"L'uomo, la donna e la bestia - Spell (Dolce Mattataio)" (1977) d / Alberto Cavallone

From the man responsible for projector fodder like Blue Movie (1978) and Blow Job (1980) comes tonight's review, Alberto Cavallone's bizarre exercise in arthouse sleaze known alternately as Man Woman and Beast (1977). The director's visuals on this effort reminds me of something like a leisurely l.s.d.-soaked cruise down Jodorowsky Boulevard with the John Waters gag reflex pedal to the floor, and that's only when they succeed! For when they fail, and that's more often,  o woprophiles, they're more like an Amazonian psychedelic snuff powder that transports the user's mind into a terrible Deep Web clip that continued viewing will bring spiritual damage unto their soul. But one label no one has ever labelled this movie with, as far as I can tell, is "boring". I'd also wager that I'm probably the only guy in my personal circle that has ever seen it, and I've never recommended it on a movie night, either, unless it was a crowd of people I didn't like very much, in which case, combined with Thierry Zeno's Wedding Trough as a "Wouldn't you rather go home, instead?" double bill would effectively do the trick...


L'aqua potabile wc...come frugale di te!
At the outset, we're introduced to a small rural Italian community,  immersed in preparation for an upcoming feast in the name of their patron saint, and its cast of colorful characters. There's a jaded communist artist who clings to party icons like pictures of Lenin and red flags (blech!), despite an growing uncertainty as to whether any of it still holds relevance or truth in his life, spent tending to a spouse who's lost all her fucking marbles while degenerating into an increasingly violent beast, indeed,  as evidenced by her propensity to drink out of the toilet and attempt to snip her nurse's nipples off with a pair of scissors. While the younger kids work the streets, pimping drawings of the saint for cash, the teens take advantage of the social atmosphere to enjoy each other's drunken carnality, there's the lonely butcher who peep tom's the young girls' budding breast and ass display until he's so horny that he wanders off and fucks a swinging slab of beef in the cooler. Oh yeah, this one's a beaut.


...fottuto un lato di carne bovina...come romantico di voi!
One of the teenage girls is dealing with an especially unwanted pregnancy, seeing as the father is her father. Then there's a mysterious adolescent outsider who's met with Christ-like adoration from nearly every one in the village, who rescues a younger lad who's gotten himself lumped up in a fight, taking him to the villa of Che' Picasso and his gonzo nympho bimbo for assistance, probably not the smartest decision the kid ever made, when it ends with a poo-face, after cuckolding the creepy collage-pasting commie with some ill-advised analingus, gone about as wrong as things of that nature can go. There's also a cow's eye masturbation scene. Keep an upchuck bucket nearby, if you sit through this one, there's a good chance you're gonna need it, and probably more than once. Wash your eyes out with liberal doses of Christina Lindberg following any potential viewings to avoid losing your mind. That's all I got. Try and behave yourselves on Mischief Night tonight.


"No, really, sweetheart, karaoke sounds much better through a pink microphone..."
I'm gonna go ahead and assume that any of the actors involved in this film would probably rather not be reminded of their participation, so I'm not gonna draw further attention to them here. I ended up giving Spell two Wops for showing me things I'd never seen in a movie up to that point in tackling three classic Italian subjects : sex, politics, and religion from new angles, unfortunately, most of those things were also on my "Never wanted to see" list, and not much makes either of those lists at this point, now that I'm sufficiently old as dirt and with a long history of cinema behind me. With those facts in mind, I can't in good faith suggest tonight's review to anyone save for the hardcore Italian genre completists out there, and even then, those individuals will most likely wretch at the sight of it. When that inevitably does come to pass, I only ask that you remember that I did, indeed, tell you so, and feel zero empathy towards your spiritual low state.


"Mom, I'd like you to meet my new girlfriend..."

"Blue Movie" (1978) d/ Alberto Cavallone

If you needed a shower after watching the enjoyably slimy Giallo a Venezia, you might think about trying to dry ice blast yourself clean after getting through tonight's review, a schizophrenic, misogynistic, fetishistic mess from the man who brought you 1980's Blow Job, that openly revels in it's 'Blue' title, before turning a revolting shade of brown. Italian Playboy Playmates Dirce Funari and Leda Simonetti lend the only recognizable faces to Alberto Cavallone's cast in this exercise in endurance that's full of unenjoyable imagery and begs the eternal question, "Where does the role play end and rape begin?" In this particular case, somewhere just after the opening credits finish rolling...


"What's with-ah alla the fahking-ah cans??!!", ponders Daniela ( Daniella Dugas).
We kick off here with a young woman (Dugas) being raped in the woods by an unknown assailant with a stocking pulled over his face. She manages to escape, flagging down a passing car, as driven by Claudio (Claude Maran), a photographer who hates stupid, expressionless women nearly as much as he likes empty cans, and, to a lesser degree, keeping fresh turds in cigarette packs in his fridge. There's also quite a few baby dolls in tiny jars strewn about the place, as well. While keeping a nightmare-plagued Daniela under lock and key, Claudio alternates between photographing and verbally abusing one of his ultra-submissive models (Funari), running a hot light over her nude body. Random footage of war atrocities accompanies his sadism-flavored photo shoots, while Daniela snoops around his flat, prying open a locked door to reveal a slide projector chock full o' can based photographic art. For her crimes, she's forced to crawl around like a dog a bit, after some disciplinary bitch slaps, of course.


You'd need one of Andre the Giant's mitts to blot out that bush.
He takes in Leda (Simonetti), a pixie-haired waif left homeless-by-volcano(you'd think people'd have insurance for that kinda thing), that he later peep-toms on, as she swaps fluids with a lanky, effeminate African (Joseph Dickson, as "Il Negro"), who'd been searching for Daniela, snarkily slagging himself off to Claudio as a homosexual, before dicking down his new secretary on the sneak. Meanwhile, Claudio has also locked up a compliant Sylvia like a starving animal, allowing her to occasionally sloppily lap coffee cake(? the print I watched was thankfully far from crisp...) crumbs off of his chest while she jerks him off. Next up, he's got one of his models pinching off her daily deuce in what looks like a paint roller tray, or it could be a litter box. Does it matter, at this point? In any case, this movie gets a good deal shittier from here on out, both literally and figuratively. Rather than spelling it all out graphically and hilariously for you here, I'm gonna leave the finale for you to discover on your own, should you be inclined to hunt down such obscure art-sleaze cinema, as I had done before you. Woe is me for my curiosity, but woe of woes is you who now oughta know better.


"Ohhh, take me, Willis! Now, while Arnold's still on the dialysis machine..."
The two reasons I sought out this title in the first place: Funari would also appear in Starcrash and Midnight Blue the following year, before her notoriously lascivious turns in D'Amato's Le notti erotiche dei morte viventi aka/Sexy Nights of the Living Dead(1980) and Porno Holocaust (1981). Simonetti appeared in Bruno Mattei's La vera storia della monaca di Monza aka/The True Story of the Nun of Monza(1980) and Detenute violente aka/Hell Penitentiary with Ajita Wilson in 1984.  I think Doc, a fellow of a milder tolerance for the disgusting, who naturally vacated the room for good when the paint tray came out, may have best put the exclamation on our observations tonight, when he said, afterwards: "I'd rather watch the guy with the eggs." One Wop. For hardcore genre freaks only.


Not the worst thing that gets eaten in this movie. Trust me.