Another Weekend of Sleaze

There comes a point while watching a film like The Hyena (1991), usually around half way, when I find myself asking 'why?', just why am I subjecting myself to this sort of cinematic hell?  OK, perhaps 'cinematic hell' is too strong a term to describe The Hyena.  But there's just something about it prevents from engaging with the movie.  The Hyena comes from Joe D'Amato's late period, when he turned out a long, long string of such 'erotic thrillers' seemingly aimed at the direct-to-video/DVD and pay TV markets.  It certainly isn't vintage D'Amato - not a patch on his Emanuelle films or his horror output like Absurd, all of which are entertaining in their schlocky, sleazy way - instead feeling as if he was just going through the motions. Indeed, The Hyena has a pretty much identikit thriller plot which it crawls through at a pace which makes the film feel at least twenty minutes longer than it actually is.  Shot in English, it features leading actors to whom English clearly isn't their first language, leaving them stumbling over lines of dialogue which would still sound awkward if spoken by someone fluent in the language.  For once, dubbing would have been merciful -for both cast and audience.  Despite off of this, though, the film isn't exactly badly made - the production has a superficial glossiness to it, lighting, camerawork and editing are all done to a professional standard - yet it just never engages,  The erotic bits are simply not very erotic, let alone plentiful and it is far too slow and predictable to be thrilling.  A film that, in theory, should have provided some enjoyably sleazy cheap thrills, instead turned out to be an endurance test.

The Hyena was part of a double bill if seamy and scuzzy sexploitation that I decided to watch this past weekend, the other half being Mardi Gras Massacre (1983).  This latter film, another entry in my gradual working through of the DPP's 'video nasty' list, turned out to be the complete opposite of the Joe D'Amato film.  While The Hyena was a piece of professional film making that turned out to be a bore, Mardi Gras Massacre was a notorious ultra low budget shocker with a semi-professional cast, near non-existent plot line and minimalist script, (the fact that it was completed in 1978 but not released for another five years should tell you something about its quality),, which actually turned out to be pretty entertaining.  Clearly inspired by Herchell Gordon Lewis' Bloodfeast (1963),  Mardi Gras Massacre is, in effect, a vehicle for a series of gory set-pieces, featuring naked women being ritually sacrificed by evisceration.  The villain, known only as 'John', is a High Priest of an ancient Aztec goddess, luring the victims to his apartment, where he ties them naked to a table in front of his altar, before doing a quick change from his business suit to his High Priest gear, complete with mask and 'bum freezer' tunic.  Bearing in mind the low, low budget and the era the film was made in, the gore effects are surprisingly good, involving rubber torsos being cut open and huge handfuls of offal from the local butcher being pulled out by the handful.  What's really impressive that different torsos were constructed for each victim, to match their physique, rather than just re-using a single one-size-fits-all prop.  Because John wants only 'evil' girls for his sacrifices, he naturally recruits prostitutes.  Prostitutes who work as strippers, (the two being synonymous in seventies sleaze cinema), thereby giving an excuse for the film to stop for various strip tease acts.

There's a sub-plot involving the cops investigating the killings, with one of them starting an affair with a potential victim, but most of the running time is devoted to gore and strip acts.  The fact that it is set in New Orleans during Mardi Gras is barely evident - one dingy club interior looks much any other dingy club interior, anywhere in the world.  Even though the climactic chase takes place during Mardi Gras, we see absolutely no evidence of any kind of street parades or celebrations.  Mardi Gras Massacre is, surprisingly for this sort of film, well made, with good sound quality, decent editing and nice, clear cinematography from a non-wobbling camera.  Even the film stock looks to be good quality, in contrast to the usual grainy and scratchy stock used to film such low budget epics.Its main problem lies with its structure which, not surprisingly, very repetitive, being centered around three sacrifices which are staged pretty much identically.  Some variation here would have helped immensely, but the makers clearly though that the mere presence of such large quantities of gore (unusual in seventies movies) would be enough to keep the audience's interest.  Yet, despite this and the fact that the film runs too long, Mardi Gras Massacre never felt boring.  Perhaps because it was so ludicrous and honest-to-goodness sleazy, it somehow held my attention in a way The Hyena failed to do.  As a sidenote, Mardi Gras Massacre, having been effectively banned in the UK by its inclusion on the 'video nasties' list, was only submitted to BBFC earlier this year.  It received an uncut 18 certificate and is due a DVD/Blu Ray release next month.  (I caught it on one of those dubious streaming services the government now wants regulated by OFCOM - which can only be bad news).