Exploito All’Italiana: Black Magic Rites (Renato Polselli, 1973)

 So, having managed to maintain this blog for the better part of fifteen years, it feels remiss of me not have dedicated at least a few paragraphs to discussing the indescribable cinematic singularity which is Renato Polselli’s ‘Riti, Magie Nere e Segrete Orge nel Trecento’ [‘Rites, Black Magic and Secret Orgies of the Fourteenth Century’], aka ‘The Reincarnation of Isobel’, allegedly aka ‘The Ghastly Orgies of Count Dracula’… but known to most of us (for the sake of brevity, if nothing else) simply as ‘Black Magic Rites’.

So, what with it being October, and having just spent some time luxuriating in the glow of Indicator’s never-thought-I’d-see-the-day 4k restoration… now would seem to be the time to take a deep breath and get on with it.

It must be admitted from the outset that this is a very difficult movie to try to review in any conventional sense, as those who have seen it will surely appreciate.

It is not only the film’s almost total lack of narrative which causes difficulties for the potential critic, but the seeming lack of any unifying pattern or purpose whatsoever. Faced with the onslaught of audio-visual anarchy found herein, the idea of understanding what Polselli’s intentions were in creating this thing, or of positing any framework against which his success may be assessed, seems nigh on impossible.

‘Black Magic Rites’ is, essentially, about as close as a piece of ostensibly commercial cinema has ever come to a state of utter, formless chaos, a celluloid equivalent of the mad piping of the servitors of Lovecraft’s blind idiot god crouching vacantly at the centre of the uncaring universe.

If you go in with enough determination, and pay close enough attention, you can identify discrete scenes and sections within the film, albeit generally interrupting and overlapping with each other to no clearly defined purpose. (This time around for instance, I was particularly taken by the whole funeral / premature burial sequence).

But, basically, this is a 100-minute hypnotic drone of a movie - no form, no progression. Most of the characters here are doing exactly the same thing at the end that they were doing at the start. The intermittent fragments of narrative which do creep in from time to time feel a bit like a heavy psychedelic rock band half-heartedly trying to add lyrics and song structure to their music, only for it to be totally drowned out by the roar of their amplifiers.

And what exactly, the uninitiated may ask, might that metaphorical roar consist of?

Well, you know - fire, screaming, gurning faces, crimson gore, kaleidoscopic psychedelic hoo-hah, awkwardly framed tableaux of female and male bodies squeezed into all kinds of outré costumes (both 14th and 20th century vintage), frantic time-and-space shredding jump cuts and cross-edits, lurid red and green disco lighting, erotic torture, breath-taking scenery and groovy castles, anonymous, drooling creeps lurking in shadows, more fire, more screaming faces, hypnotism, witch burnings, widescreen vistas of ritual depravity, pitchfork wielding mobs, chintzy birthday parties, frantic, awkward softcore sex, outbursts of alarming, screechy comic relief, and Count Dracula (apparently). 

The usual, basically - just a whole lot more of it. An all-you-can-eat buffet of all purpose, fumetti-style gothic horror/sleaze.

Within the pantheon of Italian genre directors who have become admired and/or infamous amongst the fans who have painstakingly unearthed their work over the decades, Polselli stands out as the kind of figure who, if he didn’t exist, someone would have had to invent him.

I mean, he had to be out there somewhere on the margins, didn’t he? The guy whose films were more extreme, more hysterical, more chaotic and senseless than anyone else’s, and who was stricken by censorship, public indifference and critical bafflement to such an extent that many of his films were barely even released at all, languishing in unfathomable obscurity for decades, and in some cases remaining almost impossible to see to this day.

And yet, despite these catastrophic set-backs, he kept dusting himself off and coming back to make more of the damned things, driven on by who knows what unfathomable personal demons. Certainly, the few public comments he made during his lifetime shed little light on why he persisted in ploughing his long-suffering financiers’ money into such grotesque, bizarre and (crucially) unprofitable productions. Indeed, reading the sparse interviews conducted with Polselli whilst he was still with us, his attempts to explain himself seem alternately gnomic, cynical and entirely irrelevant to the work at hand.

Suffice to say that, if you were putting together some ‘Berberian Sound Studio’-styled fiction based around the world of Italian cult cinema, you could scarcely hope to create such a fascinating, baffling and hilarious character - and yet, here he is, large as life, with ‘Black Magic Rites’ standing as his defining artistic statement.

Enthusiasts such as myself often tend to praise Euro-horror films for achieving passages of surrealistic delirium. In ‘Black Magic Rites’ though, Polselli begins in a state of surrealistic delirium and keeps his foot down hard on the accelerator right through to the closing ‘FINE’.

As a result, it stands as an example of a piece of pulpy, cynical exploitation assembled with such fevered intensity that it goes full circle on the artistic spectrum, swallowing its own tail and emerging as an experimental art piece; an overwhelming sensory experience that would probably sit better on a double bill next to ‘Flaming Creatures’ or ‘Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome’ than with a Paul Naschy or Sergio Martino movie.

To return to my earlier music metaphor, watching ‘Black Magic Rites’ for the first time as a fan of Euro-horror feels a bit like growing up listening to canonical ‘60s rock, loving the occasional moments of dissonance and feedback... then suddenly discovering Les Rallizes Denudes or Mainliner. Whoa. Too much, man.

Before we get too carried away though, it’s worth splashing our faces with cold water and remembering that, of the individual elements which make up the totality of ‘Black Magic Rites’, none are entirely unique within the Italio-cult context.

The voluminous output of that nation’s cinema during the early ‘70s did, after all, include low budget horror films which, whether by accident or design, were almost entirely incoherent (Angelo Pannacciò’s ‘Sex of the Witch’), or formally and tonally inexplicable (Francesco Mazzei’s The Weapon, The Hour, The Motive). 

There were films which simply pushed WAY TOO FAR to ever see widespread, uncut distribution at the time of their production (Fernando Di Leo’s ‘Slaughter Hotel’ aka ‘Cold Blooded Beast’), and other entries in the “sexy gothic” sub-genre which knowingly plunged over the precipice into full-blown parody and deliberately disjointed, rambling nonsense (Luigi Batzella’s ‘Nude For Satan’) - all trends redolent of a pre-porno film culture which routinely allowed questionably committed filmmakers to essentially go out and shoot whatever the hell they felt like, so long the requisite nudity and softcore groping was delivered on time.

‘Black Magic Rites’ though is the only film I’m aware of which managed to simultaneously cash in on ALL of these crazy possibilities, creating a maximalist overload of ‘70s witch-smut insanity which has never been equalled.

Trying to account for all this on a rational basis, I’m tempted to consider the suggestion floated by Stephen Thrower in his supplement to the Indicator release, that, perhaps, Polselli had intended to make a somewhat more structured, narrative film but (as per the Pannacciò film cited above) simply lost control of the production, discovering after the money had run out and the actors fled the set that he was missing whatever footage he needed to pull the whole thing together.

Hitting the editing room therefore, perhaps with only a few days to spare before delivering a rough cut, he simply panicked, resorting to the only tool available to a director of crazy horror movies in such circumstances - Art! Or, more specifically - jump cuts, and dreams-within-flashbacks-within-dreams, special / temporal disorientation, overlapping images and audio tracks and hypnotic repetition of footage - all cut to the beat of Franco Reverberi’s freaky, ritualistic score. Yeah!

In other circumstances, such an endeavour could have emerged as simply unwatchable (and many would no doubt claim ‘Black Magic Rites’ is just that), but, even for the less fanatical viewer, the film’s aesthetic pleasures and unexpected outbursts of beauty certainly help to sweeten the pill.

‘Black Magic Rites’ was shot in Italian weirdo horror’s home-from-home, the 15th century Castello Piccolomini in Balsorano, previously home to everyone from The Crimson Executioner to Lady Frankenstein, and it must be said, Polselli uses the castello’s potential quite brilliantly in places, especially when he breaks away from the suffocating, colour-saturated gloom of the interiors to stage scenes on the castle battlements, showcasing the astonishing vistas of snow-capped mountains which form the backdrop to the valley in which the castle stands. (1)

A necessary refresher amid all the madness going on down in the ballrooms and dungeons, you can almost smell the fresh air during these sequences, and a similar chill wind of melancholic atmos can also be felt during the funeral / burial sequence I mentioned above, which is really beautifully put together, acting both as a reference to the best scene in Polselli’s earlier The Vampire and the Ballerina, and indeed to its original inspiration, Carl Dreyer’s Vampyr.  

Though I prefer to avoid going into ‘consumer guide’ mode in these reviews, it must be said that the new transfer of the film really helps to highlight the beauty of some of the individual images Polselli and his collaborators conjured up here amidst all the carnage and peek-a-boo nudity and cheap special effects, perhaps helping to lend the whole thing a bit more of a sense of artistry than was really evident in earlier editions. God knows the travails Director of Photography Ugo Brunelli probably had to go through whilst shooting all this stuff, but he certainly delivered the goods in technical terms.

His work, together with Reverberi’s appropriately wigged out yet infernally catchy score (heavy on hand percussion, primitive electronics and reversed/echoed vocal weirdness), work to ensure the film remains an aesthetically intoxicating experience, as well as a simply overpowering one - with this intention often succeeding in spite of Polselli’s feverish, ADHD-afflicted editing and obsession with rubbing our noses in the most unpleasant imagery he can conjure up at any given point.

By far the funniest thing about the new transfer though is that it retains the grandly ornate interval cards from the movie’s original Italian cinema screenings, which I don't recall seeing before. What a hoot! I mean, can you imagine the poor, unsuspecting audience, staggering out into the sunlight for a smoke after 45 minutes of this shit? (“Say pal, whatcha think's gonna happen next?”) 

Simply amazing - as indeed is every aspect of this astounding, unrepeatable film’s genesis, existence and continued survival.

Check it out, please, before the thousand-faced messengers of Azathoth think better of letting it out in the wild, and pull remaining copies through some black trans-dimensional vortex, leaving no trace but a lingering, half-forgotten memory, ready to be shaken off with tomorrow morning’s much needed coffee.

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(1) As I believe I noted in my ‘Lady Frankenstein’ review a few years ago, I’m intrigued by the fact that, of the four noteworthy Italian horror film Mickey Hargitay appeared in, three were shot in the Castello Piccolomini! I mean, was this just a coincidence, or did he live nearby, or know the owners of the castle or something..? Sadly the man himself is no longer with us to provide an answer, but - any insight welcomed.

Horror Express: Draguse ou Le Manoir Infernal (Patrice Rhomm, 1974)

“Just my luck. Some people meet with Ursula Andress or Brigitte Bardot in their dreams. I always meet with some crazy woman who thinks she’s Nostradamus…” 

Also unleashed upon the Parisian public as ‘Perversiones Lubriques’, ‘Draguse ou Le Manoir Infernal’ is a horror-tinged French sex film directed by Patrice Rhomm, a filmmaker probably best known (relatively speaking) for contributing to the script for the thoroughly batzo Italio-Belgium trash classic ‘The Devil’s Nightmare’ (1972).

Armed with the knowledge, the opening ten minutes of ‘Draguse’ had me ready to declare Rhomm an unheralded pulp horror savant. Sadly, I fear things went a little awry as my viewing progressed, but… let’s kick off with the good stuff, shall we?

Enlivened by the strains of a delightfully spooky, propulsive library track, ‘Draguse’s opening credits give us skeletal trees under an overcast sky and brooding shots of one of those shabby / decrepit rural houses so believe of low budget French horror.

As a handheld camera proceeds to explore the house’s suitably rundown interior, silver-haired Eurocine mainstay Olivier Mathot begins to deliver a monologue in voiceover, explaining that he is being transported to this house in his dreams, wherein his spirit is imprisoned within a pentangle (nattily represented by a mirror with what looks like some cake icing daubed upon it) as he is forced to witness the lewd and perverse displays enacted for him by a witch named Draguse (Eurocine & Jess Franco regular Monica Swinn).

Soon, a flash of lightning turns the pink candles black (frankly neither colour is really suitable for the lighting needs of god-fearing citizens, I fear), a gnarly-looking skull and crossbones appears upon the frame of some kind of antique furnace-type thing, and Draguse baptises the skull with a trickle of deep red blood.

With these formalities out of the way, more rockin’ library music kicks in, as Swinn treats us to some lascivious dancing in a baby doll nightie, before spreading her legs across a nearby armchair and proceeding to pleasure herself (non-penetratively, I hasten to add) with a massive bone.

My god, what is this movie? It’s demented, and amazing. Total ‘70s witch-smut nirvana.

It is at this point however that Monsieur Mathot awakens with the standard issue “whaaa, where am I?!” comic flourish, and we discover that, like seemingly all people in ‘70s French movies, he actually lives in a cramped, high rise Parisian apartment with amazing wallpaper and flowery bed sheets, shared on this occasion with his perpetually naked and very much up-for-it wife (Martine Fléty, who also appeared in a number of Jess Franco films in the late ‘70s).

Much to Ms Fléty’s chagrin however, Mathot soon turns out to be essaying that most tedious of sex comedy clichés, the serious-minded, frigid academic who steadfastly ignores the parade of willing female flesh which is constantly paraded before him wherever he goes.

A historian by trade, Mathot’s character dreams of publishing his great historical monograph on The Queens of Scotland, but his publisher (played by director Rhomm) has other ideas - namely, inexplicably hiring this sexless stick in the mud to write a series of erotic novels for the paperback market.

Taking this new assignment rather more seriously than anyone presumably intended, Mathot declares that he will relocate to the countryside and rent the house seen during the opening, in order to gain the solitude he needs to compose his new literary masterworks. In a turn of events more far-fetched than any of the film’s supernatural elements, his publisher not only voices his approval for this idea, but even volunteers to cover the rent.

Before heading out to the sticks however, our hero begins his ‘research’ by conducting an in-depth survey of Paris’s adult entertainment industry - or, in other words, Rhomm’s camera goes on a lengthy, handheld ramble around the exteriors of various sex shops and porno cinemas, whilst Mathot contributes a witless, nattering voiceover over the top.

I’m assuming that the film’s original audience (who would have been more than familiar with such sights) must have found the inclusion of this time-killing filler material absolutely infuriating, but the passage of a few decades has ironically turned it into an absolute goldmine for 21st century smut historians, giving us a fleeting glimpse of all manner of funky, pop art-influenced décor and long-forgotten posters and cinema hoardings, not least some promo material for the Jess Franco sex comedy ‘Le Jouisseur’ (aka ‘Sexy Erotic Job’, aka ‘Roland, The Sexiest Man in the World’). So, count that as another point in ‘Draguse’s favour, if you are thus inclined.

When Mathot eventually arrives at his shabby rural hideaway (which, with typical porno logic, is still close enough to town for him to walk to the red light district to buy cigarettes), we might reasonably have expected the film’s horror quotient to pick up again, but sadly that’s not quite the way things pan out, despite a few spooky manifestations from the titular Draguse.

Instead, the movie veers off into a rather lackadaisical series of disconnected vignettes. First, Mathot picks up a prostitute (Sylvia Bourdon, who went on to appear the following year in the inserts shot by Jean Rollin for the bastardised porno version of his own ‘Lips of Blood’). Then, once that’s all over with, he dresses up like Count Yorga and visits a fun fair, somehow convincing an idle, hippy-ish bloke to return with him to the house to have sex with the (apparently now corporeal) Draguse, who subsequently kills him, leaving Mathot (who is apparently now dreaming this whole escapade) to dispose of the body.

After dawdling well past the half-way mark with this sort of thing, ‘Draguse..’ then makes a belated attempt to transform itself into a kind of Amicus-style anthology movie, as Swinn turns up in a second role, playing a sort of “real life” avatar of Draguse.

Ostensibly a secretary who has been dispatched by Mathot’s publisher to help him get his shit together, this lady begins telling him erotic / macabre tales ostensibly based on the house’s sordid history, each of which is dramatised as a stand-alone vignette featuring Mathot as the male protagonist.

So, first we enjoy the ‘tale’ (if it can indeed be termed as such) of a stuffy tutor trysting with a hotpants-clad nymphet (Danièle Nègre). Then, we bear witness to a Nazisploitation-themed light bondage threesome, in which a Hitler-fixated photographer (Mathot again) lures a model (Claudine Beccarie, who appeared in the original version of ‘Lips of Blood’) back to his lair for some jackbooted hi-jinks with a dominatrix (French porno regular Erika Cool).

I could make a point of noting that everyone present in this scene (plus Swinn to boot) reunited two years later for Eurocine’s epic disasterpiece ‘Train Spécial pour SS’ (aka ‘Special Train for Hitler’)… but to be honest, material like this was so ubiquitous in the lower depths of Western European exploitation cinema during this era that you’d almost be surprised if a film featuring Mathot and Swinn didn’t include somebody busting out the swastikas and riding crops at some point.

(A special mention should probably be made however of the fact that, once several Nazi marching songs have been aired on the gramophone, the reminder of the scene is soundtracked with what sounds like a recording of chugging train carriages. Tasteful.)

Anyway - by this point, any vestige of the witchy / horror aesthetic featured in ‘Draguse’s opening scenes is long gone, and sadly it never really returns. Towards the end of the film, there’s even a suggestion that the ‘real life’ Draguse (the secretary lady) may have been spiking Mathot’s drinks, causing him to hallucinate, thus conveniently nixing the film’s supernatural element altogether. (Given that secretary-Swinn doesn’t even turn up until two thirds of the way through the movie, this explanation …. well, hell, it makes about as much sense as anything else here I suppose…)

Whilst ‘Draguse’ is eventually a bit of a bust in terms of horror, it should be noted that it is equally unsatisfactory as a sex film, in spite of all the kinky shenanigans outlined above.

Attaining modest historical significance as the first domestic French production to be awarded the country’s ‘X’ certificate (meaning that it could be legally screened with unsimulated sex scenes), the film nonetheless continues to inhabit an uncomfortable no man’s land between ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ cores.

A few, fleeting moments of explicit ‘action’ are included, but the film still largely relies on simulated coupling, often confined to long shots and lacking the artful/imaginative approach which allowed directors like Franco to liven up such ‘hard soft’ material in this period. (And yes, I’m going for a record for “most references to Jess Franco in a non-Franco review” here - thanks for noticing.)

This problem is exacerbated by the fact that the middle-aged Mathot - who ostensibly takes part in every sex scene - did not ‘do’ hardcore, meaning that an obvious body double is employed for his sporadic full frontal / below the belt shots. Disastrously however, it appears that even Mathot’s allotted stunt-cock had trouble performing, lending the film’s sex scenes an awkward, fragmentary quality which somehow feels far more furtive and unsavoury than the, uh, ‘natural flow’, shall we say, of the full-on pornography which would come to dominate low budget French film production over the next few years.

Despite the fact that it conspicuously fails in pretty much everything it set out to achieve however, I must confess that - for some peculiar reason - I found ‘Draguse ou Le Manoir Infernal’ both exceptionally charming and hugely enjoyable.

I’m not sure I can quite explain why this is the case. Perhaps it was watching those Jean Rollin softcore movies all those years ago which warped my brain, or perhaps my recent enthusiasm for the films of Michel Lemoine has something to do with it [see my write-up on his ‘Les Désaxées’ here], but I just love the wonky, off-kilter, frankly ridiculous world in which these pre-hardcore French erotic films take place.

Even in a frankly shabby, low budget effort like this, it just all feels like so much fun; it’s all so inherently, casually surrealistic, full of bright, comic book-like colours and weird, canned music, interspersed with time-killing scenes in which characters sit in outdoor cafes or on patios, sipping white wine and having earnest conversations about utterly irrelevant topics.

In this particular instance, Patrice Rhomm directs with such a hap-hazard, “eh, what the hell” type disregard for narrative and cinematic logic - never mind the expectations of his chosen genres - that this strange effect is only intensified, adding an “anything could happen next, and WE DON’T PARTICULARLY CARE if it does” type insouciance to proceedings which I can’t help but get a kick out of.

So, the next time a furtive man approaches you in the park to ask whether you’d like to go back to his country house and have sex with a spectral witch, why not consider putting your finer feelings aside, and simply replying “well, I’m not doing anything else this afternoon, so, eh, why not?” Then finish off your unfiltered gitane, pull on your fringed velvet jacket and shuffle off after him…. as long as the funky harpsichord plays, you’ll be just fine.

Horror Express 2020 #3: Escalofrío / ‘Satan’s Blood’ (Carlos Puerto, 1978)

Seemingly one of the first Spanish horror films to take advantage of the “S” (for ‘sex’) certificate introduced to the country’s ratings system as part of the easing of censorship which accompanied the collapse of the Franco regime in the late 1970s, this out-of-nowhere devil worship shocker (Juan Piquer Simón of ‘Slugs’ and ‘Pieces’ infamy takes a production credit, director Puerto had previously helmed Paul Naschy’s little-known political thriller ‘El Francotirador’ [‘The Sniper’]) charmingly opens with a few minutes of run-time padding mondo type business.

First up, a purported professor of parapsychological matters delivers some generic blather vis-à-vis the dangers that dabbling with the forces of darkness continues to pose in our contemporary world. His brief lecture is interspersed with close-ups of illustrations from the same coffee table witchcraft book which will later turn up as a prop in the main body of the film, which amusingly results in an inadvertent guest appearance from the ubiquitous Alex and Maxine Sanders (last glimpsed around these parts when we looked at ‘Legend of the Witches’ (1970) and ‘Secret Rites’ (1971) last year).

This leads into a decidedly sleazy studio recreation of a generic black mass / virgin sacrifice type scenario, which succeeds admirably in demonstrating what I think we can probably all agree is the true function of The Black Arts within modern society – namely, giving creepy bearded men an opportunity to publically molest impressionable young women, often to the accompaniment of dissonant synthesizer music.

After that’s all over and done with, we finally open the movie proper and are introduced to our protagonists, Andrés and Ana (José María Guillén and Mariana Karr), a glumly average young couple who live happily in a pokey Madrid flat with their German Shepard, Blackie (no racial connotation intended there, let’s hope).

Although a night of dancing and drinking is out of the question for the couple (Ana is four months pregnant), they nonetheless decide to cheer themselves up with a night on the town, and so, after taking in a first run screening of ‘Star Wars’ (check out that marquee!), find themselves aimlessly driving around the city, with Blackie ensconced in the back seat.

Little do they realise however that this leaves them in a perfect state of receptive boredom to be hailed down by Bruno (Ángel Aranda, a one-time peplum regular who horror fans might recognise from ‘Planet of the Vampires’ (1965) or ‘A Dragonfly for Each Corpse’(1975)), a well-dressed playboy type who claims he was Andrés’ friend back in his school days, even though he looks considerably older than Andrés, who doesn’t remember him at all.

Exuberantly friendly, as is the want of OBVIOUS SATANIST SWINGERS, Bruno and his wife Berta (Sandra Alberti) invite Andrés and Ana back to their place to celebrate their ‘reunion’, and, having nothing better to do, our protagonists acquiesce – only to reconsider when, an hour’s drive into the countryside later, they find themselves traversing the kind of foreboding, overcast rural hellhole in which José Ramón Larraz would probably have chosen to shoot a movie.

Many of us no doubt have taken the decision to get the hell out of dodge as soon as we saw Luis Barboo – a towering actor who played muscleman/heavy roles in a number of early ‘70s Jess Franco films – clad in a full length cloak, opening the gates to the Bruno & Berta’s modest country estate. But, unfortunately, Andrés and Ana are as feckless and easily-led as they come – doe-eyed rabbits in the murky headlights of their hosts’ nefarious intentions.

The scenes which follow discomfort us less through means of outright horror, and more just through a sense of acute social awkwardness, as we are forced to contemplate our own likely responses, should be find ourselves guests in the home of a pair of over-friendly strangers who keep blatantly lying to us, in between fingering occult paraphernalia and asking questions of the “do you believe, in the power of the mind?” variety.

Things get even more uncomfortable once the hosts declare that it’s time to get the ouija board out (actually, they have a swanky, specially engraved ouija table for the occasion), prompting a series of unsettling declarations from the spirit world which prompt Bruno and Berta to start sniping at each other about their shared history of suicide attempts.

It’s certainly hellish alright, but more in a Chris Morris/Alan Partridge vein than a Bava/Fulci one for the most part - although, did I mention the bit where Ana walks in on Berta in the kitchen and funds her chowing down on a dog’s bowl full of gory, unidentified offal? Not a good sign.

Again, I’m sure even the most timid amongst us would be WELL ON OUR WAY HOME by this point, flimsy “you’ll never manage to find the roads in this bad weather” excuses or no. But, Andrés and Ana are not like you and I, so we soon find them sitting expressionless in the guest bedroom, awaiting whatever other atrocities the night has in store. (Well, actually they take a bath together – presumably just because there’s not been any nudity on screen for quite a while at this point. There’s not much water in the tub, and it looks freezing.)

The closest thing ‘Satan’s Blood’ offers to a shit-just-got-real moment follows, as Ana’s attempt to enjoy some classic, gothic horror style nocturnal nightgown peregrinations is rudely interrupted by the creepy, hobo-type guy who has been hanging around the house’s kitchens for reasons which are never adequately explained. A jarring attempted rape scene ensues, which seemingly proves enough to rouse even Andrés from his complacency. Setting off together to confront their hosts vis-à-vis the perennial issue of just-what-the-heck-is-going-on-around-here, the couple find Bruno and Berta sitting naked within the pentagram etched into the floor of their living room, backed by a roaring fire!

Apparently entranced by a potent combination of low key lighting and ragin’ psychedelic library cues, Andrés and Ana promptly forget their grievances, doff their dressing gowns, and move forward to partake in ‘Satan’s Blood’s most elaborate, set-piece sequence – a languorous, four-way softcore Satanic orgy.

Heavy on the super-imposed cross-fades and overdubbed moanin’ and groanin’, this scene achieves a fairly epic duration, but sadly misses the ‘erotic’ bullseye by quite some distance, instead prefiguring the “this is merely somewhat distasteful” hard-body simulated sex approach later taken to unsavoury extremes by Larraz’s similarly themed ‘Black Candles’ (‘Los Ritos Sexuales del Diablo’, 1982).

In moments like this, ‘Satan’s Blood’ (or ‘Escalofrío’ [roughly: ‘Shudder’ or ‘Shiver’], as it was originally billed for Spanish audiences) seems to be aspiring to the kind of decadent, libidinous delirium which characterised Euro-horror’s “Erotic Castle Movie” wave of the early 1970s. Even just a few short years down the line though, that kind of oneiric eroticism already seems to belong to another world - a half-remembered dream, impossible to recapture.

It’s as if, in the second half of the decade, somebody turned the overhead lights on, doused the fire and poured the the last few trickles of J&B down the sink. By this point, horror films across globe had (for better or for worse) become nasty, squalid and mean, and this film’s intermittent attempts to swim against the tide prove woefully ineffectual.

As the remnants of gothic cliché fade into obsolescence, the Satanists’ glitzy accoutrements merely seem tacky and gauche, whilst the ever-more-feral demands of the horror audience instead demand that we’re confronted with dead dogs, steaming bowls of offal and hobo rapists, all arrayed across grimy linoleum floors. Instead of being deliciously disorientating meanwhile, the fact that nobody at any point does anything that makes sense merely seems annoying.

In short, everything in ‘Satan’s Blood’ looks cold, uninviting and shabby. Rather than abandoning themselves to a life of amoral sensory indulgence when they awaken the next morning, our characters proceed about their glum business as if the previous evening’s gruelling shag-fest had never happened - which I’ll choose to read as a presumably realistic portrayal of the embarrassing aftermath of unplanned group sex, rather than just the result of the producers shoehorning the sex scene into the film late in production to up the exploitation factor.

Ana is back in her frumpy jumper, complaining that Berta (confined to bed as a result of the night’s ceremonial exertions) needs to see a doctor, and the familiar, anxious ballet of we-need-to-get-going / oh-no-our-car-won’t-start / why-don't you-stay-for-lunch proceeds apace, until the flagging narrative eventually tries to retool itself as a kind of cracked murder mystery / walking corpses “but-we-saw-you-you-were-dead” type effort.

Viewed from the other side of the mirror however, there are a few aspects of ‘Satan’s Blood’ which stand out as noteworthy within the Pete-Walker-triumphant canon of grim, post ‘75 European horror. In particular, I appreciated the way that, in stark contrast to the hoary old tradition of pulp devil worship yarns, the Satanist couple here are gradually revealed to be disturbed, ineffectual and rather pathetic individuals, locked into some kind of self-destructive, co-dependant mania.

A far cry from the high-handed, baronial masterminds of a Dennis Wheatley novel, they are basically just desperately unhappy neurotics in search of some kind of power and fulfilment – a malign flipside of the emotionally neutered boredom evinced by our ‘innocent’, mainstream protagonists.

Though underexplored here, this attempt to deflate the pomposity of evil takes us all the way back to Val Lewton’s ‘The Seventh Victim’ (1943), even though it is entirely undermined by the film’s rather desperate decision to try to transform itself into a ten-years-late ‘Rosemary’s Baby’ rip-off in its final act, introducing an omniscient societal conspiracy angle, which… makes about as much sense as any of the other slackly scripted rubbish our unfortunate hero and heroine have to contend with over the course of this motion picture, I suppose. Poor bunnies.

Striking an uneasy balance between the transcendental and mundane strands of ‘70s occult horror, ‘Satan’s Blood’ ultimately succeeds at neither, but if you find yourself in the mood for a prime slice of chilly and mean-spirited late ‘70s witch-smut (and don’t we all, once in a while), it should nonetheless hit the spot pretty satisfactorily, sitting comfortably next to such grubby items as Killer’s Moon or Mario Mercier’s ‘La Papesse’ / ‘A Woman Possessed’ (which I briefly wrote about in this post), more-so than the earlier, more ethereal takes on the sub-genre suggested by its storyline.

October Horrors # 12: A Flipside Halloween with ‘Legend ofthe Witches’ (1970), ‘Secret Rites’ (1971) & More.

Back in the halcyon days of 2009-11ish, I was a regular attendee at the monthly ‘Flipside’ screenings which took place at the National Film Theatre / BFI Southbank here in London, organised in support of the BFI’s then flourishing DVD/Blu-Ray imprint of the same name. Bearing witness to the assorted oddities unearthed from the archives by curators Vic Pratt and William Fowler was always a joy and a privilege, to the extent that I pretty much bought my tickets blind, confident that whatever they came up with would prove both surprising and rewarding, even if it was something I would never have voluntarily signed up for in any other circumstances (a Q&A with the late Michael Winner springs to mind).

Naturally, I was sad to see the ‘Flipside’ slot gradually muscled out of the BFI’s schedule, presumably to make way for no-doubt-more-lucrative extra screenings of whichever restored Kubrick epic was currently doing the rounds (or, perhaps it was the decision, apropos of nothing, to screen the largely unheralded 1982 post-apocalyptic movie ‘Battle Truck’ with the director in attendance which proved the final straw for the accounts department, who knows).

The absolute highlight on the Flipside calendar of course was the programmes of shorts, TV episodes and documentaries which Pratt & Fowler used to pull together for Halloween (you can read my thoughts on the 2010 Halloween special here) and it has been a joy and a privilege this month to be able to relive the spirit of those strange evenings in my own home, as the Flipside label has risen from its slumber and produced a shiny new release which pretty much exemplifies the kind of thing which used to pop up at those October screenings.

Beginning with our feature presentation for the evening, Malcolm Leigh’s 1970 documentary Legend of the Witches opens in surprisingly meditative fashion, with a near ten minute sequence of uninterrupted nature footage. In what certainly seems like a boldly experimental gambit for a film which saw its only theatrical exhibition as a supporting feature for ‘Not Tonight, Darling’ aka ‘Sex in the Suburbs’ (Anthony Sloman, 1971), we see seaweed ebbing and flowing on the tide in a manner that I’d be tempted to tag as a tribute to Tarkovsky but for the fact that he had not actually made ‘Solaris’ yet at this point, reeds and branches swaying in the breeze, and a sunrise presented in real time.

(For some reason, Leigh and “lighting cameraman” Robert Webb seem to have had a particular yen for this kind of ambient / landscape footage, inserting seascapes, cliff faces and foliage throughout the film. Even when visiting a haunted house, the camera seems more concerned with the peacocks in the garden and the grain of wood on the staircase than the supposedly spooky goings-on.) (1)

Over this opening footage, our stentorian-yet-faintly-ironic narrator Guy Standeven intones what purports to be the “creation myth of the witches”, involving a tryst between the moon goddess Diana and Lucifer the light-bringer, representing a union between the feminine/lunar and masculine/solar ideals. (2)

Under the circumstances, this yarn does a pretty good job of sounding authentically old-as-the-hills, supporting the film’s contention that modern witchcraft has risen organically from the natural world and the impossibly ancient worship thereof. In reality however, this “creation myth” was likely knocked up from scratch by the film’s ostensible star, self-styled ‘King of the Witches’ Alex Sanders, and the references to the Greco-Roman Diana and the Christian figure of Lucifer will no doubt have already made the blood of any Wiccan purists in the audience start to boil.

We’re on safer ground though as we join Sanders’ skyclad coven (or at least, the younger and more photogenic members thereof, I suspect) as they circle their ceremonial fire in some suitably remote and inaccessible deep forest clearing, undertaking a series of elemental initiation rites for a new member.

Chances are, if you’re familiar with Sanders’ name, you probably know him in his capacity as a media / showbiz fixture, a relentless self-promoter and, arguably, an out-right charlatan. Here at least though, Leigh & Webb’s striking, high contrast black & white photography and solemn, naturalistic pacing succeeds in imbuing Sanders’ rites with a degree of dignity and gravitas, framing the coven’s matter-of-fact nudity in a way that often seems closer to Francis Bacon-style anatomical expressionism than yr common-or-garden exploitation.

After quite a lot of this, we veer into slightly more routine paranormal documentary territory, as Standeven essentially delivers a lecture on the early Christian church’s tendency to incorporate pagan tradition into their architecture and practice, and a sympathetic, Margaret Murray-ish take on the subsequent persecution of ‘the old religion’, all illustrated with visits to some churches and standing stones, medieval woodcuts, an examination of the weirder goings-on in the Bayeux Tapestry, and so forth.

This all leads up to a second staged ritual, which will no doubt have those hypothetical Wiccans spitting horse feathers, as Sanders and his wife Maxine are seen conducting a quote-unquote ‘black mass’, complete with full Xtian paraphernalia – looming crucifix, altar boys, sacred host and ecclesiastical music on the soundtrack. Presumably dreamed up in order to add a frisson of blasphemy to proceedings, this sequence ends like some Ken Russell wet dream, with Alex apparently instigating a menage-a-trois with two naked ladies inside the magic(k) circle. Good heavens.

Next up, we get an intriguing tour of the Museum of Witchcraft and Magic in Boscastle, on the north coast of Cornwall. It’s still there today, and I have long wished to pay it a visit, although my failure to persuade anyone to drive me there has thus far stymied that ambition. I mean, I’m sure they must have changed things around a bit in the past half century, but on the basis of what we see here, it looks pretty amazing.

This transitions into another staged ritual, in which – extraordinarily, given that they were supposedly aiming to popularise and win respect for their beliefs – we see Sanders and his followers demonstrating the rites through which a coven might place a death curse on an enemy. This also incorporates a strong sexual element, as Alex and Maxine again put on a bit of a show for the camera, enacting the simulated conception and “birth” of the curse object.

Thus far, ‘Legend of the Witches’ has served up an odd mixture of sombre, moody atmospherics and increasingly questionable content, but happily, the film’s final stretch is by far the most entertaining, committing fully to the cause of wonderful, silly-ass nonsense.

For no particular reason, we ditch witchcraft for a while, and instead visit a haunted house (I’m currently unable to identify which one). Here, a mod-ishly dressed young lady is left alone to shiver in “the most haunted room” whilst – in a development guaranteed to produce rapturous excitement for those of us with a fetish for vintage audio equipment and/or The Stone Tape – a team of paranormal investigators begin hauling their elaborate electronic gear up the stairs!

I’m pretty sure this stuff was all staged for the film (the ‘psychic’ girl in the haunted room re-appears in later scenes, still wearing the same outfit), but it’s still great fun.

Rather than waiting for a conclusion to this paranormal stake-out, the film soon changes course again to take in psychic phenomena and, uh, electronically-induced hypnotism? Yes, there are whirring oscillators, “stroboscopes” and a big ol’ hypno-wheel on the wall, as we are invited to note the similarities between “traditional “and “modern” means of generating a trance state, leading us directly into the film’s big finale, in which all pretence of documentary realism is merrily discarded in favour of a wild, studio-bound happening (ostensibly the preparation for a scrying ritual) which feels like a cross between an early Velvet Underground photo-shoot, an outtake from ‘The Devil Rides Out’ and a Jess Franco night club scene.

Everything but the kitchen sink is thrown in here, as we get a giant hypno-wheel projection, a guy wearing a goat mask, several naked girls, Alex Sanders (I think) turning up in an owl mask, ceremonial whipping and light bondage, clouds of incense, strobe lighting, and even a soundtrack of ragin’ sitar music (because there’s no better way to get your psychedelic witchcraft party started than with some totally random cultural misappropriation). Speaking with what I hope is the authority befitting a connoisseur of this sort of thing, I declare it to be absolutely amazing. Wow.

Moving on the Flipside disc’s second billed attraction, we find Secret Rites, a 50-minute item directed by sometime horror scriptwriter and notorious sexploitation maverick Derek Ford. Originally released as a supporting feature for Ford’s ‘Suburban Wives’ in 1972, we find ourselves presented here with a case study in how two films dealing with exactly the same topic, made at roughly the same time, with the same central participants, can be entirely different from each other.

Once again, Alex Sanders takes centre stage, but he and his coven seem to have left the neo-primitive rural environs depicted in ‘Legend of the Witches’ far behind, instead heading straight for the heart of London’s swingin’ scene and the urban sprawl of Notting Hill Gate. Their rituals are now a riot of tinfoil, black candles, theatrical make up, big moth-eaten goat heads and costumes from the psychedelic dressing up box, and are now staged in what looks like a cramped subterranean night club done up to resemble a faux-medieval dungeon, all captured by Ford’s camera in blazing, over-saturated faux-technicolor.

A queasy mixture of ‘fact’ and fiction, the flimsy narrative around which ‘Secret Rites’ is constructed concerns Penny Beecham, a real life model and actress who went on to become a regular on ‘70s TV, appearing in ‘dollybird’ roles in ‘Up Pompeii’ and ‘The Morecombe & Wise Show’. Confusingly, Beecham uses her real name in the film, despite the fact that she seems to be playing the role of a fictional trainee hairdresser who, having “always been fascinated by the occult,” has decided to get herself hitched up to the nearest witch cult.

(Note the poster for Harry Kumel’s ‘Daughters of Darkness’ visible on the tube station wall in the screen-grab above.)

Venturing into the patchouli-drenched bohemian hinterland of Notting Hill, Penny meets Alex and Maxine Sanders down the pub to discuss the possibility of her initiation into their order.

It’s the little details that can make a big impression in things like this, and, whilst Alex was droning on in his drowsy Mancunian tones about how much hard work it is learning to be a witch (lots of reading, lots of study, he keeps stressing, they don’t just spend all their time horsing around in the nude, he’ll have you know), I couldn’t help noticing that the couple both seem to have been enjoying half pints of a rather tasty-looking ale served in stemmed glasses, whilst Alex has his fags and his wallet set out on the table in front of him, like a seasoned man-about-town. Somehow, I found myself entranced by this curious mixture of pious new age esotericism and down to earth ‘70s masculinity (and Maxine’s paisley-patterned dress is a knock-out too).

After this, most of the rest of the film consists of kinky rites in the groovy day-glo cellar, in which the remnants of respectably sincere pagan practice (the ‘hand-fasting’ marriage ceremony for instance) find themselves napalmed by a retina-scorching aesthetic of fancy dress pop-porno psychedelic excess, culminating in the “rarely witnessed and never before photographed” Invocation of Ra, whose gold-foil bedecked explosion of high camp Egyptology must be seen to be believed.

Sanders, during his interminable invocations, even makes reference at one point to “the Terrible Domain of the Dread Lords of the Outer Spaces”, which seems pretty way out there, even by his standards. Perhaps some of those Ladbroke Grove Hawkwind/Moorcock type vibes had been rubbing off on him whilst he was down the pub?

Those in a position to know about such things have noted that Sanders’ “coven” seems to have had its numbers boosted on this occasion by at least some performers who also appeared in the harder sex films and illicit porno loops which Ford was producing during this period, and indeed, rumours persist that a ‘harder’ cut of ‘Secret Rites’ may have been prepared for the export market (perhaps explaining the awkward 50 minute running time of the version which made it into UK cinemas). No one involved in the BFI release seems to have been able to verify the truth of this however, so who knows.

Also of note in ‘Secret Rites’ is the soundtrack, which, perfectly in keeping with the film’s visuals, comprises a way-out smorgasbord of ominous, effects-drenched psychedelic jamming, credited to an otherwise unknown outfit identified as ‘The Spindle’. No one seems to have been able to ascertain the provenance of this music, or to identify any of the players involved, but writer Rob Young puts forward a pretty intriguing theory in the booklet accompanying the BFI disc.

And…. that’s about all I can think to say about ‘Secret Rites’, really. Suffice to say, it is essential viewing for… well, I mean, I hesitate to say everyone, but if you’re still reading this post by this point, then suffice to say, you’ve found a perfect little number to project onto the wall during your next occult-themed drug orgy, at the very least.

This being a Flipside release of course, the fun doesn’t end there, and my top pick from additional shorts included on this disc is – joy of joys – another episode of Out of Step, a series of short programmes which essentially seem to function as a more stridently judgemental 1950s version of a Louis Theroux type thing, in which presenter Dan Farson – yes, the same nephew of Bram Stoker and “charismatic Soho bon vivant” who later turned up in the wonderful BBC documentary The Dracula Business in 1974, no less! – tracks down some quote-unquote “oddballs” and basically bothers them about their unusual beliefs.

Farson’s witchcraft episode – broadcast in 1957 -may not achieve quite the same level of hilarity as his UFO one (which I briefly wrote about here), but he certainly managed to assemble an impressive line-up of interviewees, speaking first to the 92-year-old Dr Margaret Murray, whose 1921 book ‘The Witch-Cult in Western Europe’ played a pivotal role in establishing the more sympathetic narrative surrounding historical witchcraft which developed through the 20th century.

(Brilliantly, a note in the booklet accompanying this set reports that Farson had to re-shoot his ‘question shots’ for this segment of the programme in the studio, because he’d been involved in a drunken brawl the night before the Murray interview took place, and was nursing a black eye.)

Still an alert and engaging speaker at her advanced age, Dr Murray’s responses to Farson’s demand to know whether witches “actually have special powers” are non-committal, but he gets a far firmer statement of belief from Gerald Gardner, the man who essentially established modern Wiccan practice in the UK during the 1950s.

Definitely a card-carrying oddball, Gardner was living at the time in an abandoned mill in Castletown on the Isle of Man, surrounded by crudely carved magical effigies. Worryingly, he regales Farson with a tale about how he and his fellow witches successfully placed a curse on an unscrupulous property developer, and he also begins cackling devilishly when Farson broaches the subject of nudity. Let’s just say that I’d advise any residents of the Isle of Man who happen to be reading in the 1950s to keep their daughters well away from that there old mill.

Farson’s final guest meanwhile is Louis Wilkinson, an intimate friend and literary executor of Aleister Crowley. Unhelpfully from the point of view of a witchcraft documentary, Wilkinson claims that he was chiefly interested in Crowley’s talents as a wit and raconteur, and largely ignored all that magickal hoo-doo he got up to (which strikes me as being rather like claiming that you were friends with Joseph Goebbels because you liked his cooking and his singing voice, but never really paid attention to all that political stuff - but whatever).

Nonetheless, Wilkinson comes through with some great anecdotes about the control Crowley exercised over his disciples, and about the conduct of his followers during his memorial service – and, as with just about all stories concerning Crowley’s extraordinary life and conduct, it’s interesting stuff to say the least.

Next up, I turned my attention to another of the disc’s extras - Getting it Straight in Notting Hill Gate, a rather hap-hazard but still fascinating short film which takes a look at the same West London counter-cultural milieu from which ‘Secret Rites’ arose, presumably shot and directed by some proud denizens thereof.

I’ll skip over this one quickly, as it’s a bit off-message re: our Halloween/horror theme, but it should certainly prove enthralling viewing for anyone familiar with the Notting Hill area, as rambling, handheld street footage takes us through the Portobello / Ladbroke Grove area in all its post-psychedelic squalor and post-windrush finery, wringing a few moments of “Oh, it’s THAT place” type excitement even from me, and I barely ever visit that part of town.

Highlights include Caroline Coon of the influential legal rights organisation ‘Release’ interviewed (next door to the offices of Oz magazine, no less) by a young hipster going by the unlikely handle of Felix Scorpio, a visit to the flat of psychedelic artist Larry Smart (whose work looks genuinely mind-blowing – definitely worthy of further investigation), and a lengthy jam session from the band Quintessence, who we see laying down some seriously funky flute and guitar-led gear in their practice space in All Saints Church, improvising around the local anthem which gave this film it’s name. Oh, and there’s a bloke playing a sitar on a rooftop too. Top stuff.

All that, and this Flipside release still has more to offer; there’s a cine-poetic tribute to William Blake based around footage of contemporary London, directed by Robert Wynne Simmons, who wrote the script for ‘Blood On Satan’s Claw’, and a 1924 silent short entitled ‘The Witch’s Fiddle’, produced by the Cambridge University Kinema Club and utilising the talents of a bunch of keen young chaps who seemingly all went on to live lives which sound like the plots of Eric Ambler novels.

I haven’t even had a chance to watch those at the time of writing…. too much, man. Needless to say, we’re looking here at a wonderfully researched, beautifully restored and incredibly generous package of tantalising glimpses into the stranger and more marginal corners of British cinema, fascinating cross-cultural connections sparking off each of them like some out-of-control generator. Fantastic work from all concerned, and here’s hoping it opens the metaphorical floodgates for more collections of shorts, documentaries and suchlike under the Flipside banner.

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(1) Unfortunately, IMDB credits for the Robert Webb who worked on ‘Legend of the Witches’ seem to have been garbled with those of the American director of the same name, but I’m assuming THIS Robert Webb was probably the one who worked on music hall documentary ‘A Little of What You Fancy’ (1968) – co-directing with Michael Winner, funnily enough – and directed a short film entitled ‘Dancing Shoes’ (1969), before dropping out of sight..?

(2)Though it seems he rarely had the chance to give his voice much of a work out on-screen, Guy Standeven is notable for appearing uncredited in the background in just about every film ever made. Nice work if you can get it!

Random Paperbacks:The Inquisitor: Last Rites For The Vulture by Simon Quinn (Dell, 1975)

Until I randomly pulled this one off the shelf in a branch of Oxfam last weekend, I was entirely unfamiliar with Dell’s ‘Inquisitor’ series of books. Nonetheless, regular readers will appreciate that it took all of 0.5 seconds for me to decide that it was coming home with me, even if I had to fight someone for the privilege of ownership. (Thankfully I didn’t.)

Reading the back & interior cover blurb as I queued at the counter to pay made me all the more excited to get stuck into the extraordinary bit of gutter pulp lunacy I had apparently unearthed, but, I’m sad to report, a quick skim read on the bus home proved slightly underwhelming.

Despite the blatant horror / witch-smut come-ons of the cover and the papal evil-hunting nature of it’s protagonist, ‘Last Rites of the Vulture’ is a more or less generic globe-trotting, Bond-esque action adventure story, very much in line with other mid/late ‘70s ‘action’ series like the ‘Enforcer’ or ‘Destroyer’ books. There are plentiful exotic locales, daring crimes, gratuitous pop history info-dumps and cartoon tough guy antics... but very little hint of any supernatural/ or occult elements, insofar as I could tell. Oh well.

Then again though, it certainly has its moments. The following extract comes from chapter # 7:

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“She sat up while he pushed on the door. It didn’t occur to him that they could simply dive off the trunk. As soon as he did manage to shove the door open, fifty pounds of water rushed in, and a dark form seized his pants. Killy pulled the door tight and pulled his leg back as far as he could.

‘It’s a shark, isn’t it?’ he asked Alexandra with disgust.

‘Yes.’ She squinted into the water. ‘The whole place is full of them, especially in the cannery when they dump the fish tails. They’ve probably been circling us ever since we landed.’

‘Jesus Christ, sex on the brain, and a shark on my leg.’

‘You’re lucky, he’s a small one, push him out.’

‘You push him out.’

‘He’s your shark.’

‘Look, get the bottle. We didn’t lose the bottle, did we?’

She fished the tequila bottle from the back, carefully making sure the cap was tight.

‘Oh good’ – he applauded her – ‘we don’t want to lose any of that.’

The thing on his leg began wrestling with his pants. Its head came out of the water, showing a saucer-shaped mouth full of teeth and eyes on long gray bars that extended from the head.

‘Great, a hammerhead shark. How the hell do you push a hammerhead shark out a car door?’

‘Hit him between the eyes. That shouldn’t be so hard,’ she giggled.

He pulled his leg up. He hit his ankle first, but his second swing scored where Alexandra had suggested. As soon as his leg was free, Killy grabbed her and rolled over the seat in to the back of the car.

‘I thought you were going to throw him out,’ she complained.

‘He wants to come in, let him come in.’

‘Oh well, the tide’ll go out in the morning. We’re stuck here until then.’

‘We’re not stuck, I saved the bottle.’

She sighed, smiled, and opened her arms for him.”

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Shortly thereafter, Chapter # 9 begins with the sentence “He woke up still inside her.”.

There are no words.

A few seconds of googling reveals that ‘Simon Quinn’ was a pseudonym of American writer Martin Cruz Smith, who went on to slightly more legitimate acclaim after his novel ‘Gorky Park’ was published in 1981. Be warned: trying to square the inebriated, shark-punching mayhem outlined above with the photo on the author’s wikipedia page is quite a trip.

Bande Dessinée Adulte.

Not much  going on here beyond a glorified link post with some pilfered images I’m afraid, but, since I no longer ‘do’ tumblr, I thought this might be a good space in which to share a link to this wonderful collection of scanned French (or Italian-translated-into-French?) fumetti covers that I discovered earlier today. (Tip-off via Monster Brains.)

Though I’m often fairly ambivalent about their contents, I absolutely love the hyper-sleazoid, ultra-pulp painted covers on these ‘70s/’80s fumetti, and a few favourites I’ve discovered through the aforementioned site are displayed above. Well, a few of the more tasteful ones anyway, because I’m still at least trying to keep things family-friendly ‘round here, goddamnit. Or PG-13 rated, at least. So, ‘15’ in the UK I suppose, or… well NOTHING BELOW THE WAIST anyway, that’s all I’m sayin’. (Mops brow with handkerchief and looks pensive.)

(Also quite interesting is this link, from the same site, which rather exhaustively chronicles instances in which imagery on these covers was ripped off from movie posters, stills, magazine photos, porn and, well, yeah - mostly porn, to be honest…)