If you were to attempt to make a gripping drama about the day-to-day struggles that come with living at an SS run concentration camp during the Great Patriotic War, how would you start things off? Some might open on a small patch of flowers flourishing next to an electrified fence–you know, try to capture the dichotomy between the beauty of nature and the scourge that is manufactured oppression. Others might cut to the chase and opt for a closeup shot of a swastika flag gently flapping in the midday sun. Well, the director of the justifiably infamous Ilsa: She Wolf of the SS doesn't care what you think, as he has decided that a side view shot of some mild commandant straddling followed by some not-so mild castration is the best way kick off your concentration camp movie. Right then and there, you know this film isn't going to about illuminating the populace about the ills of Nazism, a discredited movement whose sole appeal was that they had cooler uniforms than their drab enemies. Particularly Karl Diebitsch and Walter Heck's all-black SS uniform, manufactured by Hugo Boss. Utilizing the well-worn: titillate then repulse method of exploitation filmmaking, director Don Edmonds (Tender Loving Care) seems to revel in causing your aroused feelings to quickly turn into one's of revulsion and disgust. Having us cheering on a man's genitals to plunge as far as they can vaginally go one minute, only to have us wincing uncontrollably a mere ten seconds later when those very genitals are unceremoniously removed without even as much as a half-hearted auf Wiedersehen was a tad jarring.
If you enjoy watching men being tortured by female Nazis–and who doesn't?–you better savour the first five minutes, because after that you won't see any men harmed until at least the film's chaotic coda (throats are slit, necks are garrotted). No, this particular camp, Medical Camp #9, is all about performing gruesome experiments on young women. The camp commandant (the mild straddler I alluded to earlier), a stern lass named Ilsa (Dyanne Thorne), wants to help the Third Reich by making its soldiers become more resilient. And if that means employing maggots (mealworms), infectious diseases, pressurized chambers, scalding hot water and electrified dildos, than so be it (you gotta support the Wehrmacht).
A new shipment of ladies arrives at the camp, and you can tell immediately that Ilsa doesn't like Anna (Maria Marx) and Rosette (Jacqueline Giroux). The latter is merely an annoyance, in that she seems to ask way too many questions. It's the former who gets Ilsa's panzer panties all in a twist. You could sense the tension between then when they first meet. The way Anna stood naked before her, proudly displaying her no-nonsense breasts and bulbous pubic region seemed to irk Ilsa (the others sheepishly attempted to shield those particular areas with a balled up clump of their ratty clothes). However, the fact she won't satisfy the shapely commandant's perverted desire to hear her subjects scream whenever she would violently poke and prod them is what really puts Anna's organic structure in danger.
Realizing that their days as relatively attractive women with all their limbs are numbered, Anna and Rosette try to get a revolt going. Only problem being all their bunkmate's are all showing the signs of having resided at a concentration camp where medical experiments and gang rape are not only commonplace, they're in the brochure. (Medical Camp #9: "Come for the syphilis, stay for the sexual humiliation."). In other, less offensive words, they've been there way too long to be any sort of shape to help.
What these spunky gals need is a couple of strapping men. And wouldn't you know it, there are a bunch living in a dorm across the way. Employing prisoners of war and other riffraff to do menial work, the camp has a sizable number of non-Nazi men to choose from. The two Anna and Rosette convince to assist their cause are a dapper American newcomer named Wolfe (Gregory Knoph) and Mario (Tony Mumolo), a wily camp veteran.
If Mario has the demeanor of a man who has no testicles, well, that's because he doesn't have any testicles. His sole reason for helping the girls is based on his lack of testicles. In fact, almost every facet of his existence revolves around his missing testicles and exacting revenge on the person who removed them from their scrotal perch.
You see, while Ilsa loves to torture people for the sake of national security, she also loves cock. You could say it's her one true weakness, that, and an inability to say no to creepy Obergruppenführers when they inevitably ask her to expel urine on them. Her insatiable need to have an erect penis immersed inside the pure, reasonably unsullied confines of Aryan vag on a semi-regular basis is actually what leads to her downfall. She acquirers her daily allocation of cock from the ranks of the camp workers, and if their cock doesn't meet with her high standards (i.e. hump heartily until she achieves orgasm), she will instruct her black clad minions to haul you down to the lab, where she will personally take away your junk.
When Wolfe is eventually summed to stick his prick in Ilsa's shock-haired tissue box, Mario shoots him a "dude, your balls are so going to be in a jar by sunup" look. What Mario doesn't know is that Wolfe has a trick up his sleeve–his sleeve being his penis. As Ilsa points out, it's not exactly the largest rake in the tool shed–his rake being his penis. But as she soon finds out, its thrusting prowess is second to none. Craving its long lasting power like were an overly buttered piece of toast, Ilsa has become so captivated by Wolfe's unflappable shaft, that her dedication to sadism seems to waver over the course of the film. Actually, the opposite happens, as her desire to make Anna scream hits a fever pitch. Nevertheless, it's her obsession with Wolfe's steady member and Anna's plucky determination that cause the rebellion's plans to move forward at an accelerated pace.
I know what you're thinking. You mean to tell me, the fate of democracy depends on one man's ability to not shoot his goo inside a curvy blonde Nazi doctor in an expedient manner? Ridiculous as it sounds, Ilsa: She Wolf of the SS is all about postponing the ejection of seminal fluid. Simple as that. Anybody who tries to tell you otherwise has obviously chosen to approach the film from a perspective that is different than mine, and I respect that. But deep down they know I'm sort of right.
The off and on nature of Dyanne Thorne's German accent was, I wanna say, "adorable," but that doesn't feel right. Okay, how 'bout this: The manner in which Dyanne Thorne's German accent seemed to fluctuate from scene to scene was oddly endearing. Yeah, that'll work. To be fair, the only instance where I recall this actually happening occurred whenever she would say the word "Reich," as in the "Third Reich." At first, I noticed that she pronounced in the Anglo-American way. But then she started saying it the German way. It's as if her accent gradually got better as the film progressed.
As far as lady Nazi's go, Dyanne Thorne (Ilsa, Harem Keeper of the Oil Sheiks) isn't really my type. On top of being cruel, I like my lady Nazis to be card carrying members of the Itty Bitty Titty Committee (a.k.a.Winzig Brüstchen Ausschuss). Also, Ilsa's ample protrusions repeatedly hampered the symmetry of her fabulous SS uniform. Although, I thought the wide-eyed pride of Greenwich, Connecticut looked amazing whilst standing in front of a blood-spattered wall.
Is it possible for one to grow tired of female pubic hair? I didn't think it was humanly possible, but there were a few moments during this film where I actually thought to myself: "Someone get that poor woman a pair of pants. Her clit's gonna get hypothermia." But then again, it's pretty hard to electrocute a person's genitals if they're wearing pants.
The mayhem of the finale was an unbelievable mishmash of outdoor stabbings, stealthy strangulation, topless knife-wielding, pulsating arterial spray (thanks to makeup artist Joe Blasco), and bullet-ridden corpses. Some of the deaths, especially the one's performed by the guys who take their orders from an ex-poultry farmer/wannabe Mongolian, were wonderfully staged. It's the shame Ilsa and her female subordinates didn't wear skirts throughout the film, because that would have made things perfect. Yeah, that's right, perfect. Sure, the torture scenes are a bit much at times, there's no mention of Alfred Naujocks, and the camp seemed to lack guard dogs, but there's no denying that this film is a well-made piece of exploitative trash.
Oh, and just for the record, the skirts I would have chosen for the female Nazis would have been black with a smallish slit in the back. As far as length goes, I would say, oh, about ten centimetres above the knee. I think that would allow you to commit unspeakable atrocities and still look chic at the same time.
It is written somewhere that living in an inside world is different than living in an outside world. In the former, the events that take place mainly occur within the spacious confines of your own head. In other words, not much happens beyond the odd hallucination and the occasional parental disruption. Well, the complete opposite happens when faced with an outdoor existence, as your weather-beaten psyche is literally inundated with all kinds of newfangled stimuli. Sure, the hallucinations remain, but you will probably notice that they have expanded not only in scope, but also in terms of intensity (if you wear platform shoes, for example, they will seem larger than they really are). One particular individual meets this inside-outside culture shock criteria perfectly, and that is, Rubin in the delightfully off-kilter Rubin and Ed, a little film with big ideas about a man with a watermelon-eating cat named Simon and another man with substitute hair. Encompassing a wide birth of deep and meaningful topics, the film, written and directed by Trent Harris (Plan 10 from Outer Space), somehow manages to successfully bridge the gap between the absurd and the deranged. Announcing its charm almost immediately with the introduction of its playful music score (Fred Myrow), we learn that even a set of thick blue curtains, a stack of old newspapers and a boombox (one that sports the coveted "auto reverse" feature) can't shield you from the real world forever.
We all know what it's like to mourn the loss of a furry loved one. My black cat died at the ripe old age of seventeen and recall being quite shaken by the experience. It's true, I kept their remains unburied for longer than I should have, but my situation never got to the point where I found myself drinking the sweat that had accumulated in my platform shoe's insole after walking for hours in the arid, extra dry wilderness of Utah, a state located in the United States of America with the kind of skies that would even impress a fluffy cloud expert like Rickie Lee Jones.
The advantage the person mourning his dead kitty in this film has is refrigeration. In that, he can hold on to the idea that his four-legged pal is still around without having to worry about decomposition. Unfortunately, Rubin (Crispin Glover), the dead kitty person, is confronted by outside forces who unwittingly compel him to bury the deceased animal. It begins with his mother, who tells Rubin that he can't listen to Gustav Mahler (his late cat's favourite) and squeak the yellow rubber mouse (his late cat's favourite) until he leaves the house (or in this case, his hotel room) and makes a friend ("No friend, no music!"). However, it's ultimately a fella named Ed (Howard Hesseman) who puts the unorthodox burial adventure in motion after he knocks Simon out of the freezer ("Why don't you keep you hands off other people's refrigerators").
The odd pairing both have ulterior motives: Rubin wants Ed to come over and meet his mother (proving to her that he has in fact made a friend). Ed wants Rubin to attend a seminar run by the mysterious "The Organization," a self-help group (run by Michael Greene from To Live and Die in L.A.) for successful salespeople, in order to show Rula (Karen Black), his smoking hot wife, that he is not a total failure. With his mother awol, Ed agrees to help Rubin bury his cat in the desert. Sounds simple enough (lay cat to rest, swing on by the seminar), but things get a tad weird when Rubin decides that the spot they chosen isn't quite right. The high-strung Ed, lounging in the dirt by a smallish hole that, thanks to Rubin's indecisiveness, bares not a single dead cat, even direly points out the impending weirdness that is about to transpire. While some may not appreciate this sort of self-aware candor, I found it to be refreshing, as most films of this nature seem to shy away from acknowledging their own strangeness.
The scene where a sexier-than-usual Karen Black (Mirror Mirror), sheathed in an alluring red dress (the camera even slowly pans up her supple frame as if she were a curvy pin-up model circa 1949), can be seen screaming while entangled in the fender Ed's company car is just the first of many outlandish dream sequences peppered throughout Rubin and Ed, a film that isn't afraid to show a cat water-skiing. And even though Crispin Glover can be seen at one point wearing a hubcap on his head, the film isn't completely enamoured with its own kookiness. On the contrary, the way the film deftly mixed unexplained nuttiness ("Andy Warhol sucks a big one") with moments of pure pathos was elegant and smooth; like droplets of liquid slowly oozing out of a recently discarded can of beer. I mean, call me a nonsensical sack of deformed hammers, but I thought the scene in the cave where Ed bonds with Rubin to be quite touching. You really got the sense that Ed genuinely cared about Rubin's loss.
In a flash, your mind immediately stops thinking about the exquisite paleness of the legs sprouting out from the torso of that woman Rubin harasses by the hotel's pool–Rubin inadvertently utters one of the worst pick-up lines ever ("You wanna meet my mom?")–and the film starts making you ponder the meaning of life. Okay, maybe I wouldn't go that far (her legs were crossed after all). But it does capture what it must feel like to inhabit the specific skin of two men on the cusp of scoring an existential breakthrough.
Employing the word "asswipe" like it were a badge of honour, Howard Hesseman, an actor best known as the iconic Dr. Johnny Fever (his slacker diskjockey character from WKRP in Cincinnati), gives a complex performance as the beaten down Ed, a man reduced to repeating corporate nonsense in the presence of others. Affixed with a questionable wig (hair substitute), Howard, whether displaying his cringe-worthy habit of adding an unnecessary Spanish flair to everyday Anglo phrases (I know for a fact I heard him say, "el weirdo" at least twice) or extolling the virtues of Cat Ballou, imbues the defeated Ed with an unhinged tenderness.
While it doesn't seem to get thrown around that much nowadays, I've always preferred "asswipe" over "asshole," its more popular cousin in the high stakes realm of anal-based insults. I don't know, "asshole" just seems to sit there like a lump of coarse nothingness. On the other hand, "asswipe" seems to glide off the tongue with a gentle grace.
The phantom-like Brittney Lewis appears every now and then as Rubin's nameless dream girl. Usually dressed in swimwear–the kind that was fashionable during the late 1980s, Brittney helps Rubin when he is lost–this comes in handy when he finds himself aimlessly drifting amongst the desert's penis-shaped rock formations (similar to ones found in the music video for 2 Unlimited's "Magic Friend"), and builds up his self-esteem when he is down. You could say: The magic friend is what she is.
A demented humanitarian who almost kicked David Letterman in the head, Crispin "I'm making my lunch!" Glover is an awkward revelation as the platform shoe-wearing Rubin. Unafraid to rock a pair of gaudy bellbottom trousers in a desert setting, Crispin captures the despair of a desolate pet owner in a way that only an actor of his unique reputation could summon. And while the ridiculousness of appearance may at times dampen the weightiness of his predicament, the eccentric actor always manages to advance his character's spiritual cause.
The year may be 1991, but the black and blue ensemble Karen Black wears while talking on the phone in her kitchen was definitely purchased in 1986.*
Why my viewing expanse (the eyeball-centric area I use to watch things with) and this wacky adventure have never got around to molesting each other until now will probably remain a mystery. I love movies where mismatched oddballs wander the desert in search of themselves. Wait a minute, no I don't. But I did love this one. We all need someone to help us let go of the coolers that contain the partially frozen remains of our dead pets.
The last time we saw Justine and her temperamental guide, they were standing before a man dressed as a lizard in tennis sneakers uttering the phrase, "suck me" everything ten to fifteen seconds. And, thanks to Monique Montage (your go-to gal for all your continuity needs in the Devil in Miss Jones mid-80s-era sequel universe), that's exactly where The Devil in Miss Jones 4: The Final Outrage starts off. After a brief refresher course detailing all the unsavoury business that transpired in The Devil in Miss Jones 3: A New Beginning, the fourth chapter, yet again under the watchful eye of Gregory Dark (New Wave Hookers), has Lois Ayres' Justine Jones and Jack Baker's Hell Guide doing what they do best: Arguing loudly in the most shrill and politically incorrect manner possible. This particular bit of contention revolves around giving the man-lizard (Kevin James, Johnny Rico from Café Flesh) fellatio. You see, in order to move forward through the bowels of Hell, someone needs massage this thing's penis with the contents of their mouth. And since Justine is the one who wants to continue on their journey, the sucking onus is placed squarely on her harmonious shoulders. Finally relenting after some intense soul searching, Justine drops to her well-defined knees and proceeds to treat the lizard-man's erect penis like it were a frozen treat of some kind.
After the lizard-man signifies that he has been properly gratified by spewing seminal fluid all over the pale lumps on Justine's chest, the film switches over to the documentary-style interviews that were so memorable in the previous chapter. Questioning people from Justine's past, an unseen interviewer asks a priest (Angst Argyle) with an ill-defined Eastern European accent, two ex-boyfriends (Tom Byron and the hilarious Robert Bullock), her uptight brother (Andy Nichols, Max Melodramatic from Café Flesh) and Justine's man-hating first lover (Tantala Ray, Moms from Café Flesh) to share intimate details about her life.
These interviews are the film's strongest non-sex-related element. Well, actually, the strange dynamic that develops between Justine and the loquacious Hell Guide is the film's greatest non-sex asset. But the interviews are definitely a close second. Everything from the acting to the quality of the writing crackled with an unexpected air of competence. I also found it quite telling that none of the interviewees (with the exception of Tom Byron) took part in any of the film's elaborate sex scenes. Speaking of not having sexual intercourse in pornography, I was impressed by the fact that Tantala Ray manages to appear in The Devil in Miss Jones 4: The Final Outrage and Café Flesh, two of the genre's best, and not once is she prodded with a penis. Good for her.
Meanwhile, back in Hell, Justine and her Hell Guide enter a room filled to the brim with horny weirdos of every stripe imaginable. Welcome to the Insane Asylum of Hell! A pungent place where sunglasses, dildos, studded collars, fake lesbians with methodically manicured crotches, and frilly bow-adorned ankle socks co-exist to harpsicord music. In other words, this sequence will take up a large chunk of your day. Mentally taxing, yet fascinating on a couple of unsanitary levels, this fiendish orgy features multiple participants feverishly hurling their lofty genitals at one another in a desperate attempt to become more moist.
Since there are so many people involved, and I'm not prepared to do the amount of legwork it would take to identify the various players, I'll just say that I got a perverse thrill every time a lacy fingerless glove would enter the extremely cramped frame. Even though the hands inside them were mainly focused on prying open flaps of crumpled skin, finishing off stubborn erections, or manipulating slabs of butt-cheek meat in order to gain better access to the rectal riches that lay beyond the crack, the gloves–some red, some white, none taupe, some black–were a joy to see no matter what the hands they covered were up to at any given moment. Because let's face it, sex can be terribly dull to watch some times. Lacy fingerless gloves, on the other hand (no pun intended), are never dull. Out of all the performers who appear in this exhaustive sequence, which included Ron Jeremy in black gloves with fingers and a diaper ("I've always wanted to lick your toes!"), Keli Richards, Steve Powers (who is dressed as a maid), and Erica Boyer (wearing an outfit with a school girl theme and white fingerless gloves), I'd have to say Krista Lane's shoeless nurse with the big hair was my favourite–you know, from a titillating point-of-view.
Taking on racism, incest, domestic violence, and issues involving gender and other seltsamkeit, The Devil in Miss Jones 4: The Final Outrage may be crude and a tad lewd at times, but it repeatedly goes places where most adult films are too afraid to venture. Sure, the scene where two racists are forced to fornicate with members of races they purportedly hate isn't the most subtle jab at bigotry I have ever seen. But the amount of courage it took to stage something so potentially incendiary needs to be at least acknowledged.
In the so-called "Racist Room," Patti Petite, playing a "Southern Belle," lets two "Zulu" warriors (F.M. Bradley and Robbie Dee) stuff her holes with their erect penises. And while that doesn't sound all that interesting (holes are being stuffed all the time), Patti's character, according to the Hell Guide, apparently despises black people. If that premise isn't scratching you where you itch, turn up the new wave-tinged music on the soundtrack and do what I did, try to make out the outline of Patti's feet, which are encased in a pair of white fishnet stockings. On the other side of the racist spectrum, a male bigot (Marc Wallice) finds himself in a situation where his slippery wiener is being double-teamed by Krista Barrington from New Wave Hookers and Purple Passion (Let Me Tell Ya 'Bout Black Chicks). I loved the way Kristara's red stockings seemed to get more and more torn as the scene progressed. It reminded me of this incident in Grade 5 when this freckle-faced girl jumped up on a table and pulled up her corduroy... Wait a minute! How do you know the man's the bigot? Just because he's white? Well, to keep us from becoming confused as to who's the racist, Marc wears a crudely made swastika arm band.
I couldn't help but notice that Gregory Dark seem to share Rinse Dream's disdain for the audience's erection. The way Mr. Dark would insert shots of Jack Baker carrying on like the demented jackass that he is during the sex scenes has led me to believe that the crafty filmmaker would rather be concentrating on the film's story. And let's face it, if it weren't for the crazy hairstyles, chichi handwear, and scrumptious lingerie the sex would have been unbearable.
A closeup shot of a faceless appendage plunging into an equally faceless Cutlass Ciera is nowhere as interesting as the hairs sitting atop Lois Ayres' gorgeous,well-proportioned head. Seriously, every time Lois and her cutting edge hairdo would show up on-screen, my spirit would soar. At any rate, the whole, "I'm not dead!" followed by "You're dead, bitch, and this...is Hell!" exchange that is cornerstone of this skull-laden* enterprise comes to a head when Justine and the Hell Guide (sporting yellow gloves with fingers) are seen, yet again, "discussing" (arguing loudly about) her unique predicament.
Bored with the sameness of the Hell Guide's anecdotes (they all seem to involve floating asses, huge disembodied dicks and talking pig heads), Justine wanders into "The Taboo Room" and comes across something quite disturbing. Of course, I don't want to say exactly what she comes across in there, but let's just say, it's not something you'd want to see on a regular basis. I will say, however, that Lois looked fabulous in a strategically ripped white mess top (one that is beautifully offset by a red bra and lacy red fingerless gloves), silver jewelry (multiple rings, sparkily earrings and a no-nonsense necklace), and a pair of dependable black pumps (three words: ample toe cleavage). Oh, and the hair and makeup by Ruby Midnight and Les Ismore's costume design really shine in this particular sequence.
With an ending similar to that of the original New Wave Hookers (oddly surreal with a touch of menace), The Devil in Miss Jones 4: The Final Outrage may be hampered by overlong sex scenes (and not enough of them featuring Lois Ayres), but the killer music, pseudo-documentary style, bold hairstyles, alluring fashions, and the unrefined wordplay that takes place between Lois Ayres and Jack Baker are real reason to devour this chapter of the epic series. A must-see for fans of Rinse Dream, 1980s pop culture, or anyone who loathes mainstream pornography.
* The comically named Pez D. Spencer (Mr. Joy from Café Flesh) is the film's production designer, and the amount of time he spent combing the head shops of Sunset Blvd. looking for skulls must have been off the charts. Or maybe he just used the same two skulls over and over again? Hmmm, that is almost interesting.
These people are fucking insane! Okay, now that I've gotten that out of the way, we can at once proceed in a calm and irrational manner. Before I do that, the mentally sound amongst you may have noticed that I just used the word "irrational" instead of "rational," the combination of sounds that is usually paired with "and" and "calm." Well, that's because I will not let this film's demented disposition affect my longstanding dedication to verbose nonsensicality. Oh, sure, there were numerous occasions where I felt that this film's overt strangeness had the stiletto heel of one of its terribly chic shoes firmly pressed against the creaseless surface of my supple neck. But I managed to wiggle out from under its spiky grip just in the nick of time. In case you haven't figured it out yet, I was somewhat taken aback by Possession, a cryptic entanglement masquerading as a Cold War demon romance. An outlandish undertaking that causes you to use of the entirety of the eyes you use to see with (you don't merely look at it, the film devours the very essence of your soul), writer-director Andrzej Żuławski (On the Silver Globe) has managed to fashion a film that deftly mixes melodrama, art-house-style pretension, scriptural otherworldliness, exploding cars, body horror, a mysterious man with pink socks, green-eyed doppelgängers with intricately tied ponytails, ooze-based eroticism, and moments of genuine surrealism (a banana is unwittingly shared on a train).
Accustomed to viewing films that are, on the surface, entertaining but incompetently made from a technical point-of-view, I was surprised by how adept the filmmaking was throughout this "wacked out" mishegaas. For one thing, I thought the camerawork had a fluidity about it that rendered even the most straightforward scene an involving experience. The best example of this I can think of was when the male protagonist is sitting at a table and the camera pans around the room in an unbroken circular motion. However, it was the way it combined the elements I listed above (eroticism, body horror, pink socks, etc.) that went about placing Possession on the express train to that magical place where cult classics perform overzealous soixante-neuf on each other in the vicinity of a apricot dream.
An expertly made film that features extended acts of underground lunacy, tentacled apartment creatures (created by Carlo Rambaldi) that defy description, and a pair of high heel shoes that elegantly propel an attractive woman from one cockamamie state of existence to another, I couldn't believe that I watching something so deranged, yet so accomplished at the same time. It's a rare treat to find something that is able to fuse together such a diverse blend of batshit crazy and sheer skillfulness.
You'll notice that I haven't touched on the film's plot yet. Those who have seen the film will know why immediately, those who haven't, well, let's just say it's fraught with unforeseen complications. It doesn't start off that way, as the film appears to be about the slow, painful destruction of a marriage between a couple living in West Berlin in the early 1980s (the Berlin Wall is always visible and is an integral part of the film's visual makeup). And while I wouldn't exactly designate Mark (Sam Neill) and Anna's (Isabelle Adjani) romantic imbroglio to be the most healthy one ever to be depicted on film, it does bare the characteristics of a "normal" relationship at times.
They have a young son named "Bob," they fight, they argue, Anna has a lover named Heinrich (Heinz Bennent), and Mark's a tad clingy and likes to fool around Margit (Margit Carstensen), a woman who wears a cast on her left leg. You see, perfectly normal. Nevertheless, things begin to quickly unravel when Anna decides to leave Mark for no particular reason. Pretty soon they're both cutting themselves with electric knives, running through the streets covered in blood, throwing chairs, blowing up stuff and disposing of bodies.
I've been trying to figure out the exact moment when Andrzej Żuławski's Possession actually begins to unleash, what the kids nowadays like to call, "the crazy." Of course, some might say that moment arrived the second Isabelle Adjani greeted Sam Neill outside their modest West Berlin apartment complex in the film's opening scene; there was something off about the way she stood (her posture was very disquieting). Personally, I want to say it happened when the detective (Carl Duering) Mark hires to keep tabs on Anna notices something icky throbbing in the windowless bathroom of her super-secret apartment on the other side of town. But I know for a fact that wasn't the instant where the film's well-balanced veneer was washed away completely.
No, I'd say the scene where a bloodied Anna is seen storming down the street with Mark giving chase is the official kickoff. It actually occurs just as he's about to catch up with her (he's already beginning to claw at her dress) and a truck carrying crushed cars almost runs Anna over after she halfheartedly tried to jump in front of it. The ensuing mayhem causes some of the crushed cars to crash onto the sidewalk and the look on Anna's face during this specific event was the exact moment the madness was allowed to run naked in the backyard–you know, without fear of being subjected to any lopsided glances or judgmental snickering.
Technical proficiency and the precise commencement of crazy aside, it's the stellar performances given by Sam Neill and Isabelle Adjani that permit Possession to soar high into the horror-melodrama stratosphere. Unafraid to appear disheveled, lovesick, and unhinged simultaneously, Sam Neill (Jurassic Park) is a distraught mess as Mark, a fidgety (no chair can contain his feeling of restlessness) buttoned-down fella whose devotion to Anna is all-consuming. Literally bouncing off the walls at times, the unassuming Kiwi is a frightening force of spurned fury. His confrontation with Anna at a coffee shop was one of the most uncomfortable scenes I have had the pleasure to witness.
While the adjectives I used to describe Sam's performance could be employed just as liberally when detailing the work of the stunning Isabelle Adjani (Nosferatu the Vampyre), especially "distraught" and "unhinged," the French actress somehow manages to maintain her sexy allure even as her marbles are slowly beginning to escape her dainty grasp. Never appearing on-screen without her trademark mane of brunette hair, an indigo dress, a pair of unruly heels, and two nylon-covered legs, Isabelle's Anna is the obsession of her male co-star and justifies his fixation at every turn with a casual panache.
Countering Anna's kooky, indigo-draped decent, Isabelle also plays a school teacher named Helen, a woman who always appears in white.
Even though the build up to her underground breakdown is a gradual progress (some mild hand wringing peppered with incoherent outbursts of a dire nature), the sight of Isabelle Adjani screaming and convulsing in that dank hallway is still a shocking sight to behold when it finally kicks into high gear. A hypnotizing avant-garde dance number, that, at times, plays out like a misguided tribute to the unseen wonders of mental illness, Isabelle's advanced lesson on how to properly thrash about in a subterranean setting will challenge your fortitude when it comes to watching dark haired actresses move spasmodically while seeping embryonic fluid.
The fact Isabelle Adjani is a French actress gives the scenes where she is called upon to briskly transport her lithe frame through an urban landscape in inappropriate footwear an added sense of authenticity. An American actress, or, say, a British one, would be constantly tripping over themselves if they attempted to move from street to street in an expedient manner while wearing high-heeled shoes. And while this clumsiness can be endearing at times, especially in romantic comedies that star Jeanne Tripplehorn, it's not welcome in demon-centric flicks that feature coitus with squids and dandified private eyes who frown upon being stabbed in the neck with the pointy ends of broken wine bottles. In this case you want the feminine steadiness that can only be attained with a French actress.
One of the perks to having a wife or girlfriend is the opportunity to try on her clothes when she is not around. But what if your wife or girlfriend is possessed by demons and wears the same indigo-coloured dress all the time? Now, this may sound a tad strange, but the former isn't the issue you should being worrying about. I mean, demons? Big deal. On the other hand, nothing can send a closeted transvestite over the edge faster than having a limited wardrobe to choose from. Of course, I'm not trying to imply that Sam Neill's character was a cross-dresser, far from it, I'm just trying to imagine the look of horror on the face of someone who was (a closeted transvestite) the moment they opened Isabelle Adjani's closet and saw nothing but a seemingly unending wall of blueish-violet.
Anyway, extremely dark and thoroughly twisted, Possession proudly waves the tattered flag for all those who enjoy movies that celebrate unconventional intercourse, revel in domestic turmoil, and aren't afraid to sport a transcendental temperament. A must-see for lovers of deeply weird cinema.
If you were to attempt to make a gripping drama about the day-to-day struggles that come with living at an SS run concentration camp during the Great Patriotic War, how would you start things off? Some might open on a small patch of flowers flourishing next to an electrified fence–you know, try to capture the dichotomy between the beauty of nature and the scourge that is manufactured oppression. Others might cut to the chase and opt for a closeup shot of a swastika flag gently flapping in the midday sun. Well, the director of the justifiably infamous Ilsa: She Wolf of the SS doesn't care what you think, as he has decided that a side view shot of some mild commandant straddling followed by some not-so mild castration is the best way kick off your concentration camp movie. Right then and there, you know this film isn't going to about illuminating the populace about the ills of Nazism, a discredited movement whose sole appeal was that they had cooler uniforms than their drab enemies. Particularly Karl Diebitsch and Walter Heck's all-black SS uniform, manufactured by Hugo Boss. Utilizing the well-worn: titillate then repulse method of exploitation filmmaking, director Don Edmonds (Tender Loving Care) seems to revel in causing your aroused feelings to quickly turn into one's of revulsion and disgust. Having us cheering on a man's genitals to plunge as far as they can vaginally go one minute, only to have us wincing uncontrollably a mere ten seconds later when those very genitals are unceremoniously removed without even as much as a half-hearted auf Wiedersehen was a tad jarring.
If you enjoy watching men being tortured by female Nazis–and who doesn't?–you better savour the first five minutes, because after that you won't see any men harmed until at least the film's chaotic coda (throats are slit, necks are garrotted). No, this particular camp, Medical Camp #9, is all about performing gruesome experiments on young women. The camp commandant (the mild straddler I alluded to earlier), a stern lass named Ilsa (Dyanne Thorne), wants to help the Third Reich by making its soldiers become more resilient. And if that means employing maggots (mealworms), infectious diseases, pressurized chambers, scalding hot water and electrified dildos, than so be it (you gotta support the Wehrmacht).
A new shipment of ladies arrives at the camp, and you can tell immediately that Ilsa doesn't like Anna (Maria Marx) and Rosette (Jacqueline Giroux). The latter is merely an annoyance, in that she seems to ask way too many questions. It's the former who gets Ilsa's panzer panties all in a twist. You could sense the tension between then when they first meet. The way Anna stood naked before her, proudly displaying her no-nonsense breasts and bulbous pubic region seemed to irk Ilsa (the others sheepishly attempted to shield those particular areas with a balled up clump of their ratty clothes). However, the fact she won't satisfy the shapely commandant's perverted desire to hear her subjects scream whenever she would violently poke and prod them is what really puts Anna's organic structure in danger.
Realizing that their days as relatively attractive women with all their limbs are numbered, Anna and Rosette try to get a revolt going. Only problem being all their bunkmate's are all showing the signs of having resided at a concentration camp where medical experiments and gang rape are not only commonplace, they're in the brochure. (Medical Camp #9: "Come for the syphilis, stay for the sexual humiliation."). In other, less offensive words, they've been there way too long to be any sort of shape to help.
What these spunky gals need is a couple of strapping men. And wouldn't you know it, there are a bunch living in a dorm across the way. Employing prisoners of war and other riffraff to do menial work, the camp has a sizable number of non-Nazi men to choose from. The two Anna and Rosette convince to assist their cause are a dapper American newcomer named Wolfe (Gregory Knoph) and Mario (Tony Mumolo), a wily camp veteran.
If Mario has the demeanor of a man who has no testicles, well, that's because he doesn't have any testicles. His sole reason for helping the girls is based on his lack of testicles. In fact, almost every facet of his existence revolves around his missing testicles and exacting revenge on the person who removed them from their scrotal perch.
You see, while Ilsa loves to torture people for the sake of national security, she also loves cock. You could say it's her one true weakness, that, and an inability to say no to creepy Obergruppenführers when they inevitably ask her to expel urine on them. Her insatiable need to have an erect penis immersed inside the pure, reasonably unsullied confines of Aryan vag on a semi-regular basis is actually what leads to her downfall. She acquirers her daily allocation of cock from the ranks of the camp workers, and if their cock doesn't meet with her high standards (i.e. hump heartily until she achieves orgasm), she will instruct her black clad minions to haul you down to the lab, where she will personally take away your junk.
When Wolfe is eventually summed to stick his prick in Ilsa's shock-haired tissue box, Mario shoots him a "dude, your balls are so going to be in a jar by sunup" look. What Mario doesn't know is that Wolfe has a trick up his sleeve–his sleeve being his penis. As Ilsa points out, it's not exactly the largest rake in the tool shed–his rake being his penis. But as she soon finds out, its thrusting prowess is second to none. Craving its long lasting power like were an overly buttered piece of toast, Ilsa has become so captivated by Wolfe's unflappable shaft, that her dedication to sadism seems to waver over the course of the film. Actually, the opposite happens, as her desire to make Anna scream hits a fever pitch. Nevertheless, it's her obsession with Wolfe's steady member and Anna's plucky determination that cause the rebellion's plans to move forward at an accelerated pace.
I know what you're thinking. You mean to tell me, the fate of democracy depends on one man's ability to not shoot his goo inside a curvy blonde Nazi doctor in an expedient manner? Ridiculous as it sounds, Ilsa: She Wolf of the SS is all about postponing the ejection of seminal fluid. Simple as that. Anybody who tries to tell you otherwise has obviously chosen to approach the film from a perspective that is different than mine, and I respect that. But deep down they know I'm sort of right.
The off and on nature of Dyanne Thorne's German accent was, I wanna say, "adorable," but that doesn't feel right. Okay, how 'bout this: The manner in which Dyanne Thorne's German accent seemed to fluctuate from scene to scene was oddly endearing. Yeah, that'll work. To be fair, the only instance where I recall this actually happening occurred whenever she would say the word "Reich," as in the "Third Reich." At first, I noticed that she pronounced in the Anglo-American way. But then she started saying it the German way. It's as if her accent gradually got better as the film progressed.
As far as lady Nazi's go, Dyanne Thorne (Ilsa, Harem Keeper of the Oil Sheiks) isn't really my type. On top of being cruel, I like my lady Nazis to be card carrying members of the Itty Bitty Titty Committee (a.k.a.Winzig Brüstchen Ausschuss). Also, Ilsa's ample protrusions repeatedly hampered the symmetry of her fabulous SS uniform. Although, I thought the wide-eyed pride of Greenwich, Connecticut looked amazing whilst standing in front of a blood-spattered wall.
Is it possible for one to grow tired of female pubic hair? I didn't think it was humanly possible, but there were a few moments during this film where I actually thought to myself: "Someone get that poor woman a pair of pants. Her clit's gonna get hypothermia." But then again, it's pretty hard to electrocute a person's genitals if they're wearing pants.
The mayhem of the finale was an unbelievable mishmash of outdoor stabbings, stealthy strangulation, topless knife-wielding, pulsating arterial spray (thanks to makeup artist Joe Blasco), and bullet-ridden corpses. Some of the deaths, especially the one's performed by the guys who take their orders from an ex-poultry farmer/wannabe Mongolian, were wonderfully staged. It's the shame Ilsa and her female subordinates didn't wear skirts throughout the film, because that would have made things perfect. Yeah, that's right, perfect. Sure, the torture scenes are a bit much at times, there's no mention of Alfred Naujocks, and the camp seemed to lack guard dogs, but there's no denying that this film is a well-made piece of exploitative trash.
Oh, and just for the record, the skirts I would have chosen for the female Nazis would have been black with a smallish slit in the back. As far as length goes, I would say, oh, about ten centimetres above the knee. I think that would allow you to commit unspeakable atrocities and still look chic at the same time.
