Tuesday, August 29, 2023

70's British Horror Part Twenty-Five

SECRETS OF SEX
(1970)
Dir - Anthony Balch
Overall: MEH
 
While its moronic, Ed Wood-styled premise may perk up the trash connoisseur within the first handful of minutes, the novelty quickly wears off in Anthony Balch's sexploitation anthology snore-fest Secrets of Sex, (Bizarre).  The movie occasionally seems to be in on its own head-scratching joke, like when our mummy narrator, (yes that is a thing here), voiced by the instantly recognizable baritone of Valentine Dyall asks in the opening monologue what you would feel like to have sex "with this girl" or "with this boy" several dozen times, (not an exaggeration), and later proclaims "And it goes on and on and on..." to close things out.  In the middle of such nonsense though is a whole lot more nonsense where a series of sluggishly boring segments play out that seem to have no idea what point if any they are trying to make.  A sadistic photographer leaves her male model literally hanging throughout an entire lunch break, an older man gets duped into having a mutant baby, a guy and a cat burglar have sex/argue, a secret agent watches a silent stag film and goes to a weird party, a horny man-child gets sad that his call girl does not like his pet snake, and an old lady prattles on about dead lovers and plants.  Deliberately outrageous yes, but whatever it is trying to satirize gets lost in an amateur mess of detrimental pacing and awkward sleaze.

THE OTHER SIDE OF THE UNDERNEATH
(1972)
Dir - Jane Arden
Overall: MEH
 
A notable avant-garde work and benchmark in British cinema for being a feature length film directed by a woman, The Other Side of the Underneath is Jane Arden's adaptation of her own surreal play A New Communion of Freaks, Prophets, and Witches which debuted the previous year.  Largely performed by the all female Holocaust Theatre Company and serving as the cinematic debut for Arden, it is a series of episodes loosely related to women in a mental institution, or so one may assume considering that the movie has no conventional narrative as is usually the case in experimental art films.  While many of the images are memorable and have a bewitching quality to them, (and there is a chaotic energy at times which is exaggerated by Sally Minford's abrasive score), sitting through the full hour and fifty-one minutes is a grueling task.  Part primal scream therapy session mixed with meandering, documentary-like interludes, the lack of plot is not so much of a problem as is the exhausting nature of the entire experience.  Certainly meant to be challenging in such a respect, basking in the film's liberal running time and extended periods of aimless wondering are probably too much to ask.  As an examination of frustrated madness through an extremist feminine lens though, it is certainly commendable if not persistently enthralling.

HOUSE OF THE LIVING DEAD
(1974)
Dir - Ray Austin
Overall: MEH

For his last theatrically released film before exclusively carrying on in television for over two more decades, stunt man-turned director Ray Austin made the low-budget British/South African co-production House of the Living Dead, (Skaduwees Oor Brugplaas, Shadows Over Bridge Farm, Doctor Maniac, Curse of the Dead, Kill, Baby, Kill).  Somewhat of a House of Usher knock-off, it beats the old "She can't marry into the family, we're all mad" trope into the ground, with characters endlessly repeating themselves trying to get Shirley Anne Field to leave a plantation while she keeps saying that she never will.  Such monotonous dialog exchanges seem to take up ninety percent of the running time and Austin's piss-pour sense of pacing surely does not help matters much.  The bold color choices make an interesting clash with the Gothic setting full of earthy, wooden shadowiness, but the movie could have afforded more violence and sleaze since the plot is so stagnant.  Even with vague occult/mad scientist elements thrown in, the whole thing is an absolute snore-fest with only mild bouts of overacting and unintended, campy silliness present to liven things up within the last twenty minutes or so.

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