Category Archives: erotica

A Eurotrash Mosaic of EVIL. “Jailhouse Wardress” reviewed! (MVD Visual / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“Jailhouse Wardress” now on Blu-ray!

After the fall of the Nazi Reich post-World War II, one of the more cruel SS-Officers, Muller, is dispatched to South America where he establishes a women’s prison camp and appoints a likeminded, lesbian female warden with strict punitive measures if the inmates don’t fall in line and follow the rules or instruction.  While Muller governs the area, disorder courses its way through the camp when a plea letter to the state, describing in detail the horrors inflicted upon the women at the camp, such as torture and private cells for sex with the inmates, is intercepted before leaving the premises.  At the same time, a young, newly processed inmate, who had killed her rapist uncle in self-defense, plans a daring except.  The once well-oil authoritarian sex prison quickly becomes unraveled by unruly prisoners who’ve had enough with the eternal inhumane debauchery and with the exterior assistance of Jewish liberators and assassins, freedom is all but knocking at the door.   

Hot off the heels of Neon Eagle Video’s Blu-ray release of “Kill Butter Kill,” a Taiwanese rape-revenge narrative that’s been jumbled up with re-edits to engender a whole new structure, we dip into another Blu-ray remix, soaring from Asiatic East to the Western Europe with “Jailhouse Wardress,” a Alain W. Steeve hardly directed women-in-prison schlocker pieced together from three earlier Nazisploitation and caged-women exploitation features with barely any new footage used a binding agent to construct a concentrated concentration camp plot.  Steeve, a pseudo-surname for Alain Deruelle, a pornographic director who did helm “Cannibal Terror” under the name Alain Thierry, hodge-podges a new sordid camp exploitation picture out of already near the bottom-of-the-barrel features that sparked very little lewd cheekiness of sleazy Nazi oppression and the perversities of a hard labor with hard bodies in a women’s prison camp.  France’s Eurociné is listed as the production company but unsure if there was any company backing or shooting the new spliced-in footage since Eurociné outfitted the trio of features used to make up more than half of “Jailhouse Wardress;” these films included “Barbed Wire Dolls,” “Last Train for Hitler,” and “Elsa Fraulein SS.”

Unlike “Kill Butterfly Kill,” much of the new material shot for “Jailhouse Wardress” incorporate different actors into already established roles of the component films and with the scenes going back and forth between new and archive footage, keeping up with a fluent narrative is more difficult than said.  For instance, two different actors play Nestor; Germany’s Eric Falk (“Blue Rita”) footage from sparingly used from the “Barbed Wire Dolls” and most of Nestor’s scenes lie with X-rated and softcore French actor Didier Aubriot (“Naked Lovers,” “They Do Everything”) barking the orders and taking what he wants from the freshly instilled and scantily uniformed actresses inside the cages with Pamela Stanford (“Blue Rita”) and Nadine Pascal (“Zombie Lake”).  You can tell their scenes are newer, fresher, with more color emitting from a different film stock and camera combination compared to the brief, desaturated appearing scenes of Eric Falk who never touches the women prisoners in Beni Cardoso (“Scalps”), Lina Romay (“Female Vampire”), and Martine Stedil (“Marquise de Sade”) who bare a lot of undercarriage bush as a gratuitous rite of exploitation culture.  Much is lost not only in a re-dubbed soundtrack of the source films but what’s also lost heavily are the character attributes that left behind from the original films, such as the prison director’s (Monica Swinn, “Love Camp”) brutish lesbian demeanor with “Last Train for Hitler’s” Ingrid Schüler.  This type of devolving reshapes the characters for worst, takes away much of their cruelty and passes it along to predominantly to the newer footage of Teresa and Lola at the naked mercy of the newer Nestor.  “Jailhouse Wardress” fills out the archive and new footage German, French, and English nationals cast with Eugénie Laborde, Bob Asklöf, Michel Charrel, Peggy Markoff, Paul Muller, Sylvie Darty, Ronald Curram, Maria Cavour, and the archive presence of Jess Franco in a normal camera speed slow-motion flashback death scene as Uncle Jess in this particular feature.

“Jailhouse Wardress’s” old, new, or however you wish or feel compelled to describe the mismatched footage ultimately compromises the plot by the cut-and-paste hack job.  A slight attempt can be seen made to align new and old footage for sequence editing but without a seamless grading and more similar costuming, the events never feel in the same space, creating more a schism between the two material footages rather unifying for a common narrative.  Subplots, such as the imposter prison doctor or the Jewish hit on the Governor, are more prominent than the actual foundational plot so there’s a hindrance of uncertainty to what should be the main premise, including the Nazi angle that seems to vanish without much of a fuss, and the brain works in overtime trying to follow one scheme to then have to jump to another without traversing that pivotal straight line that connects the dots, leading to a complete mental shutdown due to exhaustion and confusion.  What doesn’t help matters is the arterial lifeforce, the purposeful exhibition of exploitation, the whole reason why we watch through our subconscious sadistic eyes women become slaves to ruthless perverts, is severely castrated on a couple’s sexploitation scale.  Much of what is shown is solo work; women lying in bed bottomless or are stripped nude for only a few moments of touching or taking by force without much of a fight.    

The ”Jailhouse Wardress” receives the high-definition Blu-ray treatment from our friends at MVD Visual as part of their MVD Classics label.  The AVC encoded, 1080p, BD25 suits the patchwork Alain Deruelle (and Jess Franco in archive footage only) feature.  While the 2K scan looks pretty darn good for a schlocky eurotrash pastiche, the print used is a gut-punch to videophiles hard-pressed on image quality and preservation.  Presented in a more consolidated pixel count of 1.42 aspect ratio, the print, or at least the “Barbed Wire Dolls” was originally in the European aspect ratio of 1.66:1 as you can see the letterboxing during the titles and they eventually expand out, stretching the image.  The print is in rough shape in its spliced up format with its seam-showing different graded parts that creates a back-and-forth inconsistency.  “Barbed Wire Dolls” is shades darker, grittier, and less definable than inserted shoots.  There’s an abundance of print damage too from frame damage to vertical scratches, mostly early into the runtime.  With the inconsistent picture quality, grain never looks healthy as the amount fluctuates and, often times, becomes more an interference of higher contrast exposure in darker portions.  Both audio options are in an uncompressed PCM 2.0 mono format and you listen in with dubbed English or in the combined original and dubbed French.  Not the flawless audio to ever come across but neither is the worst but what’s inlaid is untouched mix that contains all the hissing, crackles, and pops that blight the audio thread.  Yet, dialogue remains intelligible, thanks mainly to the dub work I suppose, but if you don’t mind Pamela Stanford’s sounding like Smeagol than this audio dub is for you.  English subtitles are optionally available and they synch well enough with a couple of grammatical errors.  The theatrical trailer for “Jailhouse Wardress” is the only direct bonus content available with other eurotrash trailers accompanying.  The packaging is quite eye-catching of an illustrated Nazi-patronized burlesque show front cover inside the traditional Blu-ray Amaray case.  The back cover has the more confounding composite artwork with still captures from neither of the films used and stock image marketing that have little or nothing to do with the film itself.  Inside content is barebones with the BD25 disc stamped with the same front cover art.  The Blu-ray comes not rated, region free, and has a merciful 75-minute runtime. 

Last Rites:  Exploitation fans will find “Jailhouse Wardress” lacking that je ne sais quoi.  The interlocking of multiple prints is like unwelcome visible scar tissue, glad it’s there to heal the wound but unsightly to look at.  As for filling in one’s gap in the Naziploitation and Women-in-Prison collection, “Jailhouse Wardress” isn’t a must-have main ingredient for the diehard fans but for an aficionado completist, MVD supplies the goods with a Hi-Def option.

“Jailhouse Wardress” now on Blu-ray!

This Spy’s Sex Serum Will Drive Men EVILLY Mad! “Blue Rita” reviewed! (Full Moon Features / Blu-ray – DVD)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

Own “Blue Rita” on Blu-ray and DVD Combo Set Today!

Misandrist Blue Rita owns a high-end gentlemen’s cabaret.  Her renowned nightclub is also a front for espionage activities.  With the help of a Bergen, her handling, and her right-hand club manager Gina, she’s fed male targets that are affluent and powerful to kidnap and torture to extract sensitive intelligence information.  As a side hustle, a perk that comes with exploiting the naked and chained up men in her underground boxed cells, Blue Rita uses her chemical powers of seduction to sexually torture her captives into withdrawing their bank accounts dry.  When new girl Sun is hired in to not only titillate the nightclub client with her erotic Pippi Longstocking performances, the Blue Rita pledger works her first mission to reel in a wealthy, international boxer as the next target but Sun’s own conflictions collide with Rita’s sworn hate for all men, cracking the door open ajar just enough for Interpol and the Russian intelligence agencies to try and undermine Blue Rita’s confrontational spy operations. 

What’s renowned most about eurotrash filmmaker Jesus (Jess) Franco is his diverse contributions to the European and American movie-making markets.  Though most of his work is regarded as schlocky, beneath the sleaze and sordidness is a carefully calculating psychotronic director.  True, Franco may not be famously esteemed as, let’s say Martin Scorsese or Steven Spielberg, but his infamy should not be ignored amongst the present company of similar filmmakers like Tinto Brass or even Roman Polanski.  One of the late Franco’s few spy game theme films, “Blue Rita” is a hot house of sleaze and deceit, written by the director.  Filmed in Germany with German actors and actresses, the film went under the original title “Das Frauenhaus” translated as “The House of Women,” referring to the Blue Rita’s distaste for men and keeping an all-femme fatale, and mostly nude, workforce for her clandestine affairs.  Elite Film is the production company with Erwin C. Deitrich (“Love Letters of a Portuguese Nun,” “Swedish Nympho Slaves”) producing.

Much like Franco’s diverse dips into a variety of subgenres, “Blue Rita’s” cast is also quite an assorted lot in talent from sexploitation, horror, and the XXX industry.  The German production also garnered not just homefield advantage with German actors but also lured into the fold some of the French cast cuisine to spice up the affair.  Martine Fléty is one of those French foreigners, embodying the lead role of Blue Rita.  An adult actress of primarily the 70s, “Blue Rita” became Fléty only titular role but wasn’t her last Jess Franco feature, having continued her X-rated run with the director in “Elles Font Tout,” “I Burn All Over,” and “Claire.”  Either half or entirely naked for the entire narrative, Fléty’s comfortability bare-bottom relays power in her performance as an unwavering femme fatale agent that has men begging for sex and begging for their very lives.  Back then, the lines blurred between porn and sexploitation, often times melding into European coalescence hitting the same marquee theaters until it’s eventual separation.  Esther Moser (“Around the World in 80 Beds,” “Ilsa, The Wicked Warden”), Angela Ritschard (“Jack the Ripper,” “Bangkok Connection”), Vicky Mesmin (“Dancers for Tangier,” “Love Inferno”), Roman Huber (“Girls in the Night Traffic,” “Sex Swedish Girls in a Boarding School”), Olivier Mathot (“Diamonds of Kilimandjaro,” “French Erection”) and Pamela Stanford (“Sexy Sisters,” “Furies sexuelles”) rode, among other things, that fine line between grindhouse gauche and the taboo and certainly do well to incorporate both traits in Franco’s equally indeterminate genre film.  German actor and one of the principal leads Eric Falk (“Caged Women,” Secrets of a French Maid”) too dappled between crowds as a tall, dark, and chiseled chin but the actor chiefly sought limelight in sexploitation and as the haughty boxer Janosch Lassard, who karate chops at lightning speed, Falk adds to “Blue Rita’s” sexy-spy thriller.  Opposite the titular vixen is “Wicked Women’s” Dagmar Bürger who, like the rest of the cast, have crossed paths in a handful of exploitation exciters.  Bürger has perhaps the least built-up character Sun as she’s subtly folded into Blue Rite’s innermost circle without as much as a single ounce of doubt in her character, perhaps due in part to Bergen, Blue Rita’s handler, was once Sun’s direct-to, but Sun becomes the impetus key to everything falling apart at the seams and her role’s framework feels unsatisfactory just as her crumbling infatuation that’s more arbitrary than motivationally centric.

“Blue Rita” doesn’t necessarily broach as a film by Jess Franco whose typical undertakings are coated with sleazy gothic and historical context.  The 1979 feature, set around the extraction of international intelligence data by way of chemical approach, not terribly farfetched considering how the CIA once used LSD as a truth serum, is about as sordid and sexually graphic as any Jess Franco film gets but brings about a futuristic air laced with not just super cool spy gadgets and weaponry, to which there are really none to speak of as an example, there lies a more ultramodern verge upon unseen in much of the earlier, Spanish-born director’s work.  A futuristic holding pen with a capacity no bigger than an industrial-sized washing machine with a descending spiked barred ceiling, a hyper-aphrodisiac goo that makes men so horny it puts them on the edge of insanity and death, and the sleek, contemporary sex room with translucent furniture and stark white walls all in the routine hustle and bustle of Paris, France. “Blue Rita’s” contrarian patinas add to the film’s colorful charisma of avant-garde stripteases and a black operations nightclub, two of which combined play more into the “Austin Powers” funky 1970s ecosphere rather than in the high-powered espionage world of James Bond, the Roger Moore years.

For the first time on Blu-ray in the North American market, Full Moon Features puts out into the world a fully remastered, high-definition, 2-disc Blu-ray and DVD set. The AVC encoded, 1080p, BD25 entails picture perfect image quality that sharpen “Blue Rita” with greater resolution in comparison to previous DVD versions with full-bodied color, in setting tones and in body tones, and a contour-creating delineation that establishes depth and texture better, presented in a widescreen 1.85:1 aspect ratio. Not flawless mind you with soft spots rearing up every so often in the variety of interior and exterior, organically and inorganically lit scenes but there’s distinct contrast that delivers a recognizing lighting scheme that deepens the shadows in the right places without signs of an inadequate compression, especially on a single layer Blu-ray, and the Full Moon release retains natural grain with no DNR or other image enhancements. The release comes with two audio options, a lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 and a French Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo, both of which have a horrendously acted burned-in English dub of not the original actors’ voices. Banal dub does take the quality of Franco’s dialogue down a good peg or two, which the original dub track was likely spoken in native German and some French judging by the cast list nationalities and where the bigger distribution market was for the planned; yet, though the dialogue is verbose and ploddingly straightforward to make do, losing some of the depth in the process, the quality is voluminous to ensure no mistake is made in underemphasizing the story’s outline when necessary. Ambience and other design markers hit more than well enough to sell the surroundings and the action to make those qualities palpable. English subtitles are option but not available on the setup; they will have to added in per your setup’s options. The Blu-ray extras come with a rare photo gallery, an archived interview with Chris Alexander with Peter Strickland discussing Franco circa 2013, and a vintage Jess Franco Trailer Reel. The DVD houses a different set of special features, separate from the Blu-ray’s, with Slave in the Women’s House interview with Eric’s Falk plus the DVD also offers Eurocine trailers. Those interested in supplementary content will be forced to pop in both discs to fully abreast of all bonus material. What’s eye-catching about the Full Moon Feature’s release is the erotic front cover on the cardboard O-slipcover, sleekly illustrated for your kink and perversive pleasure. The Blu-ray Amary inside has a NSFW story still of Dagmar Bürger walking down a spiral staircase in the buff. The same Dagmar Bürger image graces the DVD cover while a new illustrated luscious lips are pressed on the Blu-ray disc opposite side. There is no insert or booklet included. The region free release has a runtime of 78 minutes and is not rated.

Last Rites: The late Jess Franco may have a cache full of sleaze in his repertoire, but the director had a sense of panache and intensity that’s sorely underrated outside his fanbase. “Blue Rita” shows Franco’s range, stylistically and genre, and Full Moon’s sultry release is now high-definition gold in the color blue.

Own “Blue Rita” on Blu-ray and DVD Combo Set Today!

To Be an Intolerant Human Is to Be EVIL! “Lion-Girl” reviewed! (Cleopatra Entertainment / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

Here is “Lion-Girl.” Hear Her Roar on Blu-ray!

In the year 2045, a rain of meteorites harbingers the possible destruction of the human race as the space rocks contain harmful, radioactive rays that either kill a human within seconds or doesn’t kill them at all but transformers them into bloodletting, mutated beasts with superhuman abilities known as Anoroc.  While the rest of the world collapses, only Tokyo remains as the last human stronghold governed by a fascist dictator Nobuhide Fujinaga and his band of ruthless, police state Shogun led by despotic Kaisei Kishi.  Fujinaga and Kishi’s prejudices extend decades later when children in utero are exposed to Anoroc rays that keep their human appearances and behaviors only to have gained the psychokinetic energy powers.  These evolved man and Anoroc are labeled Man-Anoroc and are sought out for extermination but one defender of the weak and less fortunate, known as Lion-Girl, takes a stand against the forces of evil and bigotry, making Lion-Girl Earth’s last and only hope.

Inspired by the prolific manga works of Gô Nagai (“Cutie Honey,” “Devilman”) and Nagai providing the conceptual illustrations, the Japanese filmmaker behind the pulse-pounding pistol-whipper  “Gun Woman,” starring cult erotic-actress Asami, and the Italian yellow picture, or giallo, influenced “Maniac Driver” turns his eclectic, electric style to reproduce his love for manga and the classic Japanese superhero canon with a new heroine in “Lion Girl.”  Kurando Mitsutake endears to his audiences through passion for cutting-edge manga’s commanding nudity, a hero’s odyssey in a dystopian future, and a comic’s style depicting graphically good versus evil.   The COVID era stymied production costs due to supply issues, affecting various departments such as special effects and even the cast with relative unknown faces, but Mitsutake pushes forward with the Japanese Toei Video Company (“Battle Royale”) co-production with America’s Flag Productions and Nagai’s Dynamic Planning.  Masayuki Yamada, Gaku Kawasaki (“The Parasite Doctor Suzune”), and Mami Akari (“Maniac Driver”) produce the film.

As stated, “Lion-Girl” is filled with unrecognizable faces save for one, an actor who is usually behind the masks, such as in “The Hills Have Eyes 2” ’07,” “Predators,” and even donning the iconic hockey mask for the 2009 reboot of “Friday the 13th” as Jason Voorhees.  Derek Mears headlines being the film’s core villain, shogun Kaisei Kishi, the remorseless, power-hungry right-hand man of the Fujinaga state, as Mears’ towering 6’5” stature and unique facial features pit him against a then 22-year-old newcomer Tori Griffith in a highly visibly protagonist role requiring fully onboard nudity and choreographed physical altercations.  Griffith pulls off both requirements going through the tokusatsu, hoodoo cliffside and other desert terrain, geometries of motion that fortunately conceal a more softened performance when compared to Mears’ who actually puts a fair amount of attitude into the shogun role.  As the Lion-Girl’s sworn protector, as well as one-eyed uncle, Damian Toofeek Raven (“Komodo vs. Cobra”) resembles the sempai fostering and mentoring a younger, stronger apprentice to one day save the world.  Raven, like most of the film’s cross-cultural influences, is able to ride the line as force into an honorable fatherhood with Ken Shishikura but the character poorly exorcises compassion of a father substitute until the very end when the right moment in the script calls for it.  One flaw in “Lion-Girl’s” casting stitch is the feature could have been meatier as keystone supporting characters come and go so quickly that it could rival the likes of “Mortal Kombat 2:  Annihilation.”  Thus, rapid firing subordinate roles just to progress the story creates more questions than answers and creates more plot holes than necessary.   Nobuhide Fujinaga (Tomoki Kimura, “A Beast in Love”) leads as the iron fist of bigotry in a tyrannically society but barely has presence other than on television announcements, a pair of Kishi entourage lackeys (David Sakurai, “Karate Kill,” and Jenny Brezinski, “From Jennifer”) get lifted up by the dialogue and some action but have the rug cut out from under them from really being developed and explored, and even principal character Marion Nagata (Joey Iwanaga, “Tokyo Vampire Hotel”), the gunslinging coyote, has zero foundational building blocks being a love interest for Lion-Girl yet crowns as such at the story’s climatic showdown.  “Lion-Girl” is saturated with supporting cast and stock characters with round out by Marianne Bourg, Matt Standley, Shelby Lee Parks, Hideotoshi Imura, Holgie Forrester, Katarina Severen, Stefanie Estes, and Wes Armstrong.

“Lion-Girl” roars as a wild, untamed animal, mangy in its worst moments but also majestic at the same time.  This paradoxical cultural expression befits the co-superpowers production, blending Japanese and American flavors and faults into one oversized bag of live-action manga.  With a derision mostly toward western affairs, such as the media circus surrounding the xenophobic administration’s handling of the corona virus, to which the filmic beasts known as Anaroc is corona spelled backwards, the haughty, bullying state doesn’t stray far from Kurando Mitsutake’s pen-to-paper handiwork as he also invokes Gô Nagai’s freedom sense of nudity and violence aimed to shake up with acculturation in high level eroticism that’s not seen as sleazy or objectifying but rather empowering and artistic.  What Mitsutake does really well and what’s also to the film’s misstep for today’s audiences is the complete blitzkrieg of background setup that’s bombastically overwhelming with incident backstory, dystopian factions, and the new terminologies in a single, longwinded breath, culminating to an early point in the film with a fight between Lion-Girl and an Anaroc beast where mutated breasts are essentially turned into a flamethrower and psychokinetic battles are commissioned in headspace.  That’s the kind of psychotronic tone that bears the cult seal of approval, or in this film, the lion’s share of cult approval. 

Cleopatra Entertainment, the filmic subsidiary company of Cleopatra Records, scores big with Kurando Mitsutake retro-fitted superhero “Lion-Girl” on Blu-ray.  The AVC encoded, high-definition 1080p, single-layered BD25 is literally stuffed to the brim, presented in a 1.78:1 widescreen aspect ratio.  Compression bitrate swings the pendulum, decoding between low 30s and high teens resulting in smoothed over details.  To the film’s advantage, the abated details play into the old-style Japanese action flicks of yore, creating a pseudo-illusion of a flatten color palette and lower resolution last seen on tube televisions.  Okay, might not be to that extent as therein lies decently popping color scheme and rough contouring and lighting in more scarce settings to make the scenes less complex and rely on more smoke and mirrors to stretch the interior-exterior location budget.  The lossy English language Dolby Digital 5.1 surround track is accompanied with also a Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo.  While nothing to negatively harp on in regard to “Lion-Girl’s” sound design and soundtrack as a whole, there’s plenty to like about the wide-ranged, heavy rock-riffing audio with unequivocal balance between the sounds and channeling albeit a lesser fidelity.  Peppered with Japanese words, the dialogue is forefront and clear that red-carpet the numerous monologues with all-day importance.  The release does not come with any subtitle option.  Bonus content includes a director’s commentary track, a conversation between Kurando Mitsutake and manage artist Gô Nagai as they discuss nudity, working in America, genesis for “Lion-Girl,” and their COVID era collaborations, the making-of “Lion-Girl,” “The Hollywood premier screen with cast and director Q&A, a picture slideshow, and the theatrical trailer.  Cleopatra’s release caters to a conventional standard retail market with a commonplace Amaray and disc release and nothing more.  The front cover design is not terribly appeasing with a crowded image composite bathed in an eye-deafening and searing red.  Disc represents the same front cover image and there is no insert inside the Amaray casing.  The region free release is unrated and has an impressively entertaining runtime of a 121-minutes.  Marketed to be a different kind of superhero movie, “Lion-Girl” is certainly more than that, portrayed by Kurando Mitsutake as a love song toward the pulp exposure of his childhood and the film really glows passionately like an Anaroc with supernatural powers ready to strike with nostalgia at the heart of Japanese pop culture.

Here is “Lion-Girl.” Hear Her Roar on Blu-ray!

EVIL Relaxes in the Serenity of a “Full Body Massage” reviewed! (Unearthed Films / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

Lube Up and Get Ready for “Full Body Massage” on Blu-ray!

Nina, a middle-aged affluent art dealer, has just returned from a long business trip.  Settling back down into her own nature morte decked home, Nina pampers herself with a hot shower, a glass of wine, elegant music, and a soak in her open aired, backyard hot tub as she relaxes before for her masseur, Doug, a handsome young man she finds herself comfortably attracted to outside their professional relationship, arrives to put his oiled up hands up and down her naked body but when Fitch arrives, Doug’s more seasoned stand-in, Nina finds herself blindsided by the change and slightly disappointed in her sudden erotic deflation.  Fitch’s worldly approach to life conflicts against Nina’s narrow perspective on various topics, including art, happiness, and love.  Willing to be fully open with each other during the intimate and unorthodox massage, Nina and Fitch debate deep into their session without holding anything back with flashbacks on their experiences that led them to this very moment of unexpected connection.

Director Nicholas Roeg, the late acclaimed English director, is known for his in-depth humanizing of flawed or downcast protagonists, often times surrounded by desire and obstacles, having helmed such renowned features as “Walkabout,” “Bad Timing,” and “The Man Who Fell From Earth.”  Roeg has also dipped his directional toes in horror with films like “Don’t Look Now” and “The Witches,” running the gamut between adult and children thrills.  Later in his career, Roeg slowly moved away from theatrical features and into the realm of television, shorts, and TV movies with one of those made-for-TV films being “Full Body Massage” for the premium cable network Showtime.  Penned by “The Stranger’s” Dan Gurskis, “Full Body Massage” trades in a problematic mystery or obstacle for more of the unravelling of philosophical viewpoints of two strangers wounded in their own obvious way only to have the air purified each other’s different life paths and mere presence of mind.  The 1995 released U.S. network movie is produced by erotic thriller operators Julie Ahlberg and Michael Nolin of “The Pornorgrapher” under the LLC of Full Body Productions and Showtime.

Though a made-for-television movie likely marketed for and airing as a late night skin flick for the premium network channel in the cable box era of the 1990s, “Full Body Massage” was anything but your ordinary after dark tits up production with two well-known stars substantially casted and not just for the headline attraction.  “Ginger Snaps” and “Hider in the House” American actress Mimi Rogers is joined by Australian star and “F/X” leading man Bryan Brown who undertake the respective roles of world-weary Nina and worldly-candid Fitch.  While “Full Body Massage” has the hallmarks of softcore programming, an titillating title, sexy sax soothing tones, and a very naked Mimi Rogers, the machinating devices have more bark than bite as Rogers and Brown never engage into sexual intimacy albeit a lot of sensual massage manhandling by Fitch on Nina’s more than happy to be naked body with a stranger she just met.  The two mainstays are pundits for the story, verbally expelling their own viewpoints and experiences that have shaped their choices in life, molding them to who they are, and nearing the edge of gospel when in rhetoric with each other.  Their conspicuous dispute is nearly all narratively all consuming but not as nearly all argumentative in it’s very adult approach to discussion of just two people seeing the world through two very different eyes.   Other characters are told through mostly flashbacks and never interact in the same aortic piece with Rogers and Brown with Christopher Burgard (“Syngenor”), Elizabeth Barondes (“Night of the Scarecrow”), Gareth Williams (“Striking Distance”), Patrick Neil Quinn (“Swamp Thing” television series), Heather Gunn (“Ed Gein”), and Gabriella Hall (“The Erotic Adventures of the Invisible Man”) and Brian McLane playing younger versions of Nina and Fitch. 

“Full Body Massage” is not an intense, edge-of-your-seat nail biter bursting with action and suspense.  In fact, I struggle with film’s point and overall message to the world in what in essence boils down to a character study.  Fitch’s disapproving father no matter how perfection Fitch achieved, Nina’s continuous search for approvals in love, Fitch’s losing love that sends him on a spiritual journey, and Nina’s failed marriages between fast-and-loose husbands and hard to connect with ones make the two underlyingly wounded adults rigid and confidence in that unyielding measure until they meet each other and experience pliability out of a long-winded dialogue in not only a face-to-face manner, but also in the healing power of touch and massage that’s feels erotic per Roeg’s direction but also works out every kink in their twisted, knotted pasts to where they end in an uncertain but good place, a place they’ve never been before or have long forgotten.  By the course of two people talking, which most the world does every day, there had to be buzzier bright light to attract swarming audiences to the premium cable network’s thirst for viewership and that would be Mimi Rogers going nearly full-frontal for nearly the entire runtime and Roeg really plays into that erotic prance of unabashed confidence and comfortability while also, contrariwise, the dynamic progresses platonically. 

A newly scanned 2K transfer of 1995 film comes from an unlikely boutique distributor known mainly for extreme horror, gore and shock, and controversial material. Unearthed Films proudly presents “Full Body Massage” on Blu-ray as title lucky number 13 on their Unearthed Classics label. The AVC encoded, high-definition 1080p, BD50 exhibits cable vision veneer in a television widescreen 1.66:1 aspect ratio. Roeg’s choice to go virtually without style really hinges on the substance for success. The natural approach consumes any low-lit or candle-lit warm interiors exclusively for flashback sequences. The 35 mm print has been cared for and it shows with pristine HD transfer that keeps the natural grain and doesn’t need to really sugarcoat any sour patches. The English lossless PCM 2.0 stereo mix offers exact fidelity of the original discourse and milieu ambience of an innate digital sound capture. With the dialogue heavy story, the discourse is clean, clear, and prominent, comprehensible in every which way. Depth provides expansion and echo inside Nina’s vastly roomy mansion, but range is limited to talking and not the sensual, sexy, arousing kind. English subtitles and SDH subtitles are available on this release. Special features include the television version presented in 1.33:1 aspect ratio, a minute still image gallery that’s mostly Bryan Brown behind Mimi Rogers giving her the massage, and the original trailer. While not a great selection of bonus content, the physical exterior succeeds slightly favorable with a cardboard O-slipcover with flat, yet beautiful, illustration of, again, Bryan Brown and Mimi Rogers in massage therapy that could be misleading as sensuality. The Amaray Blu-ray cover sports the same image on the cover art and even compressed even further on the disc art. The Blu-ray is rated R, locked in region A playback, and has a runtime of 93 minutes. I’m not going to try and kid you with what is and will be “Full Body Massage’s” immediate appeal, a very well-endowed and nude Mimi Rogers, but this anomalous Unearthed Classic brings a different highbrow criterion class to the extreme horror label in what is a brazen change of pace. 

Lube Up and Get Ready for “Full Body Massage” on Blu-ray!

Playboy Discovers Vengeful EVIL’s Hidden BDSM Room A Little Too Snug. “Emanuelle’s Revenge” reviewed! (Cinephobia Releasing / DVD)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

Emanuelle’s Revenge now on DVD from Cinephobia Releasing!

A wealthy businessman philanders his way through woman in a pursuit of satisfactory conquest.  The formidable challenge of bedding a hard-to-get woman arouses him and the chase is all that more thrilling and erotic.  His persistence and perfect man act pays off with up-and-coming model Francesca, but for the playboy, Francesca becomes another notch in his belt and quickly implodes Francesca’s romanticized relationship after a sexual tryst in the public eye.  A year later, he begins his surmounting quest again with Emanuelle, a renowned writer in a lesbian relationship.  The beautiful and darkly seductive woman catches his eye and the game begins as he uses every excuse to rendezvous with her despite the Emanuelle’s partner standoffish opposition, but as his tenacity appears to be paying off as she leads him on, awarding his constant charm with favorable kittenish returns, Emanuelle is actually leading him straight into the jaws of a deceitful plan.

Italian co-directors Monica Carpanese and Dario Germani are copiously inspired by the heyday of Italian Eurotrash cinema.  The actress-turned-debut director Carpanese has starred in a handful of erotic and horror thrillers of the prolific trashy filmmaker Bruno Mattei, such as “Dangerous Attraction” and “Madness,” while also having a principal performance in the 2022 sequel to Joe D’Amato’s notorious cannibalism film “Anthropophagus.  Her colleague Dario Germani is also the cinematographer for the spaced-out follow-up as well as establishing himself in the genre not as a filmmaker behind the lens but also a director with genre films under the belt with “Anthropophagus II,” a dissimilar lover’s anguish in “Lettera H,” and a snuff-slasher “The Slaughter.”  Carpanese and Germani’s next collaborating venture continues with another D’Amato influence mixed with the popular erotic series, and its tangent spinoffs, of Just Jaeckin’s “Emmanuelle” that has official and unofficial sequels spanning all through Europe with enticingly, titillating erotic stimuli and thrills.  Their explicit explication of the near 50-year-old sexy-laced franchise comes in the form of “Emanuelle’s Revenge.”  Dropping the second “m” along with the choice of similar story and title moves the film closer to being a remake of the Joe D’Amato “Emanuelle and Francoise,” aka “Emanuelle e Francoise” or “Emanuelle’s Revenge.”  Carpanese pens the Marco Gaudenzi and Pierpaolo Marcelli produced script under the production flags of Flat Parioli, Haley Pictures, and TNM Productions. 

“Emanuelle’s Revenge” is carried by a small, four-person principal cast and half that for peripheral players within a dual-timeline story that provides the same cat-and-mouse game but with different, yet shocking outcomes on both of them.  At the tip of the spear is playboy Leonardo played by Gianni Rosato.  Sporting his best bandholz beard and pony bun, Rosato’s aggressive entrepreneurship extends beyond the working stiff hours and into the extracurricular activities of hunting down and dominating the opposite sex to sate his kicks for kink.  As the primary principal, Rosata receives the screen time that digs further into Leonardo’s psyche and what’s revealed about Leonardo’s nature is obvious trouble with an aggressive flirtation to the point where his whole game is akin to a stalker, showing up unannounced where he knows his targeted woman will be, obtaining their property that he has no right to, and essentially sucking their face with really bellicose kisses that look like they hurt.  Okay, maybe the latter is more overzealousness on Rosata’s part but certainly adds to Leonardo’s alarming behavior to which women seem to be attracted to as if giving into the idea that women prefer bad boys.  Such as the case in the first narrative with Francesca, a promising model with a now sex-relationship smart attitude after a previous relationship went terribly wrong with revenge porn.  Played by Ilaria Loriga in her own credited role, the young actress isn’t quite the epitome of innocence but is understandably weary to fall in love again with the persistent Leonardo but with all the foretell warnings of a disaster in the making, Francesca’s penned as sorely naïve and having learned not one single lesson of her past relationship with promiscuous men.  A year later, in the second act’s story, Emanuelle strolls into the picture under the olive-skin and deep eyebrows of Beatric Schiaffino who bats enticing eyes of the titular character’s hidden agenda. Schiaffino’s crafts a demeaner starkly different against her previous year counterpart as Emanuelle’s coquettishness doesn’t refrain from the fact she’s already in a hot-and-heavy relationship and matching Leonardo’s hot-to-trot escapade with a come-hither that’s just out of his reach. If a rake beckons a game of amorous desire, then Emanuelle enacts a game of her own, one of a lure to lead the blind right into her spider’s web and Schiaffino properly tightropes pleasure and purpose to a somatosensory stimulation level. “Emanuelle’s Revenge” rounds out with Luca Avallone as Leonardo’s licentious friend and business understudy, Ilde Mauri as Emanuelle’s lesbian partner, and Miriam Dossena as Leonardo’s 20-something daughter who suddenly pops into play in the Emanuelle story.

Even though “Emanuelle and Francoise” has never traipsed across my eyes, from what I’ve read the Joe D’Amato and the coproduction of Monica Carpanese and Dario Germani share a lot in common, but the modern-day version of this sordid tale of lust and revenge sticks to the venereal veneer only whereas D’Amato engages a cannibalism and other ghastly horrors. “Emanuelle’s Revenge” seduces with melodramatics, frisky fantasies, and contemptible thralldom because of one man’s wandering libido, focusing tremendously on the building game of mostly pavalar rather than diving into shock value. The narrative begins with a suicide of Francesca, jumping half nude off a busy passenger vehicle bridge, and this segues into Leonardo’s assertive activity into Francesca’s life and so the tale’s non-linear format is already incredulously fated with tossed in opening scene just to grab attention. When following Leonardo’s uncomfortable pursuit, and uncomfortable henpeck kissing, of Francesca, the audience is just along for the ride up to the point of incident where they’re abruptly blue-balled by cut-to a year later without knowing why Francesca decided to throw in her life towel. The brain and our movie-watching experience eventually catchup with the fact everything will be explained at the climatic, but the format jars the assimilating process a tad. Throughout the narrative, there’s plenty of a T&A to go around as I believe nearly every actress with speaking lines drops at least her top, living up to the long history of “Emmanuelle’s,” or “Emanuelle’s” fleshy affluence and erotic elements. Considering the plot twist, Carpanese’s approach doesn’t compel any creativity into the mostly remade erotic-revenger and makes contact with formulaic properties that poison any kind of novel ideas that might have been indited in the inner story layers.

Arriving at number 8 on the spine for Cinephobia Releasing, “Emanuelle’s Revenge” is now on DVD, presented in a widescreen 2.35:1 aspect ratio. The MPEG-2 encoded DVD9 has a sleek look albeit tumbling through a bitrate spread of 5 to 7 Mbps. Some surface coloring suffuse, especially on skin where similar tones seep into the adjacent due to block boundary artifact, but the amount is very little and doesn’t sully much to render the picture an admixed wash in the lion’s share of soft lighting. Details are okay here with the stunning urban landscapes and more opened metropolitan venues, such as a rooftop party, opening up audiences to the chic levels of high society’s profanation of control and sex. The release offers two Italian language audio tracks: A Dolby Digital 5.1 surround and a 2.0 stereo. If asked, I would suggest less channels as they are redundant and useless and go for the 2.0 stereo as there’s not much frequential range in what is essentially a talking head film with an exposition driven narrative. Dialogue is clearly and cleanly stated overtop other audio layers with a powerfully boosted stock file soundtrack in parallel unison to the theatrics. English subtitles are optionally available and the error-free translations keep up with dialogue pacing. Only other Cinephobia Releasing film trailers, including “Brightwood,” “The Goldsmith,” “The Human Trap,” and “Amor Bandido,” are available bonus content. The black background front cover delineates deliciously Beatric Schiaffino as the titular Emanuelle sitting open robed, in thigh-high laced stockings, and on her wicker chair throne. This image reminds me of a mistake in this revealing scene with the very first image of Emanuelle sitting in the oversized back chair resembling closely the front cover image, but the subsequent scenes have her once flesh exposed chest to midriff covered up with censurable continuity. Inside the DVD Amary case lie no insert and the same provocative front cover Emanuelle image more centrally cropped down and blow up to emphasize the seductive siren. The not rated, 83-minute feature is limited to a region one playback. “Emanuelle’s Revenge” spices up the contemporary franchise with erotic entails, exorbitant egos, and illicit indecencies despite its sacrificing of pacing and organization for sleaze, skin, and a side dish of kink.


Emanuelle’s Revenge now on DVD from Cinephobia Releasing!