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"Weird"
may be a word that's been tossed around too easily when discussing
movies. It's been used to describe any film with a quirky character,
an odd setting or a story difficult to sum up in 25 words or
less. Over the last few years I've become a little sensitive
to "weird" as I think it's losing its strength through
over-and-misuse. Nevertheless, trust me when I say that this
British import is one weird freaking movie! Although
the title given on the DVD cover is Bizarre
(appropriate!), the title on the film itself is Secrets Of
Sex... which might give you the idea that the film is about
sex. And you'd be right! Naked flesh abounds for roughly half
the running time with almost no rhyme or reason needed to display
well endowed members of both sexes cavorting in hay piles, on
dirty floors or in showers. This is probably fine for a fraction
of cult film fans but I've never found slow motion shots of
an R-rated orgy the most entertaining way to spend 90 minutes.
Luckily, Bizarre offers up a bit
more — if not a lot more.
The film is structured
as an anthology in the vein of Dead Of Night or Dr. Terror's
House Of Horror, with the idea of mixing horror and eroticism
to illuminate the timeless "Battle of the Sexes".
Instead of a linking story with a punch line as the show's finale,
we're shown the movie's narrator meeting his fate as the first
tale. To demonstrate his suitability to present these stories,
this narrator is revealed as a married woman's lover in ancient
Egypt who ends up buried alive and mummified. So we have a talking
mummy (voiced by Valentine Dyall) introducing a series of modern
soft-core sex stories about which he then philosophizes at length.
That his highbrow musings rarely reflect on anything in the
stories is no more odd than the fact that he's the only character
dubbed so badly that his gauze covered lips never match what's
being said! At any rate, after fearing I was in for a night
of soft-core porn I was shocked to find several of the stories
were actually pretty smart. Yes, there is a ridiculous 'Cat
Burglar' sequence in which a female thief seduces her victim
after being caught in the act (cue cheesy porn soundtrack),
but this is offset by four tales of higher quality. My favorite
one is a horror story concerning an older man and his younger
wife's decision to have a child; the final one recounting an
older lady's romantic history and how it's affected her greenhouse
plants is a nice capper. I really enjoyed the dialog in these
segments. It never sounds natural at all but it has a strange
theatrical feel. These tales blend poorly with the other stories
but are the highlights and stick in the memory. The comedy high
spot is the fairly amusing tale of "Lindy Leigh",
a British spy spoof that manages to include some nice nudity
and a few chuckles as well. (It nearly goes off the rails when
it stops dead to show us the silent black & white comedy Lindy
and her male companion watch in a theater. Did I mention the
film is odd?)
If this sucker
had been described to me before I saw it I wouldn't have been
interested. These types of sex movies tend toward the dull,
relying on softcore groping/fondling and copious nudity to keep
the audience seated — but they always drive me to the fast forward
button. Thankfully, for the most part, Bizarre
is not that kind of boring T & A show. It's obvious director
Antony Balch had more on his mind than just titillation. Going
on a capsule synopsis I would've passed this by and missed an
interesting picture. Definitely not for everyone (or even most),
this is a very eccentric one indeed. Recommended for connoisseurs
of strange cinema only.
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