Marco Ferreri's The Harem (1967)

Margherita (Carroll Baker) calls off her wedding to Gianni (Gastone Moschin) the morning before the ceremony. She loves him but she admits that she's afraid of getting married. Margherita is friends with Gaetano (Renato Salvatori), who's happy that she's not getting married, since a woman should be independent and make her own decisions. Gaetano loves Margherita very much, and she loves him. Mike (William Berger) has returned from Kenya with a baby cheetah for Margherita and hopes for a little rest and some lovemaking. Mike takes up residence with Margherita's "eunuch," Rene (Michel Le Royer), who queries Margherita on whom is her perfect man. She doesn't know, so she goes to Yugoslavia on a holiday with Rene, only to invite the trio of Gianni, Gaetano, and Mike to visit.

Marco Ferreri begins his film, The Harem (1967), quite sweetly. Baker's Margherita is kind, caring, loving, and affectionate. Likewise the male actors play stereotypical roles: Gianni is an engineer who's successful, logical, and egotistical; Gaetano is a lawyer who loves to pontificate and advocate on abstract ideas; and Mike is a handsome, impulsive, unemployed artist-photographer. In fact, all the characters were so innocuous and likable during the first half of The Harem that I wondered if Ferreri was ever going to be able to create any dramatic conflict between them. I had no idea where the film was going, but around the halfway mark, I thought if it continued its semi-lite tone, the film would soon move into tedium, because it wasn't funny enough to be a serious comedy and not serious enough to be a drama. However, the events in The Harem did change during the second half, and the would-be tedium of the first half of the film was a set-up for its ultimate theme and subsequent ending.

In 1967, with sexual mores and gender roles being called into question with the cultural changes of the Sexual Revolution, the motif of having one woman who loves three men equally and wishes to have each in her life is potentially provocative and progressive. Ferreri doesn't settle on making an initial socio-political statement with his film: he's not going to present his female lead character as one who is making a conscious choice to love three men equally as an assertion of independence and power but to present his character as one who genuinely loves three men in three different yet equally strong ways, despite the consequences.

The characters' time at the villa is spent with the leisure typically associated with a holiday vacation. Mike, Gianni, and Gaetano (and Rene) despite being jealous suitors of Margherita begin to bond and subsequently become quite close. Their bonding seems to be what Margherita planned to have happen, and she became free to be among all of them peacefully or be alone with one intimately. The male characters do not bond, however, through a positive kinship: each overtly or subtly finds Margherita's attitude towards relationships absurd, immoral, or hostile. Their behavior, especially collectively, becomes over the course of the holiday more hostile towards Margherita, first as light teasing then ultimately openly degrading her.

Having his female lead character lack a raison d'etre associated with any socio-political statement (free love, female empowerment, female independence) gave Ferreri's ultimate theme more weight. Despite her open and loving actions, Margherita is punished for them. The males' actions aren't a reaction to her assertive actions: the males must assert continual power over females in order to maintain the status quo. Society or culture, then, is ultimately quite determinative and very reticent to change.

Carroll Baker's performance in Elia Kazan's Baby Doll (1956) brought her both critical acclaim and notoriety. Among cult film fans, she would have quite the career in European cinema, and I believe The Harem was her first European production. For example, Baker would collaborate with director Umberto Lenzi on four notable films: Orgasmo (1969), So Sweet... So Perverse (1969), A Quiet Place to Kill (1970), and Knife of Ice (1972). Baker is beautiful and charismatic and professional. Gastone Moschin I will always associate with his intense, brooding performance in Fernando di Leo's Milano calibro 9 (1972), but The Harem reminded me how funny Moschin can be (as in Stelvio Massi's Fearless Fuzz (1977), for example). Handsome William Berger would be a stalwart in European cult cinema up until his death in the early 1990s and made many a notable film (too numerous to list here), especially his roles in Westerns. Subsequent to The Harem, Marco Ferreri would go on to make some of the oddest, most thought-provoking, and aesthetically-challenging European films of the 1970s and beyond. While The Harem is dated and a little too contrived for my tastes, I believe it shows some very creative talent and boasts excellent performances by all.

Herman Yau's Rebellion (2009)

A select few of likewise unhappy people can relate to being alone and drunk on their birthday like Po (Shawn Yue), the bodyguard for recently-shot and critically-injured crime boss, Jimmy (Yuen-Leung Poon). Jimmy is one of five bosses in a closely-knit district which has, up until his shooting, been functioning peacefully and successfully in the underground. Jimmy's lady, Wah (Ada Choi) is vacationing in Taiwan and as soon as she hears of the shooting, Wah makes plans to come home. Until her arrival, she appoints Po as temporary head of the crime family, much to the dismay of the family's second-in-command, Blackie (Chapman To). Blackie is more than happy to take over the operation: in fact, he's willing to go to war with the four other bosses, despite having no evidence linking any of them to Jimmy's hit. Poor Po has to sober up quickly, find Jimmy's shooters, and keep the status quo until Wah gets back into town. The last thing reluctant Po wants is to be a crime boss; and just about everybody in the district is going to take the opportunity this night to shake him down.

Written and directed by Herman Yau, Rebellion (2009) is another successful and exciting film delivered from him (from this year alone). Veteran Yau crafts a character-driven drama, brimming with local color, an attentive eye to detail, about a local and insular crime syndicate, which is really a big dysfunctional family about to have all its closet skeletons exposed (in one night, no less). Shawn Yue turns in one of his best performances of his young career as Po and contributes to nearly all of the excellent and tension-filled action sequences.

A short exposition begins Rebellion, letting the viewer know who's who in the syndicate and how the power dynamics work in their relationships. Beyond that, Yau lets his characters do all their own exposition through their actions. There is very little that one can say about one who chooses to be drunk and alone on his birthday: either that character really wants to be alone and drunk or either that character is unhappy. Yue's Po is in the latter camp. He doesn't have any ambition or desire to be the top man in his organization. His current job, as Jimmy's bodyguard, he stepped into reluctantly. Po's an orphan, and like many, he's been dependent solely upon himself for care. Pretty Ling (Elanne Kwong) works at a local restaurant, where over the years the bosses meet for Mah-jong and business, and has watched Po over those years. Ling was present at Jimmy's shooting but didn't see anything. When she sees Po struggling to stay focused and taking a turn or two to gag and vomit, as he tries to gather information and keep people in line until Wah arrives, Ling offers to help Po and accompany him. Of all the people that Po encounters that evening, Ling becomes the most important. Their relationship feels genuine, and while watching, it was Po and Ling on whom I wanted Yau to focus. Yau didn't disappoint me. The other characters, especially the other crime bosses, are also well-drawn. Each has his own quirk and habits, which makes each instantly identifiable, and how each interacts with Po over the evening, speaks about his inner character and his own personality. Choi's Wah is a standout character with a standout performance. Choi is such a fun and charismatic actress that she's easy to watch do anything (she's also a favorite of mine).

The characters of Rebellion speak loudly with their words and actions but visually, Yau puts such an attentive eye to detail, these characters speak with their image. Yue's Po literally looks defeated with tired eyes and his sloppily opened dress shirt and sneakers. His attire says a lot about his character. Mr. Tai (Austin Wai) is the syndicate's head and dresses the part as dapper as any fancy gangster. Blackie's attire is as wild as his character. The true hustlers of the street are dressed appropriately for hustling, and the world of the small district within Rebellion really comes to life.

Yau adopts a low-key, smoky visual style with little overt flare, save the fantastic action sequences. Yau owns and commands action cinema, and in an especially well-executed scene, Po fortuitously rescues Blackie from a group of armed thugs on the street. Po and Blackie flee on foot while the group gives chase, and they hide in a store behind the after-hours, steel shutter. Po and Blackie have enough time to smoke a cigarette and collect their thoughts, until with a nifty audio cue, tires are heard screeching. A split second before a car comes crashing through the store's shutters to dispatch a crew to kill Po and Blackie, Po pulls him away. Beyond the excellent, overt action sequences, Yau continues to show his command of creating a heavy atmosphere of tension. Any director can shoot explosions, but only a creative few, like Yau, can create the perfect set-up for them: when two characters confront each other in Rebellion, it's felt by the viewer.

Herman Yau, I will continue repeating this over and over, is making some of the most exciting cinema coming out of Hong Kong (or really anywhere). His cinema is always unexpected, irreverent, playful, creative, and rewarding. He does it so often, and again with Rebellion, that I'm at risk of being spoiled.

Lars Von Trier's Antichrist (2009)

Black and white, slow motion, and an operatic voice singing, following a title card which reads Antichrist, with its "t" the gender symbol for woman, a man (Willem Dafoe) and a woman (Charlotte Gainsbourg) are fucking. Despite the absence of any sound from the film's participants, who also include a baby boy, it is quite obvious that the couple is making a lot of noise, from knocking over a bottle, to fucking up against a clothes dryer during full spin, beyond their own shrieks and moans. A baby monitor transitions the scene from the couple to the baby's bedroom, as the child knocks the monitor with his toy and crawls out of bed. The child comes within earshot of the man and woman; and he crawls upon a desk in front of an open window, whereupon he knocks off three statues, each reading "pain," "grief," and "despair," respectively, to the floor. The child is not heard as he steps upon the window's threshold, before plummeting.

New title card, Chapter 1, Grief. With color, the couple is presumably walking away from the child's funeral. The woman collapses and is hospitalized. Her physician thinks she is "atypical" and has put her on a series of medications. The man thinks her physician is over-medicating her and that "grief" is a natural emotion that she should experience. The woman believes that the man "thinks he's so much smarter than the other doctor." He tells her that he loves her. The man takes the woman as his patient to undergo therapy, despite their shared belief that therapists shouldn't counsel their own family members. Back at home, the woman is not adjusting well with her grief and she accuses the man of being indifferent to his child's death. Her accusation could be true, as it initially seems as if the man is focusing on the woman's grief and emotional state as a way of not dealing with his own (later when an autopsy report comes in the mail, the man folds the letter and places it unopened in his jacket). She also accuses him of being distant towards her in the past, and now, only as his patient, is the man taking in interest in her. The man doesn't outright deny her accusation, and it would initially seem that she's correct. The man believes that it is his duty (as a therapist or her lover or both is unknown) to help her through the post-tragedy stages, such as "grief" and "pain." Despite his lack of showing of these stages, himself, the woman is going to initiate (or help bring out) these stages of emotions from the man, after they take a trip to a forest named "Eden." Lars Von Trier's Antichrist (2009) has some seriously overt and obvious symbolism and seems a film adaptation of Nietzschean philosophy. The intimate, signature Dogme scenes of the man and the woman alone, sharing their feelings and being vulnerable with each other, seem distractions from the meticulously-crafted and contrived scenes, like the film's subjective renderings of the woman's therapeutic sessions as she walks in the forest. Antichrist is also the very definition of provocative, but what emotions or feelings this film is attempting to provoke or elicit from the viewer is unknown to me. Visually, Antichrist is stunning. All compositions feel meticulously composed and nearly every frame could stand on its own as a beautiful still picture.

As the film descends past its first act into the forest with its lush, overgrown greenery, whatever individual identity both the man and the woman are initially shown to have begins to disappear. Likewise, the natural imagery receives more attention from Von Trier, and the lighting becomes more seamless, so everything on screen becomes slightly darker and murkier (or even a heavy fog comes in to cover the scenery). Nature and humanity become close to becoming one. Whatever is at the essence of either nature or humanity ain't that pretty.

Von Trier's post-Dancer in the Dark (2000) films feel to me extremely mean-spirited, and Antichrist continues his streak. Mean-spiritedness is an emotion, like enthusiasm, which is very difficult for the artist to hide with his or her work. I once believed that the same filmmaker who made the brilliant Breaking the Waves (1996) and The Idiots (1998) was the finest living film maker: Von Trier's work personified everything I admired in an artist: playful, socially-critical, creative, and risk-taking. Von Trier's work is still like that, but he's added another another dimension, and it's to his detriment.

Jess Franco's La maldición de Frankenstein (1972)

Dr. Frankenstein (Dennis Price) and his assistant (Jess Franco) have just brought life into their creation, a silver-skinned hulking monster (Fernando Bilbao). Almost immediately after the beastly creation has breathed its first breath, Melisa (Anne Libert) and Caronte (Luis Barboo) murder Dr. Frankenstein and his assistant and take the creature back to their master, Cagliostro (Howard Vernon), an evil guru with the power of mind control. Doctor Seward (Alberto Dalbés) and Inspector Tanner (Daniel White) are hunting for clues for Dr. Frankenstein's murderer, and the dead man's daughter, Dr. Vera Frankenstein (Beatriz Savón), has returned. She will avenge her father's death.
This is a bare-bones set-up for Jess Franco's tale of the Modern Prometheus, La maldición de Frankenstein (1972), which was, according to the authors of Obsession: The Films of Jess Franco, "idiotically retitled 'Erotic Rites of Frankenstein' by Robert de Nesle," the film's French co-producer. The authors of Obsession continue, "Shot in a number of versions more erotic than the last "Frankenstein's Curse"...is a literal adaptation of Italian erotic comic-strips (which are not known for their intelligence). Obviously shot too quickly, the film soon sinks into the picturesque and cannot be taken seriously. It contains Lina Romay's first appearance, in a single scene of the Spanish version." Franco's simple narrative of La maldición de Frankenstein allows him to "sink into the picturesque," where the film holds its primary power in its visuals.
La maldición de Frankenstein is one of a handful of films that Franco collaborated with French producer, Robert de Nesle, who according to the authors of Bizarre Sinema: Jess Franco El sexo del horror, after meeting Franco, "immediately organized the shooting of a set of sexy fantasy-horror movies" inspired by "the world's most successful comic-books of the time, from the stories featured in American magazines like Creepy and Eerie to Italian adult comic strips such as Jacula and Oltretomba." In addition to La maldición de Frankenstein, some of the other Franco/de Nesle collaborations are the sublime A Virgin Among the Living Dead (1971), Dracula contra Frankenstein (1971), the sensuous La fille de Dracula (1972), and Sinner (1972). Many of the films of this period were shot within Portugal with Lisbonian production house Interfilm (fact from Bizarre Sinema) and had many of the same participants with the roster of La maldición de Frankenstein being representative.
"Veteran British actor Dennis Price weighs in as Doctor Frankenstein," writes the authors of Immoral Tales: European Sex & Horror Movies, 1956-1984. "As the amoral cad in Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949), Price had displayed his cool English savoir-faire. The Erotic Rites caught him at the end of a career slide; bloated and booze-raddled, he staggered around hazily as Doctor Frankenstein." Price has few scenes in La maldición, and the observations of the authors of Immoral Tales are astutely and painfully correct. Beautiful Britt Nichols has few scenes, as well, primarily as the victim-cum-reanimated-captive of Vernon's Cagliostro, who intends to make her the mate of Dr. Frankenstein's monster (who in turn will seed a race of superpeople who will conquer the world!). Lina Romay, opposed to the Obsession authors' description, has several scenes (shot presumably in one location as one sequence and cut into several scenes) in the Spanish-language version that I saw via the region-one DVD from Image Entertainment; and her role could be cut completely from the narrative as non-essential (but the opportunity to view her essential presence through Franco's camera eye would have been lost). Howard Vernon "turned in one of his best performances as the wizard Cagliostro," writes the authors of Immoral Tales. "Rising above the drawbacks of a cheap goatee, he managed to deliver half-baked lines with wide-eyed compulsion. No matter how gonzoid the action, Vernon was always believable (Immoral Tales)."
Anne Libert (who was the lover of Robert de Nesle according to Bizarre Sinema) is the true highlight of La maldición de Frankenstein as Melisa, Cagliostro's henchwoman. Libert's Melisa is a blind, half-woman/half-bird siren who has telepathic ability. Libert is a gorgeous actress and brings an amazing amount of energy to her role, frequently nude save a sparse covering of well-placed bright-green feathers and a dark cape (Libert is seen sans cape in the "alternate scenes" included on the Image DVD. Like a lot of Spanish cinema during the period, scenes were shot "clothed" and "unclothed" for different markets. I wish I could have been a fly on the wall during some of these productions to see directors like Franco or Klimovsky or de Ossorio give direction like, "Okay, let's do it again. Same scene. This time butt-naked." However, I digress.) Libert brings almost all of the eroticism to La maldición, and virtually all of her attacks upon unsuspecting victims are imbued with her sexuality. Her character is vampiric, mysterious, sensuous, and surreal.
The simple narrative of La maldición, while the film doesn't possess the strong, dark, and provocative thematic elements of Franco's other work, allows Franco to focus on the comic-book imagery to excellent effect. The color scheme is brilliant and runs the spectrum, and the artificial colors are often focal and bright, offset by the sombre colors of the genuine Portuguese locations. The light reflected upon the characters or reflected off their elaborate costumes makes them look like comic characters straight off of a paper panel. Hulking Bilbao, as Frankenstein's monster, is stunning visually with his massive frame and silver-painted skin. He looks like a giant toy action figure come to life. Franco's camera takes his characters as its focus, and with wide-angle lenses and jarring compositions, the characters look like monsters. La maldición looks artificial and feels superficial and is a tremendous amount of Franco fun.
All objective facts and quotes are from their sources as cited within.

Jean Rollin's Lips of Blood (Levres de Sang) (1974)

Jean Rollin writes, "I think that Levres de Sang is my best story because it recalls the world of childhood memory and first love." Producer Jean-Marie Ghanassia approached Rollin with the idea of making a film together with a small budget and giving its director complete freedom. Ghanassia had previously seen Rollin's earlier work and admired what he had seen. Four weeks were allocated for the shooting of Lips of Blood (1974), but unfortunately, a week before shooting one of the film's financiers fell out of the production (Rollin cites the producer declaring bankruptcy). Rollin would have to completely cancel the film or shoot the film in three weeks. Rollin agreed to the shortened schedule, and he writes, "It was almost unthinkable: entire scenes were axed or boiled down to two or three sentences. We had a different set-up every day. It was raining. Things had to be tightened."

Frédéric (Jean-Loup Philippe) attends a soiree with his mother (Nathalie Perrey) where he spies a perfume promotional poster depicting a photograph of some ruins. Frédéric has a Proustian moment, and his memory hearkens back to himself as a twelve year old. One cold evening, lost and scared, young Frédéric seeks solace at the ancient location. Behind its barricade, Frédéric meets gorgeous young Jennifer (Annie Belle) who comforts him and wraps him in her shawl. He spends the night and slightly before dawn, Jennifer wakes the child. Frédéric leaves his toy with the young woman and tells her "I love you." He runs home, promising to come back but never returns. The photographic image and the subsequent memory awakens Frédéric to a powerful obsession to revisit the location and visit a certainty--the young woman is still there. "This is the first film where I was deliberately trying to elicit an emotion," Rollin writes, "the nostalgia of childhood."

Rollin admits Lips of Blood is uneven. The film feels hurried and most of the plot revelations come from the characters' lips. Rollin writes, "Three scenes were replaced with a long off-screen explanation by the mother. It was such a jumble that my assistant confessed that she didn't understand the film anymore." Putting the burden of the characters carrying the plot was perhaps too much for its principal actors, Philippe and Perry, as their scenes together feel like an attempt to generate emotion with their words which Rollin could produce much more powerfully with images. Subsequently, their performances aren't very good and are a jumble of emotions: Frédéric appears at times like an child in an adult body, a momma's boy, and an obsessed lover. Perry is saddled with the primary task of delivering the exposition and the plot revelations.

However, the images do survive the jumble and are aided by its genuine locations. Rollin writes, "There were breath-taking locations: the ruins of the Chateau Gaillard where Marguerite de Bourgogne was strangled; the decimated old Belleville with its empty streets and boarded-up houses; the aquarium at the Trocadero, a childhood favorite of mine. It's no longer around, but it was a magic place. I believe that the only existing record of it is in the scene from Levres De Sang." Rollin fails to also mention the beach at Dieppe (hauntingly beautiful and used several times as a location for Rollin), and the authors of Immoral Tales reveal possibly why Rollin wishes not to revisit this memory:

The final scenes take place on the beach at Dieppe, and Rollin had to fight tooth and nail with the film's backers to be allowed to shoot there.

In fact that last scene almost led to the end of his career. The producer had hired an expensive coffin...The waves were fiercer than had been expected and soon it was obvious that the empty coffin was being pulled out into deep water. When Rollin dived in to rescue it a particularly vicious wave brought the coffin crashing down on his head, knocking him unconscious. He was only saved at the last minute by his lead actor, Jean-Lou Philippe, who dived into the waves to rescue him. (I edited out of this passage a brief clause which contains spoilers.)

Frédéric's initial memory of the meeting with the young woman at the ruins is bathed in soft blue light against the night backdrop. Belle's Jennifer is beautiful, and with Rollin's imagery, she becomes memorable. The Belleville sequences are as Rollin describes them, and the introduction of the four female vampires donning shear fabric walking amongst their shadows are disorienting and intoxicating. Watching the beautiful young actresses, so full of life, playing the undead, like little children amidst the rubbled surroundings is a highlight. The Castel twins play two of the four vampires and again, Rollin falls in love with them. They have a wonderful sequence in a hospital. The Dieppe beach sequence is hampered by some awkward character compositions (perhaps from the hurried schedule and some hostility at the location?). Nonetheless, Belle captivates during this sequence and takes focus, despite the gorgeous natural scenery (which must have been extremely cold as Belle gives more than a few shivers).When the characters aren't speaking and delivering plot exposition, Lips of Blood shows Rollin's poetic ability with the camera. Rollin conceived his best story to match his superior visual talent. External problems with the production hampered his narrative, yet the imagery survives and is, again, powerful, beautiful, and surreal.

The quote from the first sentence, the parenthetical note in the fourth sentence, and the quote from the sixth sentence in the first paragraph are from Jean Rollin's essay on Lips of Blood from Virgins and Vampires, Crippled Publications, Germany, 1997, edited by Peter Blumenstock. All other objective facts from the first paragraph about the production are from Immoral Tales: European Sex & Horror Movies, 1956-1984 by Cathal Tohill and Pete Tombs. The final sentence quote of the second paragraph is from Rollin's essay from Virgins and Vampires, as are all facts and quotes from the third paragraph and the first quote in the fourth paragraph. The anecdote about the Dieppe location and the block quote are from Immoral Tales.

Jess Franco's Macumba Sexual (1981)

Jess Franco's Macumba Sexual (1981) is a powerful and creative corruption of Bram Stoker's Dracula tale with Lina Romay playing the Jonathan Harker role, Robert Foster in the Mina Harker role; Jess Franco in a Renfield/Van Helsing role; and Ajita Wilson, as Princess Tara Obongo, substituting for the Count. The authors of Obsession: The Films of Jess Franco see the film as a "reworking" of "(Vampyros Lesbos, 1970, the first--and perhaps only one--of its kind: a sun-sea-and-sex art vampire film.) Here the seaside is replaced by a desert, and the vampire theme by voodoo and witchcraft." I do not disagree with Obsession's authors. However, I do believe Macumba Sexual is more than a mere "reworking" of Vampyros and shares a stronger tie to Stoker's novel, which Franco adapted to screen previously in 1969 as El Conde Dracula which he "intended to be the most faithful adaptation to date" with Christopher Lee, Herbert Lom, Klaus Kinski, Soledad Miranda, and Maria Rohm, for example. Macumba's genesis seems a hybrid of the themes in both Vampyros and Dracula with the result being a looser adaptation of Stoker's narrative with the typically strong obsessive Franco themes and atmosphere. Interestingly, Franco during his featurette interview included on the Severin disc of Macumba Sexual describes Ajita Wilson as "a kind of female Christopher Lee," who was very tall and "very much deep inside alive...She wasn't an actress. She was a presence." The Spanish production company, Golden Films, gave Franco complete freedom to shoot Macumba as he wished as long as Franco completed the film within budget limitations. Perhaps this freedom subconsciously inspired Franco's creative imagination and combined with Wilson's powerful presence and the atmosphere of Macumba's shooting location, the Canary Islands (which Franco describes as "fantastic"), Franco was let go to create this gem. In the Canary Islands, as Franco relates, there is a strong population of people from Senegal from whose culture Franco was able to find genuine art (such as the islands' statues) and artifacts to create his atmosphere. The iconography is not Christian churches and crosses but voodoo elements and their deities.

In shadow against the backdrop of the sun with her hands held high above her head, Princess Obongo introduces Macumba Sexual. Obongo is beckoning. Alice (Romay) writhes on her bed, absorbed completely in a dream where she meets Obongo in the desert. Alice awakens startled and seeks comfort from her writer husband (Foster). The two are vacationing, and Alice gets a poolside telephone call from her boss who summons her to complete a real estate transaction with the Princess at a slightly-deserted and nearby town. Alice meets the mentally disabled innkeeper (Franco) at her destination, and he speaks in slight gibberish, cryptically a warning about, a disavowal of, and an inducement to see the Princess. Alice and the Princess soon meet.Macumba Sexual is a continuous juxtaposition of voodoo and sexual imagery, equally powerful and provocative. The film is layered with seduction. Obongo's beckoning of Alice through Macumba is an elaborate act of such. Through esoteric and powerful iconic imagery combined with Franco's compositions, the viewer becomes seduced also. The imagery of Wilson's Princess with her two collared male and female nude slaves whom she lets slip upon on an unsuspecting Alice is appropriately jarring and terrifying during Alice's nightmare; yet it is no less unsettling when Alice cordially first meets the Princess and requests a bath. The Princess's two slaves appear to attend to Alice's needs, both looking identical to Alice's nightmare imagery yet standing upright and affectionate (in a different way). Alice's husband succumbs to the Princess's power, and with her two slaves, she has her way with him, ending with a willing Foster allowing himself to be collared as her other two.The ritualistic sequences involving Wilson amongst the desert backdrop are haunting and beautiful. Franco attends to quite a bit of detail to the Princess and her icons, specifically a white phallic statue, as she engages in behavior simultaneously worshipping, beckoning, and sexual. Franco relates his perception and knowledge towards voodoo: "Macumba is when you ask for the protection of a god. And a god which is not an occidental god but a kind of little god from the--from the waters, from the forest. There are some gods there and you ask for their help and their protection. And sometimes you ask also the destruction of your enemies." It's unknown to me how Franco's later relation of his view of voodoo informs the depiction within Macumba Sexual, but it's interesting. The reappearance later of the Princess's statue (a deity?) in a powerful sexual sequence with Alice is a consummation (of what the Princess reveals to Alice near the end of the film). The graphic sex scene is also a consummation of the themes and the juxtaposing imagery within the film, creating one. The Princess holds both a supernatural and a truly human sexual and seductive power. As to which Alice finally succumbs to is unknown: Obongo reveals to Alice her intentions with words, yet with their body language and behavior, the two speak to something else.Macumba Sexual is the very definition of intoxicating, and Franco's imagery is dreamlike and disorienting.Within the first paragraph, the quotes within the second and fourth sentence are taken from Obsession: The Films of Jess Franco. All quotes and objective facts about the production, beginning with the sixth sentence of the the first paragraph and continuing throughout this entry, are from Franco's interview featurette on the Severin DVD release of Macumba Sexual.

Giuliano Carnimeo's Ratman (1988)

A British scientist living in the Caribbean has high expectations for his latest experiment (maybe a Nobel prize and international fame and fortune). The scientist has successfully crossbred Rattus norvegicus and Homo sapien to produce the titular character of one of Giuliano Carnimeo's last directorial credits, Ratman (1988), portrayed by Nelson de la Rosa. Before the good scientist can show off his creation at the latest scientific expo, the hybrid creature escapes. Meanwhile models, Marlis (Eva Grimaldi) and Peggy (Luisa Menon), are getting their photos snapped by Mark (Werner Pochath) on the beach. The day's shoot concludes. Mark is taking Marlis deeper into the jungle for more photos the following day, and Peggy is flying back to New York. Mark develops his photos that evening and notices something unusual in the corner of one of his photographs (but can't really make it out). Peggy is on the town en route to a party and when her cab breaks down, she has to trek to the bus station on foot through a dark alley. A psycho is on the loose, and Peggy captures his eye. She manages to duck into a dark house and hide in the closet. Unfortunately, a diminutive clawed creature has already taken up residence within. Enter lovely Terry (Janet Agren) who arrives at the airport and encounters television mystery writer, Fred (David Warbeck). They share a cab into town. Terry's destination is the morgue. Apparently her model sister was murdered. Fred has a good heart, a nose for investigation, and an eye for Terry. He'll help her out.

In an excellent book of interviews, Spaghetti Nightmares, legendary producer Fabrizio De Angelis is asked: What can you tell us about Quella villa in fondo al parco (Ratman)...? His terse answer: Well...I had problems with the director, Carnimeo. I don't think it was one of my most successful productions...[I edited out of the question and answer an additional query and response into another De Angelis production].

Actor and genre legend, David Warbeck is interviewed later in Spaghetti Nightmares and has this to say about the production: when asked, "That film was officially directed by Giuliano Carmineo, but there seems to be a suspicion that Fabrizio De Angelis was really the guilty man...," Warbeck responds:

No, he was the producer and he set everything going, but the other guy...I though he was OK. We didn't fight, I just thought he was a bit of a lost cause, and this is where Fabrizio stepped in and whipped the thing into shape a bit. The other guy didn't know what he was doing, or maybe he didn't really want to do it; I just couldn't work it out. What can I say? The whole thing was complete madness, but, yes, it did do very well.

Despite its leading man and producer having few nice things to say about Ratman's veteran director Giuliano Carnimeo, he has made some notable works. My favorites are his giallo, What Are Those Strange Drops of Blood Doing on Jennifer's Body? (1973), Secrets of a Call Girl (1973), Poker in Bed (1974), all with Edwige Fenech, his Western, Man Called Invincible (1973), and his 80s post-nuke contribution, Exterminators in the Year 3000 (1983). Carnimeo's work doesn't easily fit into any auteur theory and it's often competent and professional.

If Fabrizio De Angelis wasn't producing notable Italian genre cinema in the 80s, he was directing it. Rabid fans of Italian 80s genre cinema (of which I am a very proud member) owe a big thanks to the man. Some of my favorite production credits of his are (inhales): Lucio Fulci's Zombie (1979), The Beyond (1981), The House by the Cemetery (1981), The New York Ripper (1982), Marino Girolami's Zombie Holocaust (1980), Enzo G. Castellari's 1990: Bronx Warriors (1982), Tonino Ricci's Raiders of the Magic Ivory (1988), and Luigi Cozzi's Paganini Horror (1989). Let's not forget about his directorial credits, and alongside Bruno Mattei, De Angelis consistently directed some of the best Italian action films of the period. Some of my favorites are: the Thunder series (three films in 1983, 1987 and 1988), Deadly Impact (1984), Man Hunt (1984), and one of the best, Cobra Mission (1986) (exhales).

The screenwriter of Ratman, Dardano Sacchetti, is also legendary. Two of his earliest screenwriting credits are on Mario Bava's excellent and influential Twitch of the Death Nerve (1971) and Dario Argento's A Cat O'Nine Tails (1971). With approximately fifty screenwriting credits in the 80s alone, Sacchetti was a major figure in Italian genre cinema (his 70s work is very notable, as well). My carpal tunnel syndrome will explode my hands if I attempt to list my favorites here. I recommend clicking the link above to peruse his credits. In Spaghetti Nightmares during his interview Sacchetti is asked, "How do you manage to write so many scripts?" His response: On average I write five or six a year, but I write every day, including Sundays. I enjoy writing and I think a good story is always better than good directing, which is another reason why I've never gotten behind the camera.

In addition to the talent behind the camera, Ratman boast four actors who all made notable contributions and/or are stalwarts of Italian genre cinema (especially their 80s work): Warbeck, Agren, Grimaldi, and Pochath. One of the reasons that I love the cinema from the Italians during the 80s is because it appears the entire industry was feeling the crunch the American blockbuster. The cinema feels, on the whole, driven by a desire to produce pure entertainment and pure exploitation: a little money in the participants' pockets and lots of tremendous fun to be had by the viewer. The 80s is Italian genre cinema's magic hour, and in a lot of ways, Ratman feels like a swan song.

The biggest flaw of Carnimeo's film is the lack of screen time that Warbeck and Agren receive. Their two characters drive the story through their investigation of the rodent murders, and when they are on screen, they feel like cogs in the wheel. Possessing an immediate chemistry and both with the ability to pull off wonderful humor, the two's ability is lost. When they are on screen, they're a lot of fun to watch. Eva Grimaldi as Marlis truly drives the story. Ratman's viewer gets treated to the lovely lady during a swimsuit photo shoot and another where she pulls off her best Flashdance moves. Extremely charismatic, Grimaldi brings a lot of enthusiasm to her role, as ultimately the Ratman's biggest obsession. Either the director, the producer, or the screenwriter should have kept the focus on Marlis and cut the Warbeck/Agren plotline. Ratman would become more of a straight horror film, and the attempt to have Warbeck and Agren provide romance or mystery to the story never happens anyway. Carnimeo's scare scenes range from effective, as with the earlier sequence with Peggy, to hilariously bad, as when Ratman pops out of the toilet for a scare. When the short running time of Ratman ended, I had a complete smile on my face. If one can get past the ludicrous premise of the film (a half-rat/half-man killer); its low budget and highly sensational elements; and the occasional dip into ineptitude and disbelief, then...well, you probably won't see Ratman, because after that, not much is left. However, if you love all of those elements, then you're probably like me a fan of Italian 80s genre cinema and will highly enjoy Ratman.