Baise Moi (2000)

Pornography!

I wonder how many guys saw the vaguely cute-sounding French title and the premise "two women are wronged by men and take a road trip to Paris" and thought it would make a good date movie? Not many I hope because it features copious amounts of drug use, brutal violence and hardcore sex, including a graphic rape scene. Oh, and the title actually means "Fuck Me". It's really more of a second date movie. It also got banned in Australia which made me even more interested in seeing it, if only to see whether the buzz surrounding the movie was justified. Yeah, that's right, I got a copy anyway. Try and stop me OFLC, you fuckers.

Nadine (Karin Bach) is a drug-addicted prostitute and Manu (Rafaella Anderson) is a part-time porn actor. One day the two of them are kidnapped by a group of thugs and violently gang raped. Both are severely traumatised by the incident and it drives them each to murder (one kills her brother, the other her flatmate). When the two girls meet that night at a train station and discover that they've both missed the last train, they decide to take one last road trip to Paris, indulging in a hedonistic orgy of sex and violence along the way. That's pretty much it. It's like Thelma and Louise with murders and full penetration.

Pretty much any film that prominently features women killing men is going to get a feminist label, but here it kind of fits. The two stars and the director are all porn stars so it's no accident that the two main characters are sex workers, it's about women seeking revenge on a society that degrades them and sees them as worthless. When they are raped Nadine screams and attempts to fight them off but Manu just mutely resigns herself (thereby causing her attacker to lose interest), so afterward Nadine shifts her shame onto Manu, blaming her for not fighting back. Manu responds "It could be worse. We weren't killed." Regardless of their profession or how they responded to the incident, both are profoundly damaged.

At the beginning there is an interesting scene where Manu reveals to her brother that she has been raped. He immediately grabs a gun and demands to know who did it and she responds "Bastard! You didn't even me if I'm okay!" and kills him. Most other movies would focus on the brother's act of vengeance, but here it's just seen as a purely selfish act. I also liked the scene where the two girls bemoan the fact that they can't come up with a cool line every time they shoot someone. Manu says "I mean, people are dying here. The dialog has to be up to it." Indeed. There's also a few moments of dark humour, such as when Nadie is getting boned by a client and sees someone cutting up a sausage on TV (a clip from Gaspar Noe's Suel contre tous, probably one of the few films as bleak and miserable as this) and smiles to herself.

In a film like say Ms. 45 or I Spit On Your Grave the woman will target men who have wronged women in some way. Here Nadine and Manu's rampage is purely nihilistic and it feels more raw and realistic because of it. They kill men and they kill women. They kill to get money and they kill random people on the street for fun. They don't bother to cover their tracks or conceal their identities and when they pick up a magazine and see themselves on the cover they're mainly just amused. They don't give a fuck. At one point they walk into a sex club and kill everybody inside. One poor guy gets it worst of all, they stick their gun where a gun don't fit and pull the trigger. They also indulge in a lot of casual sex with random guys, always making sure the guys never lose sight about who is in charge. Woe be to the guy who insists on a condom.

It makes me laugh when I hear people calling a film like this "pornography" because as far as I'm concerned pornography is a matter of intent and titillation is the last thing on this movie's mind. I doubt any sane person could this film erotic. It's also amusing reading the reactions from critics who are shocked, shocked I say, at the hardcore sex scenes, like they've never seen a porn film in their lives. Still, being explicit and shocking doesn't make it good. Even at a scant 77 minutes interesting scenes like the ones I mentioned earlier are few and far between. It's got good energy and pacing though so I can't say I was ever bored, even if the message gets drowned out by sex, violence and nihilism. It's a film worth watching but not with your grandmother. Unless she's really open minded.

House on the Edge of the Park (1980)

Ceramic dog figurines.
Inexplicably popular amongst the New York elite.

With the remake of 1972's The Last House on the Left on the horizon I thought it would be a good idea to go back and revisit that film. Then I realised I'd already reviewed it, so I settled for the House on the Edge of the Park, a film that arrived eight years after The Last House on the Left graced the drive-ins of the USA, and tried to prove that anything that the Americans can do, the Italians can do sleazier and with more boobs. Helming this effort is Ruggero Deodato, purveyor of fine cannibal-based entertainments, teaming up with actor David Hess, who is essentially reprising his memorable role as a sadistic rapist psycho.

The film begins with Alex (David Hess) cruising down the highway while making faces at a fellow motorist, and just in case the casting of Hess wasn't enough of a clue, he cuts her off and then rapes/murders her in her back seat. At first I thought there was something wrong with my dvd player because during the act the film will occasionally cut to a black screen for a second or two. Afterwards he steals her necklace and wears it as a memento. So, it's pretty clear that he's not a nice guy. An indeterminate amount of time later he's getting ready to boogie with his pal Ricky (he says this about fifty times, so you know he loves to boogie and also possibly the night life). Ricky is played by Giovanni Lombardi Radice, who was last seen with an enormous drill bit through his head in City of the Living Dead. Like his character from that film, he's a few shingles short of a roof, so it's abudantly clear that he's our retarded sidekick who will be manipulated into doing horrible things.

Meanwhile, a pretty girl named Lisa (Annie Belle) and her even prettier boyfriend Tom (Christian Borromeo from Tenebre) are driving along making small talk about the party they are headed to. It's at an isolated house that is presumably on the edge of a park, but like The Last House on the Left it's location doesn't figure into the plot at all. They pull into a parking garage and announce that they have car trouble. Wait, what car trouble? Is it a parking garage or an auto repair shop? Oh well, no matter, because it turns out it's the very garage where Alex and Ricky are getting ready for their night on the town. He offers them forty bucks to fix his car (forty bucks?! My mechanic charges me a hundred just to open the hood) and pretty soon Alex and Ricky have invited themselves along to the party. Awk-ward! Before he leaves Alex grabs a straight razor from his locker, so you know he's got more planned that just boogyin'.

Soon after they arrive it's clear that every one of the five guests are the kind of bored rich fucks you just want to punch in the face on sight. There's even a bald girl with two-tone lipstick who shouts out "Hot diggity!" when they arrive. They all goad Ricky into dancing and performing a strip tease for them, and it becomes clear to Alex that they're just there for these snobs' entertainment. Alex follows Lisa into the kitchen and is seduced by the way she drinks straight from the bottle ("Looks like you're givin' it head!"). She starts flirting with him, only to reject him when things get heavy and she heads upstairs for a shower. Pretty weird behaviour at a party, I know, but David Hess has just been licking her thighs so it's understandable. Upstairs she invites him in to scrub her back then cockblocks him again. What a tease!

Frustrated, Alex heads downstairs to find the rest of them scamming Ricky at a poker game. Scamming a retarded guy, that's pretty low, so Alex starts a fistfight that leaves one of the guys (a caveman looking guy named Howard) bloodied and bruised. He even calls the bald girl a twat. Alex drags Howard outside and tosses him into the pool and pisses on his head while giving a hearty maniacal laugh. He's having a great time. After tying him up he sets about terrorizing the rest of the guests with his razor blade. Tom has no balls, so he does fuck all except sit there and glare for most of the movie. At one point Alex teaches him a lesson by bashing his face against a table so many times I lost count. I assumed he was dead but he only suffers a few cuts and bruises. He doesn't even lose consciousness. He may have no balls, but at least he's resilient.

In every film like this there's got to be a scene where the leader tries to force the retarded sidekick into raping one of the victims in front of everyone. It's a law or something. This film is no exception and naturally Ricky can't go through with it. She tries to escape later and when Ricky chases her down in the greenhouse and she fucks him right there in the geraniums. Maybe it was sudden case of Stockholm Syndrom or maybe she was seduced by his gentlemanly act of not-raping-her. Alex, however, is not a gentleman, and rapes Lisa in an upstairs bedroom. During the act some cheesy soft-porn music kicks and she gets a look on her face like she's totally into it. I don't know if this is supposed to be interpreted as just payback for giving him blue balls, but either way... not classy.

Eventually a tardy guest named Cindy shows up, and when Alex terrorises her, strips her and starts cutting her up with his razor, it's the last straw for Ricky. When he tries to intervene Alex slashes him across the chest. The wound doesn't look fatal, but this doesn't stop Alex from launching into a tearful death scene, cradling Ricky in his arms and sobbing. It's somewhat less than heart-wrenching, but Tom finally mans up and uses the opportunity to grab a pistol from the desk drawer. He shoots Alex in the leg and shoulder, sending him stumbling backwards through the glass door and into the yard, and it's here that Tom reveals the film's big twist, which I'll come back to later. Tom punctuates his speech by blasting Alex right in the balls. This illicits the most cartoony, slow-motion scream I've ever seen. He opens his mouth so wide I could count his fillings (lay off the sweets, Hess). He falls backwards into the pool and several of the guests take turns shooting him. The battered Howard lifts him out of the pool and holds him so close I though he was going to start making out with him, but he just tosses him back in the pool and shoots him. He doesn't piss on his head though, he's not going to stoop to his level.

Now, I guess we are supposed to symphathise with Alex at this point, realising that the victims are a bunch of cold-blooded murderers and really no better than Alex and Ricky. But really, Alex has raped or attempted to rape several women by this point, beaten two of them to a bloody pulp and psychologically tortured them for hours on end, so it's hard not to feel like justice has been served. They were rich assholes, but they didn't deserve that. The only time the party guests get close to crossing the line is when Howard goes to shoot Ricky (yeah, he's still alive) but is convinced to let him live. Plus it's hard to buy Tom as a stone cold killer when he looks like an even girlier version of Cillian Murphy.

Okay the big twist? All aboard the non-stop express to Spoilertown! It turns out that the woman Alex raped and killed at the beginning of the film was Tom's sister and the party was all a set-up so they could goad him into action and then shoot him in "self defence". I don't think I really need to explain why this is dumbest plan in the history of planning. Their decision to let Ricky live will probably have some repurcussions, but Tom seems pretty satisfied with the outcome. In the understatement of the year, he notes that it was more difficult to get at the gun than he thought it would be. Next time maybe you should carry the gun on your person, champ. Just a helpful suggestion. I don't know how they figured out Alex was the rapist, either. I thought maybe he noticed his sister's necklace around his neck, but that couldn't be true because he says that the engine trouble was part of his plan. Oh well, the world is full of mysteries.

With Deodato as a director it probably goes without saying, but the execution is extremely tacky and exploitative. Almost every women in the film strips down bare-ass naked (yay!), usually in the context of a sexual assault or rape (boo!). He isn't subtle about it either, some of the shots of nipples were so close up you could count the bumps on the areoli. There's only one death, but the beatings are very brutal and bloody. Acting is not so great, but with David Hess his ocasionally hammy acting works in the movie's favour. When he's putting on his nice-guy act at the beginning of film it's so obviously false it makes him seem pretty creepy. I'm sure this guy is nice enough in real life, but between this film and The Last House on the Left, I don't know if I'd invite him around to babysit my children. I'm not sure I'd trust him to water my plants. He'd probably rape them.

Obviously the film tries to set-up a bit of class warfare, the rich snobs versus the working class Alex and Ricky. Like an 80s college movie, only with rape and brutal beatings instead of a yacht race or zany fundraiser. The problem is that the punishment Alex dishes out is so extreme compared to the crime (of being assholes) that it's hard to care about him when he finally gets his comeuppance. There was the same problem in The Last House on the Left, but it's even worse here and there isn't even the comical sight of a middle-aged man running around menacing people with a chainsaw to make up for it. At least this film doesn't have an awful comedy subplot about a bumbling sherriff, so score one for Deodato. This is not a bad entry in Deodato's catalogue, especially since he managed to punch out Cannibal Holocaust in the same year. It was a complete flop artistically, but I can't say I didn't enjoy it. If you enjoy watching tasteless filth and depravity, you might enjoy it too.

I Spit on Your Grave (1978)

The hammock of the damned

Meir Zarchi's I Spit On Your Grave (otherwise known under the more tasteful title Day of the Woman) was crucified upon it's release. Roger Ebert named it the worst movie ever made, but then he liked Garfield: The Movie, so what does he know? It was finally released uncut in Australia in 2004, so I picked up a copy. Does it live up to it's reputation? Let's find out...

Successful New York writer Jennifer Hills (Camille Keaton, Buster Keaton's granddaughter!) decides to take a trip up to a remote cabin so she can finish her book in peace and tranquility. Upon her arrival, she is continually harassed by four inbred locals... Johnny (Eron Tabor), Stanley (Anthony Nichols), Andy (Gunter Kleemann) and the mildly-retarded Matthew (Richard Pace). Offended by her fancy-pants New-York-independent-feminist ways, they concoct a plan to punish her and help Matthew lose his virginity. The next day as she is relaxing on her boat, the four men tow her boat to shore and chase her through the woods. She is captured and brutally raped and beaten... twice! Bruised and bloody, she crawls back to her house, but the men are already there. They rape and beat her again and ridicule and burn her manuscript for good measure. The three men order Matthew to stab her to death, but he can't bring himself to do it and leaves her alive, concealing it from the other men.

Over the following few days, Jennifer is in a daze. Gradually she gains back her senses, and with them, a thirst for vengeance. She pieces together her manuscript and vows revenge on her attackers.

First of all, she lures Matthew to a tree near her cabin and has sex with him. When he is distracted, she slips a noose around his neck and hangs him from the tree.

Secondly, she takes Johnny back to her house and makes him strip at gunpoint. He manages to get the gun from her, but she lures him back to her cabin and into a hot bath. She starts to beat him off before pulling out a hidden knife and cutting off his wang. She locks him in the bathroom and calmly waits until he bleeds out.

The two remaining men take their motor boat to her cabin and attempt to kill her with an axe. She escapes in their boat, and as one of the men swims after her she buries the axe in his back. The last man attempts to climb onto the boat but, ignoring his pleas for mercy, she guts him with the outboard motor. The film promptly ends.

It's easy to see why this film caused a few blue-hairs to faint back in the day. The rape scene in this film is almost thirty minutes long, stark and brutal, with no muscial score or editing tricks. Not exactly pleasant viewing, and that's exactly the point. The scene isn't made to titillate. A lot of people misinterpreted this film as a glorification of rape, which makes about as much sense as saying that Catch 22 is a glorification of war. It's a harrowing experience, but it's not as morally despicable as some would have you believe.

Does it hold up after 30 years? Well, with shock-fests like Irreversible making the art-film circuit, it seems that audiences are a bit more tolerant of shocking content when it is put in an appropriate context. That's not to say it's not shocking anymore, because it is, but I doubt it would be the subject of as much controversy these days. Truth be told, a lot about this film is fairly mediocre. The men in this film are unbearably stupid. Matthew seems to be smartest out of all of them, and he's retarded. Production values are very low and the acting is spotty, although Camille Keaton is very good. This is probably one of the best films in the admittedly small rape/revenge genre, it's certainly the most well-known.

Thriller: A Cruel Picture (1974)

You know, her aim can't be that good without any depth perception

The Swedish rape/revenge film Thriller: en grym film (Thriller: A Cruel Picture) was released in a heavily-censored form the US as They Call Her One Eye. A few years ago, Bo Arne Vibenius' revenge epic was re-released on DVD by Synapse Films in it's original cut, hardcore sex scenes and graphic violence intact.

Madeline (softcore starlet Christina Lindberg) has been left mute ever since she was brutally raped by a vagrant. She is walking near her parents' farm one day, when she is offered a ride by a passing sleazebag, Tony (Heinz Hopf). He injects her with heroin to keep her under control, and pimps her out to a variety of seedy clients, including a lecherous photographer and a violent lesbian. When she fights back against one of the clients, Tony gouges out her eye. Soon she discovers that Tony has been writing terrible letters to her parents under her name, and they have killed themselves as a result. Heartbroken, Madeline seeks out instruction from stunt drivers, martial artists and weapon specialists. Subsequently, she uses her newfound skills to wreak bloody vengeance against those who have wronged her!

Compared to grimy rape-revenge flicks like I Spit On Your Grave, Thriller has a slick and stylised feel. Scenes of violence, in particular, are very stylised, shot in Peckinpah-esque, super slow motion, with distant, echoing sound effects. The result is dislocating, and occasionally quite beautiful, such as when Madeline punches a policeman and a spurt of blood arcs gracefully across the screen. Some scenes are quite brutal and graphic, such as when Tony cuts out Madeline's eye (legend has it that they used a human cadaver).

Christina Lindberg is, as always, a treat to look at. She spends a sizable portion of the film nude, but a body double was used during the hardcore sex scenes. During her acts of revenge, she wears colourful, spaghetti-western inspired outfits with matching eyepatches, providing the inspiration for Daryl Harrah's character Elle Driver in Kill Bill (you didn't think Tarantino had an original thought, did you?)

The stylised, slow-motion violence and some beautiful shot composition (some of the frames I'd be happy to hang on my wall, only some mind you) give Thriller a classier edge, and while it's certainly not high art, it's less likely to make you feel in need of a hot bath afterwards.

Last House on the Left (1972)

Worst camping trip ever!

Over 30 years after it's release, critical opinion is still divided over Last House of the Left. It's fans defend it as a harrowing study of violence, while it's critics dismiss it as exploitative trash. The truth is, it probably falls somewhere in the middle.

The plot of Last House on the Left is essentially a retelling of Ingmar Bergman's Virgin Spring. Mari (Sandra Cassel) and Phyllis (Lucy Grantham) are two happy, middle-class teenagers heading to a rock concert. It's Mari's birthday and boy does she like talking about her breasts. After a discussion of boob-accentuating sweaters with her parents, she launches into a celebration of her newly-developed breasts with her best friend. My wife informs me that discussions of this nature are atypical, which left me deeply disappointed.

In an attempt to score some grass they are abducted by a foursome of escaped convicts. They consist of the ferocious Krug (David Hess), his girl Sadie (Jeramie Rain), the knife-toting Weasel (Fred J Lincoln) and the heroin-addicted Junior (Marc Sheffler). The girls are bundled into their car and taken out to the woods near Mari's house where they are teased and tormented before being raped and killed.

Following this, the convicts seek refuge at a nearby house, not realising that it belongs to Mari's parents John (Gaylord St James) and Estelle (Cynthia Carr). During the night Estelle overhears them talking about their crime, and the parents decide to take matters into their own hands.

The scenes of sexual torment are broken up by a pathetic comedy subplot about two idiotic small-town cops (one of whom is played by Martin "Sweep the Leg" Kove) and Mari's parents preparing for her birthday. I imagine the juxtaposition was intentional, but the shifts in tone are clunky and awkward. The twangy, upbeat soundtrack (partially composed and sung by David Hess) is bizarre and often highly inappropriate.

The quality of the acting varies (most of the cast were in adult film), but David Hess gives a standout performance as Krug. He would go on to play a very similar role in Ruggero Deodato's House on the Edge of the Park. Cassel and Grantham are convincing in their roles as the two victims, and according to interviews they were genuinely terrified of Hess. When they are forced to strip in the woods, Phyllis tries to comfort Mari by saying "There's no-one else here, just you and me", a heartbreaking line which I was surprised to find out was improvised. The film takes a downturn during the last act of the film. The class warfare set up between Mari's parents and the convicts is never really explored, and seeing Gaylord St James running around with a chainsaw is frankly hilarious.

There is a small amount of gore (Phyllis is disembowelled at one point) but, like Tobe Hooper's Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the real horror comes from the inhuman cruelty forced upon the girls. It may have been the subject of controversy when it was released, but Last House on the Left can't be so easily dismissed as an exploitation film. It's apparent that Craven and Cunningham were trying to strip away the veneer of slick Hollywood violence. Fans of Scream or Nightmare on Elm Street might be shocked by the raw brutality of Wes Craven's first feature. It's sloppily made, and Wes Craven is quick to admit that he had no idea what he was doing, but it's evidence of the talent that would grow in their later careers.

I Blog On Your Grave!

It's March, and what better way to shake off those post-Valentine's-Day fuzzies than wallowing in that most scuzzy of sub-genres, the rape/revenge film. These films sprang up like toadstools in the 70s, when filmmakers were testing the limits of what they could commit to the silver screen. I'm conflicted about these kind of films. I'm not so quick to dismiss them as tasteless exploitation, but the cynical voice in me says that they were a way for filmmakers to have their cake and eat it too; to have scenes of lurid sex and violence, justified by the idea that they were making some sort of feminist statement.

Over the next week we'll be taking a look at three such films... Wes Craven's first feature film Last House on the Left, the arty Swedish entry Thriller: A Cruel Picture and the singularly sleazy I Spit On Your Grave. By the end of it you'll probably be scrubbing yourself raw in a scalding hot shower, only to find out that the dirt just won't come off!