Singapore Sling

What happens to good films made totally against the grain? What if Botticelli's Venus was painted urinating into an acolyte's mouth? In cinema, such works can find their way to late night screenings, safely past the bedtime of anyone who might object or find them too 'off-beat'. Such was the birth of films that include The Rocky Horror Show and Eraserhead. Or films openly shocking like Pink Flamingoes. Late nighters may be rubbish – or they may be the last bastion of artists that are out of synch with popular and critical tastes. At the time of writing, The Filmhouse in Edinburgh runs seasons of 'psychotronic' film – one of the many sub-genres at the midnight masses of secretive cinephiles.

Our film was fittingly introduced by a masked man with a heavy European accent. "How many films," he asks, "satisfy both your voyeuristic and artistic tastes?" He goes on to mention the awards Singapore Sling has won in its native Greece. The promise of kinky sex, even with vomiting, incest and torture, sounds so much more respectable if it has subtitles and a dialogue in Greek, French and English. And a cinematography award so we can make polite conversation about the nice photography.

But before we write it off as art-house exploitation, let me add that the plot machinations and breakthrough acting devices alone (that blend character, voice-over, narrating to the camera and rehearsing to the camera) put it in an exceptional class of movie. And the cinematography would be Oscar-worthy were it not for the subject matter.

Without giving too much away (Singapore Sling is basically film noir with other elements forcefully mixed), the story concerns a dodgy private detective in love with a dead woman. If that sounds familiar, it's meant to be. The woman is Laura – cue the plot line from the Otto Preminger classic – and she is hauntingly described by the wistful Julie London version of the eponymous song (from a cappella to romantic Glen Miller). Singapore Sling is just the nickname that the detective earns from a couple of female sociopaths, one of whom is worryingly like his dead Laura.

The black and white photography leaves us open-mouthed from the outset. Lush, atmospheric shadows are thrown together as our senses are pounded by a thunderstorm. Rain fights with the flora, ricochets off surfaces, drenches the faces and bodices of two women who, with Hamlet-like grandeur, dig a grave. You feel drenched. And each scene in Singapore Sling is composed with equally mesmerising beauty. Baroque magnificence and delicate taste insulate us from the nastiness to follow. Murder is a parlour game. . . . in the old days, father would murder the servants . . . the girls would only have to plant flowers.

Our female protagonists are mother and daughter. They re-enact murders as a refined sado-masochistic and incestuous ritual. Who is Laura? Was she just a serving maid? Who is in the picture hanging on the wall? Singapore Sling is drawn into their deadly web after knocking on their door, a bullet wound in his shoulder. He feigns a degree of distractedness to give himself time. At what point does the torture make his loss of mental capacity real? While this is not a film to watch if you have a queasy stomach (think, Greenaway's, The Cook, The Thief, His Wife And Her Lover), our sense of revulsion is numbed by being drawn into the twisted aesthetics of the protagonists. I am not kidding – they tie him up, give him electric shocks, and use him for sex before urinating on his face. Later, his abuser realistically makes herself vomit over him as she orgasms. Are you OK with that? If you're still reading, let's get back to the cinematic technique . . .

Singapore Sling occasionally narrates a voice-over, stoically treating it as 'just another case.' Our other two characters go one further. They will narrate what is happening or about to happen to the camera. At one point, Mom (we never learn their names) rehearses dramatic lines in French and English. For a coming role play or for our benefit? Whichever it is, the barrier between audience, character and actor is broken down. When we are simultaneously being inundated with extremely visceral and unsettling material, the effect is challenging. Cocteau once said that film is a, 'petrified fountain of thought.' We might want to analyse, the plot, the Freudian symbolism, even the techniques. But we are helplessly frozen in the terrible vision, and swept along by a smorgasbord of extreme sexual fetish that makes 'The Story of O' look like 'Gone With the Wind.' This makes it even harder work piecing together the mystery when 'all is revealed' (there are a number of interpretations to the central mystery). One of the first things I did was order a copy of Preminger's Laura from Amazon to re-examine the detailed references.

At the Thessaloniki Film Festival, Singapore Sling won a triplet of Best Actress, Best Cinematography, and Best Director. Although as deliberately shocking as, say, Pink Flamingos or Thundercrack!, it oozes style in equal proportion to perversion. British censors promptly banned it. The director called it, "a comedy with some elements of Ancient Greek Tragedy" but reacted to the ban by realising it maybe depicts an underlying malaise in all of us. A darker side we try to ignore. A side that inveigles without substance. The stuff hidden in dreams. Like Laura – 'the face in the misty light . . . that you can never quite recall', as our song says.

Love it or hate it, a policy of late night screenings on rare movies is something that keeps independent cinema alive. Singapore Sling may not be to your taste, but such willingness to dare keeps the doors open for a wider selection of films than can be found anywhere outside of film festivals.

What do you get when you cross Preminger's LAURA with the Kuchar/McDowell brain-frier THUNDERCRACK!? Something that looks a lot like SINGAPORE SLING, one of the more demented European films of, well, ever. The story of a gut-shot Greek detective in search of a mysterious "Laura" who stumbles upon the house where she's living with her "mother" (who's probably neither that or female, for that matter) gets stranger by the turn, and does not shy away from bizarre sex, ultra-violence, and regurgitative gross-outs in the process. Filmed in beautiful black-and-white, it's a one-of-a-kind film, more purely noir than most noir retreads of recent years, yet far too demented to be considered merely noir. Viewers with strong stomachs seeking the ultra-outre will find this to their delight; all others had best shy away.

A mother and a daughter live in a large home,playing games of sexual domination and re-enacting the murders of various servants that they have hired and then killed.A private detective called Singapore Sling comes searching for Laura,a woman he is fixated on but whom they have killed.They imprison him,using poor guy as a sex toy and torturing him."Singapore Sling" by Nikos Nikolaidis is easily one of the most demented horror films ever made.This extremely weird piece of film-noir is loaded with erotic regurgitation,cannibalism,incest,lesbianism,bondage,bizarre sex and sadistic violence.The relationship between the mother and her daughter is extremely bizarre to say the least.The acting is absolutely awesome and the performances are incredibly real.The atmosphere is simply insane and wonderfully nightmarish.There is also a good amount of sickening violence and gore including the most nerve-wracking dinner sequence I have ever seen."Singapore Sling" is shot in exquisite black-and-white and classical music plays on the soundtrack and this makes it even more unsettling.In one truly demented scene the male lead is tied down to the bed, ETC paddles jammed against his forehead and he is left convulsing in shock while the mother rides him and then moves up to urinate on his face.So if you are a fan of twisted cinema like "Visitor Q","Salo" or "Sweet Movie" give this gross-out masterpiece a look.10 out of 10.

It's difficult to categorise the black-and-white surreal experience that is "Singapore Sling". The film probably falls into the midnight movie category with films like "Eraserhead" and "Jungfrau am Abgrund" - nightmarish celluloid journeys that leave you wondering, "Did I really see that?" as you wake in the cold light of the morning.

"Singapore Sling" is beautifully shot; every scene is lit perfectly and looks amazing. From the opening scene where two rain-drenched and mud-caked scantily clad women dispose of the "chauffeur", the tone is set for over-the-top weirdness.

Erotic, sickening, funny and shocking, "Sling" is a taboo-busting tale of incest, murder, fruit abuse and insanity. Acts of sexual debauchery are thrown at the viewer almost casually. The actress who plays the daughter is classically beautiful and delivers some of the most bizarre scenes I've ever witnessed. This is an actress who's trusting the director to deliver a solid film. I would say that this trust is well-placed - Nikos Nikolaidis has produced a unique movie that is impossible to forget and that lingers in the mind like a fever induced bad dream.

For those of a nervous disposition and fragile constitution, this is a movie that should be avoided like the plague. Fans of transgressive cinema, however, will probably love this movie and appreciate its dark slice of perverse comedy.

9 out of 10. A twisted, hellish journey into celluloid madness that is as captivating as it is repelling.

This is one of the most unique films I've ever seen, and I'll probably remember scenes from it till the day I die. Beautiful photography? Check. Non-linear plot line and weird storytelling techniques (talking to the audience, language mixing)? Check. Haunting soundtrack? Check. Black humor? Definite check. Some of the most bizarre erotic scenes ever filmed outside of porn? Oh yeah. A mix of utter revulsion and sensuous, wayward eroticism. Certain morsels of cinema that's classified as seriously weird by most run the risk of being weird for weirdness' sake; I'm happy to say that this is not one of them. Everything adheres to the film's internal logic, which would be my biggest criticism of movies that are considered 'out there'. Goes without saying this is not for the faint-hearted. A serious, deranged noir poem, one I will relish springing upon friends without any forewarning.