Mark of the Whip 2 (Roman Nowicki, 2010)

Bust out the baby oil and dust off the rubber masks, it's time once again to return the clitoris-compromising realm of Roman Nowicki's Mark of the Whip, the not-so whip smart extreme erotic horror film that boasted a ton of whipping, a shitload of lip biting and an exorbitant amount of inquisitive head tilting. It's my not-so distinct pleasure to introduce you to the blatantly inevitable, Mark of the Whip 2, now featuring more pain and degradation, roughly same amount of leggy Czech chicks and a fuckload of nuns. Yep, you heard right perverts, part two has nuns. (But aren't nuns, besides beekeepers, the most clothed individuals on the planet.) Yeah, so, what's your point? (My point is, does Roman Nowicki, Fantom Kiler, Fantom Kiler 2, Fantom Kiler 3, and Fantom Kiler 4, even know how to film women who wear clothing?) How hard can it be, put the clothed women in position and yell action. Oh, I get it. Mr. Nowicki is famous for having scantily clad women of East European extraction prancing around forests late at night in his films. Well, Mr. Nowicki has obviously decided to stretch his muscles as a director. I'll wait for your laughter to subside. Are you done? Good. I'm serious, Roman Nowicki has really grown as an artist. (All right, now you have gone too far.) What?!? ("Grown as an artist," you have got to be kidding?) Don't make me say "I'm serious" again, because that's totally what I'm being.

The moment I realized Roman Nowicki had grown as an artist was when Sylvia Novak (Tiffany Love, credited as "Tiffany Lust") invites a gun salesman over to her hotel room. If you're an ex-cop, by the way, who has been living in a nunnery for the past several years and wants to buy a gun in order to exact revenge on The Fantom Whipper (Conrad Bismark) for killing your best friend, you're going to have buy one on the street.

Anyway, when the gun salesman comes knocking at her door, Sylvia (who is oiled up and smoking a cigarette in a black bra and a black pair of panties on her bed), takes her sweet time to answer it. Oiled up, smoking and scantily clad, these are Roman Nowicki staples. In other words, everything is going according to plan. However, when the gun salesman makes a reference to the gun salesman scene from Taxi Driver, my eyes lit up.

The reason they lit up is because the films of Roman Nowicki seem to take place in their own unique universe. Meaning, the existence of other films is hardly ever acknowledged. But in this film, not only was he acknowledging the existence of other films, he was straight-up quoting dialogue from one.

When I noticed that the gun salesman's opening line of dialogue was exactly the same as the gun salesman's opening line of dialogue from Taxi Driver, I thought to myself: Aww, that's cute, an unexpected shout out to Taxi Driver. Little did I know, but the scene I was about to watch, the one where a salesman sells Sylvia Novak a couple of guns, was not content with merely giving a shout out to Taxi Driver. Uh-uh. The whole scene was word for word exactly the same. Of course, some of the Taxi Driver dialogue was omitted, but everything the gun salesman says in Mark of the Whip 2 was taken from Taxi Driver; he even offers to sell Sylvia a wide array drugs when the gun deal is finished.

Quirky fun-fact: The actor who played the gun salesman in Taxi Driver was Stephen Prince. While the actor who plays the gun salesman in Mark of the Whip 2 is credited as Stephen Price.

While you were busy noticing that, you might have noticed that Tiffany Love, not Hana Liska is playing Sylvia Novak, the world's most famous ex-cop, ex-nun, ex-whip addict turned vigilante. How will this effect the quality of the production since Hana Liska was the best thing about the first Mark of the Whip?

We're going to have to wait a little while to get an answer to that question, as the film opens with Stacy Silver's Stella Diamond relaxing in her backyard in a pink bikini. Am I crazy or does the music playing as Stacey Silver relaxes in her backyard sound Bernard Herrmann-esque? In fact, it sounds eerily similar to the music used in--you guessed it--Taxi Driver.

Nonetheless, a couple of mask-wearing cops show up to harass Stella Diamond right on schedule. Accusing her being a member of an outlawed pro-democracy party, the lead goon feels up Stella before dragging her away to be interrogated.

Meanwhile, at a nearby nunnery, Sister Sylvia, a.k.a. ex-cop, ex-whip addict Det. Sylvia Novak, receives a letter from her friend Kasia (Kate Blond). In the letter, she talks about her struggles with her addiction to the lash. If you remember, both Sylvia and Kasia were hooked on being whipped. As she reads the letter, the music from Platoon ("Adagio for Strings") swells on the soundtrack, and we get our first close up shot of Tiffany Love's dynamic face. (Did you say, dynamic?) Yep. (Does that mean Tiffany Love met with your approval?) You could say that. No, what am I saying, of course you can say that. (Whew, that's a relief. For a minute there, I thought Tiffany Love wasn't going to be able to fill Hana Liska's strappy heels.)

I don't know where they find these women, but the fine folks at Teraz Films seem to have access to an unlimited supply of tall leggy chicks who are willing to have foreign objects crammed into their vaginas on camera. That being said, Tiffany Love does lack Hana Liska's innate ability to simultaneously bite her lip while tilting her head to the side.

If you're like me and wondered why the scene where a naked Alicia Malikov is confronted by a drill-wielding maniac in Fantom Kiler 3 was relegated to the deleted scenes section. Well, first of all, congratulations, you're like me. But more importantly, the scene makes an appearance in Mark of the Whip 2. A group of nuns watch said scene on television during their lunch break. And just as the drill is about to pierce her eyeball, the nuns change the channel to the news. It's here that Sister Sylvia learns that her friend Kasia was whipped to death by a group of masked assailants. When Sister Sylvia hears that the autopsy report says that Kasia experienced eight orgasms before she died, she knows exactly who's responsible for her death: The Fantom Whipper.

Telling convent's Mother Superior (Maria Vaslova, Nina's Nightmares) that she's quitting the nun racket, Sylvia hangs up in her giant crucifix necklace and sets out to get revenge.

What occurs next will blow your mind. (Don't tell me, a naked woman gets whipped.) Well, yeah, a naked woman does get whipped (Stacy Silver is whipped by the cops). But the film also gives us a brief The Sound of Music parody. You think that's weird, wait until you see the Schindler's List parody.

Checking into a cheap hotel, Sylvia changes out of her habit and puts on a Burberry print Chanel-style suit. After buying some guns, Sylvia waits for her opportunity to strike. In the meantime, Mother Superior is whipped and prodded with foreign objects in a dingy basement setting. You see, to justify the film's title, we're occasionally shown women being whipped who are not Sylvia Novak. And like the whipping scenes in the first film, they can be a bit tedious.

Not so long ago, I recall watching Conan O'Brien interviewing Gwyneth Paltrow on his show. Nothing strange about that. But there was something strange about her legs, in that, they looked like they had been slathered with olive oil (goop, perhaps?). However, when they came back from a commercial break, I noticed her legs were no longer oily. Someone (i.e. one of her minions) obviously noticed this and toweled her off during the break. Unfortunately, there's no one to towel Tiffany Love's legs, as they're covered in an inordinate amount of oil. I think the oil is supposed to be sweat. Whatever it was supposed to be, it's dampening her legginess.

Tracking down The Fantom Whipper, Sylvia makes an appointment with him to be whipped. Little does he know, but Sylvia has no intention of being whipped. Though, I must say, Sylvia is having trouble staying focused on the task at hand. Being an ex-whip addict, Sylvia is afraid that she will go back to her old habits. And, no, I don't mean "habits" in the nun way, I'm talking about her addiction to the lash.

In order to placate her pulsating pussy, which she describes as a "sexual time bomb," Sylvia repeatedly shoves the barrel of one of her newly acquired pistols into it to stave off her desire. Fully satisfied, Sylvia is now ready to take on The Fantom Whipper. But first she must get past his mother. Yep, The Fantom Whipper lives with his mother. Played by Dorothy Slime (that's what it says in the credits), Mrs. Whipper forces Sylvia to take her clothes off before allowing her to go any further. Of course, things don't go exactly as planned, and Sylvia ends up spending the next six days being whipped in various ways. If you're wondering how long six days worth of whipping takes in movie terms, I would say it takes around forty-five minutes.

Delivering on his promise to whip Slyvia into a "quivering, sweat-drenched pile of orgasming flesh," The Fantom Whipper, cheered on by his mother, uses and abuses her organic structure. Proving once and for all that the film does indeed have a sense of humour, The Fantom Whipper answers the phone, "Fantom Whipper speaking."

If you want an easy way to sum up Mark of the Whip 2 to your friends, just say it's Taxi Driver meets The Sound of Music and Schindler's List crossbred with a nunsploitation film and an early '80s Rough Trade video.