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EXTREME: Sadomania |
| I guess I should start this off by saying that I'm not a huge follower of Jess Franco. Not that I don't like him, but in my previous 23 years I've had neither the time nor the money to track down the majority of his films. And, although some of them are interesting enough, after watching stuff like Devil Hunter, I didn't have all that much inclination to do so either. Still, what would be the point of reading a Franco-phile review that consisted of "the master does it again!"?
The basic plotline runs like this; a newly married couple drive along, looking for somewhere to park and have a bit of fun. Unfortunately enough, they choose to drive up a dirt track that leads to a women's prison. And of course, this prison isn't exactly Prisoner Cell Block H. Instead, it more resembles a prisoner of war camp, ran by a sadistic governess (played by a transexual!) where the women toil all day breaking rocks (and you can tell that they're toiling really hard, because all of them have felt it necessary to take their tops off). A little unhappy about the couple's intrusion, the governess orders that the man leaves immediately, and his wife stays as an inmate of the prison. We also meet the local Government official, who every now and again chooses women from the prison to take home with him for the benefit of his wife - a lesbian who is desperate to have a child and frustrated by her husband's impotence. So the official tries having sex with various women from the prison, unsuccessfully as well (not that his wife doesn't get some benefit anyway from having sex with the women afterwards), until he finally manages to get aroused by one of the women from the camp being raped by an alsatian - yes, you read that right. And it's just as horrible as it sounds. When the official's wife has finished with the women, she sells them to a brothel (where there also works a fat, short gay guy - Jess Franco in possibly the most bizarre directorial cameo ever). At the same time, the husband of the imprisoned woman is also attempting to free her - he's told at the beginning that if he returns to the prison, he'll be shot. But instead, when he goes back to find his wife, he's given a much harsher treatment - first of all being fondled by two women, then having sex with the governess; how much more sadistic could anyone be? 
Sadomania really isn't the right name for this film. All of the characters are far more interested in having sex (generally of the lesbian variety) than they are in enacting any warped ideas of the Marquis de Sade. As such, it's generally just silly and entirely over the top, as in scenes where the young wife is seperated from her husband, and in no time at all is partaking of some lesbian pleasure. The scene where two women are pitted against each other in a fight to the death is also amusing in its ridiculousness, as both women are locked in cages, just waiting for the battle to commence so that they can run out and face their naked opponent. The only problem is that, along with all this light-hearted, albeit entirely non-PC, sillyness, there's also a couple of scenes which are just nasty; the rapes by the alsatian and by a man on the boat to the brothel particularly. Along with all the softcore lesbian fondling, these scenes look out of place and horrific in their misogynistic content.
There is at least plenty going on in Sadomania, and unlike in Franco's The Bloody Judge, it doesn't all get in the way of following what's happening. I guess in the end you have to put the film in that seperate genre of Franco films; not enough sex to be classed as porn, too little violence to be horror, and with enough ridiculous cheese to sustain an entire nation of mice. Phil |
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