What's Love

What's Love (1987) is a previously lost re-conceptualization of Bill Cable's unfinished early 70s epic titled "What is Love," which deals with themes of romantic obsession and Christian blasphemy. The movie is initially directed by Bill Cable, but finished by Carlos Tobalina and staring by director himself (Bill Cable), Leigh Drake, and Troy Walker. The film offers little in the way of plot and instead throws together vignettes, narrator reaction shots, and bizarre imagery that fails to deliver a coherent plot. Being filmed in pieces nearly 15 years apart, resulting in a lack of coherence, and the fact that so much of the film doesn't really seem to have much of a point beyond just existing as some sort of messy and rather dull pot directors exercise.

Practically a film that follows a plot of a policeman who gets in touch with a magical personality. Firstly, that turns him into a "Jesus" figure. Then, another sequence showing Cable much older, that broke his relationship apart by seducing him and his wife.

Ehh. Billy Cable, more famous as that guy that died in the first scene in Basic Instinct, is trying to relieve pass glories. He was a hardcore porno guy who shockingly has never really done 'sex' on screen. This was him trying to salvage an older porno of his but this just became an incoherent mess. You could clearly see when a filmmaker then him took hold of the direction. The first part of the film is well filmed AND has Wakefield Poole-esque sequence. The second part is just a weird sex dream of a film.

Not recommended.

Here is another entry in Vinegar Syndrome's box set of previously lost films. This is a hard one to review as it offers little in the way of plot, opting instead to throw together vignettes, narrator reaction shots, and the type of bizarre imagery you might find in a Ken Russell film. I really wish that combination meant that this was some kind of psychotronic classic; defying categorization and providing an experience that can all be described as brain melting, transcendent, and/or truly unique. Instead it just feels like Godfrey Ho's crew at IFD got together to slice what footage they could buy, steal, or reuse until they got to a runtime that was long enough to try and entice a distributor with it. Some of the imagery is admittedly fun, offering up blasphemous vibes that Ken Russell more effectively evokes in The Devils and The Lair of the White Worm. Additionally some of the dialog and sex scenes offer up some unintentional laughs as the characters try to take the patchwork script that sporadically focuses on love and relationships and make it feel real with their wooden performances. But the lack of coherence, and the fact that so much of the film is padding, results in a movie doesn't really seem to have much of a point beyond just existing as some sort of messy and rather dull pot boiler.