APOCALIPSIS SEXUAL

When I was compiling the list of movies for the month of October, I decided to do this little week of nothing but horror pornos. It sounded like a neat idea, a good opportunity to review a kind of film I don't often watch. But as I was going through my collection and looking at all the XXX horror titles I own, I realized that there isn't much to say about many of these films. A lot of them were shot back to back with the same casts and the same crews on the sames sets and the same locations. Many were just rip offs or spoofs of popular trends. Most of them barely have stories, just gooey wads of plot designed to get people from one bedroom to another. 

In other words, most of these films are boring. So I decided to expand the selection criteria to include hardcore roughies. But again… not much variation to be had. With three slots to be filled in the schedule, I decided to just choose films at random. The film selected for today's review was APOCALIPSIS SEXUAL, a Sadean bit of nastiness all about a group of criminal layabouts whose sexual libertarianism masks a deep well of cruelty. The gang kidnaps a wealthy socialite's daughter and holds her for ransom. Try as they might, they can't resist incorporating their new housemate into their sexual games and surprisingly, it seems as though the virginal daughter of an uptight capitalist is far more of a freak than they ever imagined, a revelation that eventually leads to jealousy, lust and bloody murder.

As usual with these kinds of films, the sex is the boring bit. While I will admit to finding Lina Romay insanely attractive, watching her fuck on screen, for real or otherwise, is simply goddamn annoying. She flops around like a dying animal, all flapping tongue and shaking limbs. She's remarkably sexy when she's not trying to be sexy, but as soon as she's required to show any kind of sexual passion, she looks like a Penthouse Pet having a seizure. It stands in sharp contrast to the other women in this film, chief among them Ajita Wilson and Kati Ballari. They simply look bored to death. The men fair no better. Half the time they can't even get it up. They should seriously consider talking to a necromancer about that.

So as a sex film, APOCALIPSIS SEXUAL (and yes, I DID have to check that four times to make sure I spelled it right, thank you very much) completely fails. The sex is dull, goes on too long, is accompanied by a ceaseless barrage of obnoxious overdubbed moans and groans, and really just distracts from what the film actually does rather well. You see, this film is surprisingly nauseating at times. It is sleazy and gross. It is insanely uncomfortable. As a piece of nasty exploitation, APOCALIPSIS SEXUAL is absolutely award worthy. 

A woman is raped with a pool cue. A man aggressively fondles an unconscious woman. Sexism is treated as a sign of affection. Bodily fluids are spilled on camera. I wanted a shower the entire time I was watching this disgusting movie. There's a stupidly long scene of a woman being fucked with what appears to be a very real switchblade knife When the murders finally start happening in rapid fire succession, the violence was far from funny. In fact, the first of the many killings actually made me wince. No, sir, I didn't have much fun watching this film, but I'll be damned if it wasn't effective in making me squirm.

APOCALIPSIS SEXUAL was directed by Carlos Aured, a Spanish filmmaker whose career trajectory matched that of Jess Franco's for quite some time. Like Franco, Aured started his career making decent movies before falling into the easy trap of cheap sexploitation. Aured was nowhere near as prolific as Franco though, nor did he continue making films past the mid 80s, but he had a much better grasp on how to actually film a goddamn scene. There are no quick and sudden zoom ins on assholes here, nor is there any hint of an unholy obsession with extreme close ups. For all its queasy grossness, APOCALIPSIS SEXUAL is pretty good looking film, even though its uncut version is a mash up of wildly different video sources.

So at least you're not suffering from whiplash as you watch Romay hyperactively suck a dick. You're not four centimeters away from some actor's colon at all times either. I think in Franco's hands, this film would have been completely unwatchable, but Aured keeps things moving along smoothly (when the characters are clothed anyway). The actresses are all nice looking and so is the scenery, and the film accomplishes what it set out to accomplish. It made me want to bathe in bleach. So kudos on a job well done, movie. I hate you.