Nude for Satan (1974)

Italian schlock at its most demented, Nude for Satan was originally rejected by Italian censors on due to its lengthy 'obscene sequences', particularly those depicting lesbian sex.  which leaves one wondering exactly what the original, uncut, version of the film was like, as the version passed by the censors (and currently available on DVD, includes copious amounts of sex and nudity, including plenty of lesbian encounters for the female lead).  Like many Italian sexploitation  movies of the era, Nude for Satan offers the viewer a heady mix of sex, sadism and Satanism, yet, unlike the best of these films, never manages to make its ingredients gel into anything really coherent.  While director Luigi Batzella's (directing under the pseudonym Paulo Solvay) attempts to create a dreamlike atmosphere all to often come over as jarring and disjointed, they do, at least, leave the audience feeling completely disorientated, desperately grasping at anything that looks like a narrative thread.  In fact, the overall impression given is that he was simply making it all up as he went along, filming new scenes as they came into his head.  Of course, such a stream-of-conciousness approach to film making could, potentially, be quite rewarding, particularly in the context of a fantasy film.  In the case of Nude for Satan, however, any virtues this technique might have brought are frequently undermined by an obviously tiny budget, where supposedly brick walls are revealed as obvious scenery 'flats', (or perhaps that's the intention - it emphasises the unreality of the world the characters find themselves thrust into), and reduces a car crash to a single wheel seen rolling across the frame.  Then there's the absolute worst fake giant spider ever.  (I'm arachnophobic and just about anything vaguely spider shaped has me shrieking, but this fake spider was just so ludicrously bad that the only reaction it evoked as it menaced the heroine was laughter). 

The plot involves Dr Benson (Stelio Candelli), on his way to a nocturnal house call at a remote property, coming across a crashed car containing an injured young woman, Susan (Rita Calderoni).  Seeking help, he drives her to the nearest property, a creepy old castle, where encounters Susan's double: a woman called Evelyn, dressed in eighteenth century clothes, who seems to expect him.  Or rather she's expecting someone called 'Peter' who apparently looks just like him.  Mistaking Evelyn for Susan, Benson goes off to sleep with her.  Susan, meanwhile, regains consciousness and also enters the house, where she encounters a mysterious stranger (James Harris), whose hospitality she accepts and quickly finds herself engaged in a lesbian encounter with another woman who has apparently appeared from nowhere.  The next day, Susan encounters who thinks is Dr Benson, but is actually Peter (like Evelyn, he is dressed in anachronistic costume) who, in turn, mistakes her for Evelyn and makes lewd advances toward her.  As the film progresses, Benson finally realises that Evelyn isn't Susan, who he rescues from the aforementioned spider when she falls into its web while fleeing a Satanic orgy, presided over by the stranger who is, obviously, Satan, which she was witnessed.  The film becomes ever more confusing, as Benson chases Peter around the grounds of the castle (where it is suddenly day time), before finally confronting him in the castle (where it is night again).  Peter reveals that he and Evelyn are Benson and Susan's alter egos, who have given themselves over to unbridled passion and sensuousness, surrendering entirely to the pleasures of the flesh.  Susan succumbs to Peter's charms, another orgy, presided over by Satan, breaks out, before Benson finally consults the mysterious old book in the hall way for a way to break the Devil's spell and a fiery conflagration breaks out.  Benson abruptly finds himself back at the scene of the accident, but this time Susan is dead, having succumbed to her dark side during their sojourn in Satan's limbo.

In the end. Nude for Satan treads a fine line between horror and outright pornography, seemingly lacking the courage to cross completely over into the latter.  Strangely though, despite all the sex, nudity and kinkiness (the main orgy scene involves the girl who had got it on with Susan being brutally whipped by the crazy old butler), the film is, in the final analysis, a very old fashioned morality tale.  Trapped in a timeless limbo, the protagonists are given a simple choice between giving in to their basest nature, or rejecting their darker sides and, by extension, the Devil.  And that's it, despite all the confusion and obfuscation, all the attempts to make itself mysterious and obscure, the film boils down to that.  Which, is perhaps, its biggest weakness,  After all the preceding craziness, the viewer is left hoping for a more complex, more profound denouement.  That said, it is still an entertaining ride.  Often for the wrong reasons, like the shaky sets, ropey giant spider and James Harris' terrible acting.  Yet the film possesses that true characteristic of great schlock: the feeling that you've stumbled into somebody else's fever dream.  The viewer is thrust into a deliberately confusing scenario, virtually from the off, where normal rules of time and causality don't seem to apply and is left constantly asking who?, what? and why?  Which is not necessarily a bad thing.  Particularly in a cheap sexploitation film. The film also has the advantage of only running eighty minutes, so it never quite outstays its welcome.  (There is, apparently, a ninety minute version, including hardcore scenes, available in the Netherlands).   A truly bizarre movie, Nude for Satan, while living up to its title, also provides the viewer with a perplexing eighty minutes of entertaining madness.  Well worth a look.