswires, lesbian sex, limp dick blowjob, show stopping sex scene featuring said limp dick, *probable chance of heart attack: 75%*, random act of lesbian sex, showers, more showers, more whippings, more beatings, rats, women in cages, a nurse sniffing more stuff, nude women, lesbianism, more sleaze, lezzies in lockdown, chicks in chains, hell in a cell, screaming, and more lesbianism.

Current running time: 46:37 seconds.

For research purproses, I will provide my thought process as it occured through-out the remainder of the film's duration:

Random act of naked women on the beach, women scrubbing floors (one of them's named Judy), show stopper of a woman forcing something back up the rear from whence it came, said object then being removed and rinsed off...women running in circles...lesbian scene...wait a minte...what the fuck is this...a new low...a female humping another female while shes sucks on a dildo which looks to be tied to a bundle of fireworks...wait, this is new: dialogue!...hmmm...Christ, I could use a beer...*bathroom break insert here*...a pineapple, dear God!...WOW!...I'm going to Hell for watching this, so at this point I make my peace with God...floor scrubbing or women scrubbing floors..."The nurse wants to see you, let's go" followed by obligatory horrified reaction...rampant lesbianism...random scene of a parade...no, really, that *did* just happen....gunfire...screaming...severed dick fed to dog...

You know, at 5 minutes in, this stopped being a film. It became something else. A lucid dream or a brilliant nightmare in which you wake up as a fucking genious. The cut version would have to be 4 minutes long. They say to never equate sleaze with quality, but here, sleaze is quality. Sleaze is also quantity, in copious, chunkblowing, mind altering amounts.

This film transcends all that came before it, or after, for that matter, and may be the greatest WIP film ever realized, "bar" none, har har chortle har. It also features a great escape!

The surprise smash hit comedy of the year, own the DVD today.

WOMEN'S CAMP 119:

This cum shot to the belly features women and whippings, sex with the dead in order to bring them back to life, (which works, but I knew that already). We're also treated to Nazi boot licking while said Nazi laughs hysterically, a great escape (which isn't so great for the escapees, but for the viewer, since it leads to rapes and shootings), a whole massacre of prisoners and German troops, and finally an explosion. Everybody in this meltdown dies, and I thought I did too. A profoundly bleak and depressing movie, it was surprisingly coherent, with lots of colorful dialogue and vomitous scenes of naked fat women in gas chambers, cut between shots of Nazi's eating and drinking and watching stock footage of bodies piling up, etc. Throw in a few German Shepards somewhere in there along with a retarded, ape like man that attacks women and plays with their titties a bit while drooling, and you have yourselves a fine example of pure Italian exploitation embarassment from the one and only Bruno Trash Nasty Mattei. I felt like having been hit by a train after this one. Absolutely brilliant and tragic puke fest which ends in a shower spectacle of pink mist and a bouqet of flowers. 5 Stars. Your personal Garden of Eden right here.

ACHTUNG! THE DESERT TIGERS:

A jaw-dropping, wall-to-the-wall masterpiece. Mixing inappropriate amounts of stock footage coupled with scenes of war, this blazing saddle certainly galloped it's way straight into my heart. It took two minutes before shit started blowing up in this movie, and suddenly, motherfuckers with flame throwers decide to just kinda step in out of nowhere and start fucking everybody's day by showering the scene and shit with fire and death, with equally large amounts of carnage and mayhem. I don't think anybody in this movie knew which side they was on. Every now and then, the obligatory shot would come up in which a German officer would stop in front of the camera, starting screaming in German, and then take off. Next thing you know, people are falling dead from blasts and explosions ten feet away. Hell, even grenades in this movie exploded when they fucking felt like it. Even though the color of the movie changed several times, this is a true gem if I have ever seen one, with brilliantly funny dialogue, and features an outrageous scene of an evil Warden getting whipped while she massages herself to the beat of a perverse tune. A fall-apart classic. Seek this one out.

I


BARBED WIRE DOLLS: ***** 5 Out Of 5 *****

The first time I ever watched an exploitation feature, I expected dogshit. I remember thinking that this was a genre that I could never heavily indulge in, and that all films from this era would be the same and look the same, and that I would never embrace and admire the kind of trash that I knew I had coming my way.

But when I popped in Barbed Wire Dolls, I expected a full fledged masterpiece. And as expected, a masterpiece is what I fuggin' got. There was no way this film could disappoint me at this stage in my life, because I have too much trash behind me, and so much ahead of me, and I have come to realize over time that these kinds of films just simply don't dissapoint. They don't know how to. The more inept, the better.

Jess Franco's meat fest of filth and depravity was utter, disheartening garbage. Pure, saddening trash of the highest order. I was simply devastated.

I enjoy laughing at the trash fests that were SS Hell Camp and Women's Camp 119, but this had me appalled. This was out of this world. When you've got a film featuring a five minute long dream sequence of a girl running from her horny father with the two of them moving in faux slow-mo, you know you've gotten yourself into a mess. Women tied down and repeatedly forced to the floor? Yeah. You know you're fucked.

We are all going to die and go to hell for watching these films. But I decided that if the above statement is indeed true, to watch as many of these dirty ditties as I can love with all my heart. Will I have to answer for this? Absolutely. And what might I say, you ask?

"Well, God, I'm sure if you watched these, you'd love them too."

Yes. After all, he did create a race that makes this shit. He has to find it funny. Wouldn't you?

*This film has recieved the Aaron C Stamp Of Approval

ILSA: TIGRESS OF SIBERIA: ***** 5 Out Of 5 *****

SIberia. 1953. A man flees through the winter wilderness. Will he make it?

Um, no. Ilsa, reincarnated and still brilliant, impales him through the chest with a spear as she approaches on horseback. Zoom in to a close-up of her evil face and shit eating grin. Que scary score.

Roll opening title sequence.

And so the story goes, that this movie was pure garbage. Absolutely detestable trash. How was it that a select group of individuals came to set everyday to make this movie? They should've known better. At times, I felt like clutching at my face; the sleaze was too much. "Could it all just be a dream?" I asked myself. "Could this level of sleaze be real?"

Well, lo and behold, friends, it was. Dyanne Thorne returns as the lovely Ilsa, the kind of woman better known of than personally. We've seen her eaten alive, her face chewed on and what not, which was funny, I admit, but now, this bitch is back. During the day, she lowers prisoners into freezing water, puts bullets in faces, and wears a hat with a star on it. At night, she frolicks and fucks by the fire, cushioned between two fat guys, her Ebony and her Gold, while an evil score plays throughout. Her tits could anchor a boat, and her facial expressions are timeless. Let me tell you, I was frozen with fear. Later, we get treated to a wonderful scene in which two men arm wrestle towards chainsaws, blades spinning, situated on either sides. One guy loses, of course, and we get screaming followed by grody arterial spray.

Silly Ilsa declares, "He is of no further use to the State."

Well, no shit? That's a helluva blood clot, but I didn't think the injury sustained would be much more than that.

Cut to 1974. This trash fest goes from weird to plain dowright schitzophrenic as we're plunged headlong into almost a different movie altogether. It defies explanation, really, but in the long run, it makes sense. Sort of. Hell, who cares? There's still plenty of trashy Ilsa to ride with us along the way, though, and the ending is a true chunkblower, by all means. Actually, I didn't know whether to shit or vomit.

A particularly touching scene enlightens us with Ilsa in an attempt to escape atrocity as she rides out on a snow mobile. Cut to a man saying something to the effect of "The bitch has escaped again!" This, in turn, is quickly and almost violently followed by a scene of Ilsa riding fast and free and then - oh, no! An explosion, one which leaves her asshole over sternum. I actually had a physical reaction to this. Tears rained. My heart rate fell. I gasped for air.

Deplorable. Reprehensible. Offensive. These words echoed through my soul as I watched this, you guys. Not only does this get the Aaron C Stamp Of Approval, but it gets the Stamp Of Absolute Disgust to go along with it, as well as The Stamp Of For Christ's Sake. It will be both promptly and proudly placed into the top five sleaze films to see by yours truly.

I adored this film.

THE DEPORTED WOMEN OF THE SS SPECIAL SECTION:

***** 5 Out Of 5 *****

Well, as I continue to barrel onward with the reviews of the great nastiness that is the Nazisploitation genre, I must stress that this is only a phase that I am going through, and that I enjoy writing about these films as much as I do watching them. It's a relatively harmless interest in a relatively sleaze-filled genre, is all. No more, no less.

As we continue on towards my much anticipated list of top ten, this film comes second or third to the last (which will be SALON KITTY) in my slightly humorous reviews of the genre, at least temporarily. I'll continue to add my thoughts on the films as I see them, since the genre is so hit and miss for most people. And as many of you have messaged and posted, I'll attempt to give you the list of not-to-miss sleaze gems you've been so eager to see, courtesy your Sultan Of Sleaze.

DEPORTED WOMEN takes it subject matter very seriously, much like GESTAPO'S LAST ORGY, and worked out to be quite the effective little film, with both a haunting score and imagery. It was extremely well acted, scripted, and plotted through-out, and is probably one of the best films of the genre, with plenty of sleaze and grodiness. The film centers on a Nazi commander seeking to exploit a young prisoner into falling in love with him, and the role, portrayed by John Steiner (CALIGULA, SALON KITTY), is played with a ruthlessness and over-the-top ferocity that was at once startling as it was hilarious. Many, many sequences in this film are stand-outs, including the infamous "razor-in-the-pussy-to-avoid-being-raped" scene.

A milky, wet and frothy chunkblower. I hope to see this get a proper DVD release sometime soon.

Aaron C Stamp Of Approval

HELGA: THE SHE-WOLF OF SPILBERG:
** 2.5 Out Of 5 *****

This incredibly rare Eurocine film from 1977 directed by Alain Garnier, is a somewhat below average WIP film that goes heavy on the sexual atrocities but light in about every other department. Helga doesn't get to whip as many prisoners as one might of liked, and while there is an over-abundance of flesh, sleaze, decadence and depravity, the film meanders somewhat based upon it's extremely loose narrative and shoddy "performances."

Also lacking from the film is the biting dialogue persistant in literally all of the Nazisploitation films, which is also one thing this film isn't. It might have benefited more had there been something else behind it rather than just a generic army housing prisoners for a generic government.

Collector's might want to seek this one out for it's sentimental value (if it has any), as I'm sure one is well aware at how highly sought after films like these tend to be. The film also makes light attempts to cash in on the success of the ILSA films, but it's pretty tame in comparison. All in all, a pretty mediocre effort in the WIP genre, and probably more for the hardcore completist only.

SALON KITTY:
***** 5 Out Of 5 *****

Aaron C Stamp Of Approval

Tinto Brass' 1976 effort SALON KITTY is a masterpiece of exploitation cinema filmmaking, and he directs with such a visual and artistic flair so unexpected in a genre such as this that I was left jaw to the floor. Helmut Berger and Ingrid Thulin truly shine in this, and the performances by the ruthless John Steiner and the way-too-fuckable Teresa Ann Savoy were remarkable.

The film is literally The Godfather of the Nazisploitation cycle, and centers primarily on the exploits of a young girl named Margherita, who seduces men for espionage purposes, and ends up falling in love with one of them.

The film, full of atmosphere, fantastic set and costume design, as well as one hell of a remarkable score, gets hesitant recommendations from reviewers online, which leaves me left to wonder why. The film is long, but I never felt it dragged. I thought the film mixed the perfect elements of plot, charachter development and sleaze into a near perfect balancing act, making the film rise above almost all that came before or after.

Here, we are treated to an orgy of ghastly debauchery, such as pigs (yes, real, squealing piggies), whippings, trannies, dominatrixes, migits, treason, nazi's, musical numbers, foaming at the mouth, singing, leud and lavicious conduct, sexual happenings and awakenings, nazi propaganda, and your usual sleaze and filth.

Plenty of scuzz and scurve to be had here, this film featured more groadiness than I thought it was capable of mustering, but little did I know the film would have so much style...and class.

Many may find the film slow, as I must say that it is indeed an acquired taste, but lo and behold, this reviewer found the film to be flawless on almost every level, and will fondly remember having seen it for the first time on my many, many planned repeat viewings of this 70's sleaze gem masterpiece.

I, personally, could not recommend this film highly enough

And then...he was gone. To maturity, or jail.

I have no idea. The guy was all over the place. I do, seriously, wonder what became of him. At one time, he seemed to exclusively watch Nazisploitation films. That can't be good for the mind, or body, or moral structure. I've only ever watched one of these films, SS Girls. That was enough. It had a definitive impact. I had to reassess my whole life. I had to ask myself, "what journey are you on here, Craner?" "How much damage have you already done to your soul?" Then I violently altered everything. SS Girls is probably the source of all my current troubles. Or was it a symptom? Either way, it did me a favour. It was cathartic. It cleansed me.

Beatrice Cenci (Lucio Fulci, 1969)

Sometime in 1969, after a semi-successful period of hackery and genre heroism, Lucio Fulci decided to film a serious period drama. At this moment, his films and his prospects were slowly improving; Italian cinema was at its commercial peak and Fulci's budgets were growing in line with his audience. His personal life, however, was falling apart, as it would do over and over again until his lonely death in 1996. Fulci was a pessimistic, dyspeptic character, a tortured Catholic whose best films were fuelled by his hatred of the Church; this drama, the tragedy of Beatrice Cenci, as previously dramatised by his hero Antonin Artuad, would be one of those films.

Beatrice Cenci took an axe taken to Renaissance Rome and Papal sanctity, prompting walkouts and violence in cinemas during first screenings as well as censure by the Vatican. More than just a punchy and poignant historical drama, then, the film was an assault on a system of order and thought, behaviour and principle that was still, in the late Sixties, rotting the base of Italian society. In this sense, and in this context, the film fully justified and deserved the hostility it aroused -- a fact Fulci was surely proud of.

He certainly pulled no punches: Cenci is a rancorous, physically violent film, seething beneath decorous finery. The sets and costumes are lush and expensive and Erico Menczer's cinematography subtle and painterly -- but the violence, when it comes, is harsh, graphic, undramatic, an awful routine of institutional torture. In his other anti-Catholic masterpiece of the period, Don’t Torture a Duckling, the rural south is clogged with religious dogma, vice and prejudice: locals are moral hypocrites and prone to irrational mob violence, while city slickers and clergy are perverse imports, sexual and emotional predators. But in Cenci's 16th Century world, violence and depravity are the exclusive preserve of the aristocracy and clergy; the masses are at their mercy, oppressed on all fronts by greed and extortion and the random physical and moral violations of the Church. In this sense, Beatrice’s impulse and sacrifice is cathartic and redemptive. After her death, she is lauded and idolised by an adoring public who lay fresh flowers at her tomb daily: the young girl who struck back at cruelty and turned the logic of authority back on itself is, finally, destroyed.

So this is Fulci's world, alright -- a domain of power, sexuality and violence. But within these early films, unlike later visual assaults such as The Beyond and The New York Ripper, a human heart is pounding hard. Fulci’s Beatrice is not symbolic – emphatically not Shelley's Romantic sypher or Artaud's abstract repository or the idol she became in Italy. At the required moment she is as hard and cynical as her father; as manipulative and scheming as is necessary to succeed at murder. She lets her vassal and lover (Thomas Milian’s Olimpio) die on the rack to preserve her innocence but, later on, holds firm against her own torturers as the other Cencis succumb to the screws and branding irons. Fulci’s young actress, Adrienne La Russa, plays out these contradictions well: toothy and gauche when needed, but tough and blank as granite at the very end. La Russa plays another Fulci trick, or trope, of this pre-Zombi period: the proximity of tenderness and brutality. (Also, for a man who famously despised actors, this is as close as he ever got to thespian-orientated direction.)

Don Francesco Cenci (played with flamboyant menace by the French stage actor, Georges Wilson) is the epitome of almost insane patriarchal evil in this production. He is nearly always flanked by a pack of rabid dogs, a key visual theme in Fulci’s early films. These are not wild dogs, but trained dogs let loose on the vulnerable and victimised -- a representation and facilitation of human cruelty. His handsome 1966 Western Massacre Time opens with a pack of hounds chasing down an anonymous innocent and tearing him to pieces, a remorseless and explosive moment. The dogs belong to the son of a local landowner, a demented sadist who wields a long white whip whenever he is on screen. In Duckling, the unfortunate gypsy witch La Magiara is chased through thick forest by police dogs, as the mistaken suspect of a series of gruesome child murders. This scene crystallises her world of persecution, hounded by state and religious officials, gangs of children and male vigilantes. (Also, think of the vivisected dogs in Lizard in a Woman’s Skin, strung up in a laboratory, their little hearts still pumping blood into tubes; a different expression, or example, of human cruelty.)

In Cenci, the dogs are Don Francesco’s own demons, his own tools. At one moment, they are an instrument of arbitrary, violent justice, ripping apart an unfortunate tenant in raw, gory detail. At another moment, they express his own unnatural, animal depths: on the evening that he is celebrating the death of two of his sons (“two less mouths to feed!”), as he corners his defiant daughter in order to rape her, the hounds start to snarl and howl, in the courtyard and inside his skull. Organised cruelty, the irrational exercise of human power, and the perverse and violent impulse this engenders: the dogs impart this, and are part of it.

It is ironic – or is it indicative? – that the director of The New York Ripper should depict human cruelty and vulnerability with such graphic and relentless fury in these early films. The overt sympathy for victims (and the fact that his martyrs are both women) preludes and precludes his later, bitter blasts of cynicism and brutality. In both Duckling and Beatrice Cenci, Fulci's outrage had not yet hollowed out; his films still pulse with anger and passion, however cold, stony, ruthless. Later, the slick city sheen of Ripper and glossy latex gore of Zombi will reflect (or deflect?) a profound and uncompromising disillusionment – with the Italian film circuit, and with his own emotional and aesthetic failure. (Cannibal Holocaust could not match that particular horror.) He wouldn’t have said it at the time, of course, and loved Zombi and The Beyond as much as every one else did; but still, it is notable that in a late interview he would finally consider Beatrice Cenci to be his finest work.