Since I'm on a roll with the anthology movies right now, i'm going to post about what is probably the weirdest British anthology film out there and definitely
one of the oddest things I have ever seen in my life.
This movie has a lurid title that you might feel slightly embarrassed about renting from the video store (or maybe not eh?). It's called Secrets of Sex,
but it also goes under the less provocative and more mysterious title "Bizarre", which describes the movie's style and character really well without saying
a thing about it.
So, this is basically an anthology depicting stories revolving around the theme of "The battle of the Sexes". This was a really popular theme in the 60s
and 70s, given that feminism was on the rise and a lot of men especially were left scratching their heads and wondering what the hell was going on. The
results were a lot of movies and TV shows and books based on this concept, most of which seem pretty outdated today. But I can say without a shadow of
the doubt that I've never seen anything quite like this. Nothing I can really say is going to prepare you for it and I'm not going to sit here trying to
describe the stories, because jeez...
Essentially, Valentine Dyall (The haunted, City of the Dead, the famous Man in Black on radio, and the Black Guardian in Doctor Who!) plays an ancient
mummy, an egyptian king who once trapped his lady and her lover and sent them to the bottom of the ocean, or something. He has been resurrected because he has spent thousands of years observing the interaction of human beings, and is delighted to find that in all this time, not much has really changed.
Lovers are still trapping each other in all the devious and twisted ways that they can. So, this is the framing device. Before the stories begin there
are parades of all kinds of weird stuff of the type you might see in an italian mondo movie, but a lot funnier. There is some repetitive stuff in here but
it's not bad and actually lulls you into a nice little trance. I should say that taking drugs with this movie is almost mandatory.
once the stories proper begin, we are treated to a crazy, unbelievable mix of horror and comedy vignettes. There's everything here from body horror to
spy spoof to unbelievable fake rubber dinosaurs. it's both arty and trashy at the same time, and yes, I can probably say without my usual hesitation that
this is, in some respects, a really bad movie, but it's also incredibly entertaining on almost every level. My jaw was on the floor almost throughout and
I could not stop laughing. I feel, too, that most of the laughs are absolutely intentional. Rather surprisingly, some of this comes out seeming a lot cleverer
than you might think at first glance. it's also even-handed, with some of the stories featuring the women coming out "on top", while others depict a solid
victory for the men-folk. I thought the last story showed the film running out of steam a bit as it ends pretty abruptly, almost like the film crew were on
the clock. I don't recognise any of these performers other than valentine Dyall, by the way, and I don't think any of the cast really stand out. Some of
the stories do, however. The horror tale about a woman giving birth to a genetically stunted son just to get revenge on the husband she hates is genuinely
disconcerting.
This is something for the real freaks, for people who revel in the tasteless and have a weird love of things they can't quite explain. It's simultaneously
uproariously funny and awkward as hell and I think the guy who created it was actually really smart to do it in this way. Watch late at night, preferrably
with some amenable company and the addition of your psychotropic substances of choice.
