DELIRIUM (Renato Polselli - Italy 1972).
If it's sleazy '70s exploitation you're looking for, packed with sexual violence and some truly twisted proceedings, look no further. I've watched some weird stuff in my lifetime, but this one truly hits the mark. Clearly, Polselli is a first-class hack and this is an incredibly shoddy piece of work, but somehow it was compelling enough (or just plain weird) to keep watching. I'm not sure though what that says about the film's qualities. At least it says something...
Hungarian muscle man Mickey Hargitay is criminal psychologist Dr. Herbert Lyutak who picks up a sweet young thing at a local bar, and gets the uncontrollable urge to strangle her at the sight of the girls legs. This is one wacky doctor that turns out to be a homicidal maniac, or is he? The local police doesn't suspect him, that's for sure, and treat him with the utmost respect. As a criminal psychologist, they even consult him to catch the culprit. The investigating police officers don't seem very trustworthy of a murder investigation. The one in charge is a skinny, somewhat suspicious looking chap, wearing a garish red blouse through the entire film (this is 1972, ya know). His assistant is a seriously groovy dude, impeccably coiffured with a perfectly trimmed beard and wearing some very cool Italian suits. No, he does not look tacky at all, the latest fashions is all he wears. But this was the English countryside, I digress.
The primary source of income for the local female population seems to walk the streets, mostly on deserted country roads or the village square, where they don't seem to do a lot of business. It's only a small village, after all. But it's very convenient for deranged sex killers with a taste for young women. Problem is, our two police officers haven't got a clue how to crack the case. Even after the fifth killing, the two detectives come little further than exclaiming this is yet another identical case. They come up with the luminous idea of using some woman as bait (she was actually not just someone, but I can't remember) who is also killed, but these two don't hesitate to use this tactic again and employ some more female bait. To complicate matters, Dr. Lyutak's beautiful wife (Rita Calderoni) is tormented by visions of medieval torture and lesbian orgies, a perfect excuse to throw in some more naked female flesh and gratuitous torture scenes.
Rather distracting is the film's English setting, unconvincingly done as usual in Italian films, since the film excels in very picturesque outdoor scenes in the Italian countryside and even a shot from a roof that immediately betrays the location as Rome(!). To make up for its completely nonsensical "plotline", Polselli throws in three killers(!) and since there are no likable characters in the film anyway, the only way to watch this is for an almost continuous wacky stream of hallucinations involving torture SM-style, chain whipping, bondage, masturbation and lost of killings of course. It's a glorious mess, but Polselli keeps the action going, so it's never really dull.
Anchor Bay presents this as an "astonishing 1972 oddity by the notorious Renato Polselli (under the pseudonym Ralph Brown)." Well, this oddity is presented in both the Italian and U.S versions, which are radically different. The American version opens with Vietnam footage explaining how Dr. Lyutak got his trauma, an explanation completely lacking in the Italian version. Regarding the American version, Anchor Bay neatly explains the original Vietnam footage was lost and some of this footage was taken and inserted in this version from a Danish VHS-copy and is presented with subtitles. To my surprise, it's actually a Dutch copy they used here, the subtitles were unmistakeably Dutch. Furthermore, in the American version, Hungarian born Mickey Hargitay's own voice is used (he only spoke English, no Italian), but his accent is even thicker than Arnold Schwarzenegger in his early days (which Hargitay humorously admits in an accompanying interview), so it's very hard to understand what he's saying. Incidentally, Schwarzenegger would even play Mickey Hargitay in the 1980 film THE JAYNE MANSFIELD STORY!
In any case, the Italian version is taken from a much better print, so I'd advise anyone to start with that one.
Camera Obscura --- 7/10
If it's sleazy '70s exploitation you're looking for, packed with sexual violence and some truly twisted proceedings, look no further. I've watched some weird stuff in my lifetime, but this one truly hits the mark. Clearly, Polselli is a first-class hack and this is an incredibly shoddy piece of work, but somehow it was compelling enough (or just plain weird) to keep watching. I'm not sure though what that says about the film's qualities. At least it says something...
Hungarian muscle man Mickey Hargitay is criminal psychologist Dr. Herbert Lyutak who picks up a sweet young thing at a local bar, and gets the uncontrollable urge to strangle her at the sight of the girls legs. This is one wacky doctor that turns out to be a homicidal maniac, or is he? The local police doesn't suspect him, that's for sure, and treat him with the utmost respect. As a criminal psychologist, they even consult him to catch the culprit. The investigating police officers don't seem very trustworthy of a murder investigation. The one in charge is a skinny, somewhat suspicious looking chap, wearing a garish red blouse through the entire film (this is 1972, ya know). His assistant is a seriously groovy dude, impeccably coiffured with a perfectly trimmed beard and wearing some very cool Italian suits. No, he does not look tacky at all, the latest fashions is all he wears. But this was the English countryside, I digress.
The primary source of income for the local female population seems to walk the streets, mostly on deserted country roads or the village square, where they don't seem to do a lot of business. It's only a small village, after all. But it's very convenient for deranged sex killers with a taste for young women. Problem is, our two police officers haven't got a clue how to crack the case. Even after the fifth killing, the two detectives come little further than exclaiming this is yet another identical case. They come up with the luminous idea of using some woman as bait (she was actually not just someone, but I can't remember) who is also killed, but these two don't hesitate to use this tactic again and employ some more female bait. To complicate matters, Dr. Lyutak's beautiful wife (Rita Calderoni) is tormented by visions of medieval torture and lesbian orgies, a perfect excuse to throw in some more naked female flesh and gratuitous torture scenes.
Rather distracting is the film's English setting, unconvincingly done as usual in Italian films, since the film excels in very picturesque outdoor scenes in the Italian countryside and even a shot from a roof that immediately betrays the location as Rome(!). To make up for its completely nonsensical "plotline", Polselli throws in three killers(!) and since there are no likable characters in the film anyway, the only way to watch this is for an almost continuous wacky stream of hallucinations involving torture SM-style, chain whipping, bondage, masturbation and lost of killings of course. It's a glorious mess, but Polselli keeps the action going, so it's never really dull.
Anchor Bay presents this as an "astonishing 1972 oddity by the notorious Renato Polselli (under the pseudonym Ralph Brown)." Well, this oddity is presented in both the Italian and U.S versions, which are radically different. The American version opens with Vietnam footage explaining how Dr. Lyutak got his trauma, an explanation completely lacking in the Italian version. Regarding the American version, Anchor Bay neatly explains the original Vietnam footage was lost and some of this footage was taken and inserted in this version from a Danish VHS-copy and is presented with subtitles. To my surprise, it's actually a Dutch copy they used here, the subtitles were unmistakeably Dutch. Furthermore, in the American version, Hungarian born Mickey Hargitay's own voice is used (he only spoke English, no Italian), but his accent is even thicker than Arnold Schwarzenegger in his early days (which Hargitay humorously admits in an accompanying interview), so it's very hard to understand what he's saying. Incidentally, Schwarzenegger would even play Mickey Hargitay in the 1980 film THE JAYNE MANSFIELD STORY!
In any case, the Italian version is taken from a much better print, so I'd advise anyone to start with that one.
Camera Obscura --- 7/10