Jens-28

After waiting 10 years (saw the trailer in the early 90's, read the script in '99 from Creation Books) I finally saw it. And it's his best, in my opinion. I loved "Roadkill", "My Sweet Satan", "Deadbeat At Dawn" but this one is his Citizen Kane!!

Van Bebber seems somewhat inspired by the plot of "Cannibal Holocaust", two elderly TVproducers receive a tape (in 1996) with no address, and extremely eeire sick drama-docu/re-inactments of (almost) every Manson clip we have seen on TV unfolds. The 'scratchy-on-purpose' clips of the Family's sexorgies/rapes, drugtakin', and ultra-gory killings of Tate/Bianca and others are probably the most disturbing footage I've ever seen! The actors, who looks like real psycho dopefiends, are perfect (Van Bebber plays Bobby Beausoleil, and Marcelo Games is excellent as Charlie). Meanwhile the producers (us?) are being watched by a gang of Richard Kern-like punks (we see "You Killed Me First" in a s&m/drug orgy scene) who break in and kills the producer, and later a teenager wearing a Manson T-shirt (both scenes are ultra graphic and wellmade). A modern sex & violence masterpiece of American psycho culture!!

The film I saw was an 'editor workprint' from 1995/96 (of canadian VideoVortex)which is probably the version people saw at festivals in 1997/98. A 'final' version was shown according to Chas Balun at a Splatterpalooza filmfest this summer.

"Charlie's Family" is a must for any true cultfilm fan with balls of steel!

For once the (underground) hype was true....and then some.

Forget Michael Palin, the world according to Jayne '40-18½-36' Mansfield is my kinda world!

First she treks to Rome, followed by a herd of horny men pinchin' her ass while she's babblin' on about the Colloseum, her nude Playboy pics, gladiators, orgies mixed with Hercules footage!?! Then Cannes gets the bombshell treatment as our bikini Jayne (VA VA VOOOOM!) walks the beaches ("smallest bikinis in the world") and starts twistin' to "Bird's The Word" performed by a cool black R&B combo. She goes on a boattrip and strip nude and confesses:

"I'm basically very shy!"

And on and on this relentless busty 'love crusade' goes. Hookers, midgets, Paris, dragqueens, gays'n'dykes ("I'm just too darn confused!" poor little thing), Mickey Hagitay, strippers, footage from PROMISES, PROMISES and PRIMITIVE LOVE.....and bloody pics of her fatal car crash in 1967!?!

Now, where's my time machine?

Down in the bottom of the barrel of Italian exploitation cinema is the subgenre of shocks and pornography. "Play Motel" aint filled with clumsy inserts of the Joe D'amato school, the actors 'perform' their deeds quite nicely both verbally and otherwise. And the cinematography is top notch. It's really a simple murder/revenge story but pretty well made, I might add. The hardcore scenes are thrown at you within 4 min. but the pace goes down in the last hour...still, a must for jaded fans of Italo smut!! Get the uncut version.

P.S. If anybody read DELIRIUM: Guide to Italian Exploitation Cinema 1974-79, the backphoto of the book (the red devil with horns & a whip + the naked nun) is from "Play Motel".