Cris d'extase

Even in its minimalist approach (to sets, locations, etc.), this combo sci-fi/porn film seems quite ambitious compared to other genre-mashing early '70s movies. However, unknown (for good reason) auteur Antony Weber muffs the job (pun intended).

IMDb helpfully informs us that he had earlier made another porn/action movie called SAVAGE CONNECTION which would be considered a lost film if anyone were looking for it. That picture has the same leads as this one: Sandy Carey and Michael Abbott.

I won't belabor Weber's plot spine (it's not really much of a screenplay), detailed adequately in the Something Weird Video liner notes for the DVD version. What it leaves out is the fact that the print used for video transfer appears incomplete -the final reel is shredded and incomprehensible.

Up until that point Weber presents a potentially interesting mixture: cheapo MAD MAX automobile to accompany motor cycles as post-apocalyptic mode of transportation (several years before George Miller made Mel Gibson a star); stark desert landscape of the future (even before L.Q. Jones' take on Harlan Ellison's classic A BOY AND HIS DOG starring Don Johhson) plus porn.

And it is porn that dominates the proceedings, kicked off by lovely (but stuck with tons of makeup and unbecoming futuristic costuming) Sandy Carey and fellow X veteran Malta in leading roles. Michael Abbott in the lead role of a general lording it over a budget- constricted tiny cast, is a poor actor and not much of a sex simulator, accounting for the fact that his entire list of credits is comprised of the Weber-directed pair of movies.

As usual Uschi Digard fills up the screen with her massive ta-tas, but add this to the seemingly endless list of credits that bait her fans to watch but turn out to be unworthy of her presence. Most of the women in Weber's cast are attractive but he's not the man to pilot them.

The other genre he manages to inject is the then extremely popular martial arts craze, of which FIVE FINGERS OF DEATH and Bruce Lee were about to make a tremendous impact at the U.S. box office. Male ingénue lead here John Martin shows off his martial arts skills and even gets a credit for same in addition to his non-acting. It's billed as karate, because kung-fu specifically was not yet in general circulation apparently when this movie was shot. He even has a battle with cute Dianne Bishop (another never-made-it thesp), cast as a deaf-mute babe auditioning for a new PREHISTORIÇ WOMEN craze which unfortunately never happened (that genre was winding down back in England at the time).

With its lack of continuity and inattention to proper plot development, CRIES would still have made a passable drive-in time killer, but it was never booked near me during my early '70s mania for taking in as many double or triple bills at the Cleveland, Akron or Canton ozoners as possible. I doubt if either of Weber's movies got many bookings at all.

The splicy nature of this print makes it unclear whether CRIES was soft or hardcore. Uschi often appeared in XXX movies while still retaining her cherry, and star Sandy Carey went both ways. But Weber's poorly staged groping moments looked to me as strictly soft, regardless of editing or CINEMA PARADISO style projectionist tampering.

Some sort of environmental disaster has occured, the end of man is imminent, and small patches of survivors are required to live in plastic bubbles, replete with bean bag chairs! Add copious amounts of simulated sex(?!).

Only from Something Weird's vaults comes a movie like Cries of Ecstasy, Blows of Death, a rather gloomy dystopian, post-apocalyptic flick, punctuated by long bouts of naked bodies.

I've got a 71-minute Blu-ray version with no ending, though I've read the final reel was damaged beyond repair. As it stands, I feel like this movie is ultimately an exercise in futility. I'll admit a couple things (out of countless things they tried) worked for me. There is a palpable sense of doom in this... uh, hampered by the fact that, past maybe the 15-minute mark, no one but the roving nomads on cheap dirt bikes wear their "required" masks outside. So much for the environmental threat. Now's a good time to point out that there's a certain percentage of inaudible dialogue. I'm guessing they gave up on the masks when they realized you couldn't hear dialogue through them.

I also dug the character of Keisha (Dianne Bishop), the sketchy, desperate deaf/mute traveler, who can't be touched... unless you want to be at the receiving end of some hilarious kung-fu moves! Sporting a number of braided pigtails and some sort of ridiculous swimsuit, it was a joy to watch her kick ass. Naturally a pack of roving marauders gun her down. Well, this movie had my interest for a couple minutes.

The dialogue sucks, there's not much of a sense of character or community, and well, there's no story. S#!t happens. The guard's uniforms are these hideous yellow and orange (apropos of 1973, anyhow) drapes/mumus, that looked knit to me! (I could be mistaken, the film's print is pretty rough). Also, they sample and loop a segment of Ringo's drum solo from "The End." TWICE!

There IS a sense of doom and desperation, which I'd consider this movie's strong suit, but it's offset by a real excess of softcore skin. Good enough for four stars, I guess.

A very low budgeted apocalyptic movie which takes place in the desert, ravaged by pollution in which fresh air is in limited supply motivating people to live in plastic air domes. Making life much more difficult is that the area is divided into 3 different factions between the marauders riding motorbikes, the enforcement crew who drive and 2 different residents who live in domes with a borderline drawn in between them.

I do not know if this was the first, but it's least entertaining and least desirable, which even the action is quite lousy. I've seen some of the fights like this similar in some blaxploitation movies like Coffy and "Foxy Brown" and so forth when it's obvious that the fights looked very fake but at least theirs some originality.

100 years in the future the earth is ravaged by (pollution, nuclear tests, rockets, etc.) and the remaining people live in bubbles out in the desert under the auspices of some kind of police state.

From 1973, this may be the first post-apocalyptic-dystopian-society-in-the-desert-with-crazy-vehicles-and-outfits. So this film is truly groundbreaking. There were plenty of grim sci-fi tales from the early 70s, but this could be the first in that desert landscape.

Although obviously low budget, the sets and costumes are well thought out and work well given the limitations. The location is also chosen well, and the color of the outer robes makes sense when you see the rest of the film. Everyone needs to wear a breathing mask outside (army surplus, but it works) or after a (never really determined) period of exposure you'll die.

Under the robes, the women wear exceptionally sexy stringy things, when they wear anything, and the men wear only tight pants, when they wear anything. There's a lot of sex, violence, and post-apocalyptic doom and gloom, along with some well choreographed martial arts by both male and female characters. The fight scenes are really well done. The sex and violence (which are not too graphic) work into the plot given who are "good guys" and "bad guys" although there's also an underpinning of a totalitarian society.

It's thin on plot but does a good job of creating an overall sense of despair. The motivations of the characters in the bubbles (especially the sex) makes sense and there isn't always a bright line between "good guys" and "bad guys."

Sandy Carey and Uschi Digard are mostly known for porn/sexploitation, but this does transcend that genre. It clocks in a 75 minutes. There could be missing footage, but it seems complete enough. The stock footage of cityscapes, rockets, and nuclear tests is more distracting than helpful.

EDIT: the version shown on Tubi is cut by about 25 minutes and it adds the stock footage. It still works truncated like that.

{There is no spoiler alert, because there's no story to spoil}. Its not long into this well-worn post-apocalyptic tale of the end of the world as we know it (and I feel fine) when the bare chests (both genders) emerges for some pointless nudity, of the jiggly type, that runs pretty much til the end. Among the many things lost in the film aside from clothing, was: a story line, plot, cohesive editing, acting ability, budget, set design, credible foley work, continuity, and above all original music. I focus on the music because it's so blatantly misused. Kubrick and Tarantino , IMO, have mastered the usage of pre-published music to be used as underscore. Someone from this mess (it may have been USCHI because sadly her and her 2-breasts friends have limited appearance) had the time to dig-up Bela Bartok's masterpiece "Music for Percussion, Strings and Celeste" and fly-it-in the movie's audio track. This composition has 4 movements: 2 adagio, and 2 allegro.

If you were watching this film and were not too focused on the jiggles, and you had a higher education, you may not have only noticed this piece of music, but you may also have remembered hearing it in the Kubrick masterpiece "The Shining" of which the 2 adagio movements are prominent. The difference here is that Stanley perfectly placed the music's tonal and dynamic changes to synchronize with the visual as well as support the mood of the scenes. In Cries of Ecstasy, one of the allegro movements and one of the adagio movements are just haphazardly flown in without any care to relevance. The allegro movement gets over-used to death and its random and perforated placement makes absolutely no sense with the visual. Some obscure free-jazz would have been better, or possibly Yoko-Ono vocals. This piece is now public domain so they don't have to pay anything for usage, leaving Bela to turn in his grave yet he may find some comfort in the afterlife knowing the producers or the people in charge of titles/credits had the good taste to not credit the music at all. 3-stars for Bela's bare breasted allegro!