La P... et l'étalon

There appear to be several versions of this flick about. Within a minute and a half of the bemusingly cinematic opening the title was displayed as 'VICE MAKES A VISIT'. If only. The film is worth a few stars because quite clearly someone attempted to make a movie here and it wasn't necessary to turn it off after a few minutes because it was either home movie standard footage or the actors were like fish out of water. Well, the male lead was awful in every scene, but it must be suspected he was told to be some sort of brooding latino by the director. Anyway the nudity is not worth the watch, and the rest of this contrived nonsense obviously isn't either. However there are two scenes containing very good flamenco guitar playing, and the sulky would-be-rapist idiot riding around naked on a horse is laughably worth a watch. If you're lucky enough to catch the English dubbed version the accents are a real treat. Reviews suggesting the director or anything about this tripe is noteworthy are mysterious, as the film is basically tripe.

Contrary to popular belief, the world of 70's exploitation and trash cinema can be quite the mysterious and contradictory place. Take this rarely seen and obscure piece of Spanish awkwardness, for example! This movie is weird and confusing even BEFORE you decide to watch it. If you look it up on this marvelous website, you stumble upon the page of a seemingly stylish, artistic and somewhat psychedelic film entitled "The Coming of Sin", which showcases a cover image with a golden and transparent horse standing in a meadow. In case you know yet nothing about the film, you're tempted to think this will be an artsy and tasteful exploitation feature. However, the VHS exemplar that ended up in my dirty little hands is proudly entitled "Violation of the Bitch" with the provocative tagline "She Asked for it …" written in equally giant letters and showing the drawing of a busty woman kneeling down in front of a pair of female legs and begging for her life. Now, what type of film do you expect to see in this case? That's right, pure rancid sleaze and gratuitous violence!

The actual finished product is somewhat of a mixture between wannabe artistic and wannabe shocking. "Violation of the Bitch/The Coming of Sin" is plentiful of nudity (both male and female) but severely lacking a decent storyline and action sequences. A wealthy but lonely and sexually frustrated female takes a shy but voluptuous gypsy girl into her mansion for some company and random lesbian entertainment. The girl suffers from a recurring nightmare about a naked man on a horse stalking her. The dream actually becomes reality when one morning there's a naked horseman at their door. The gypsy girl naturally reacts reluctant, but the insatiable artist is fascinated by the appearance and a bizarrely uncomfortable triangular relationship develops itself. In spite of the reasonably short running time (little under 80 minutes), "Violation of the Bitch" is a tedious film with an unpleasantly large amount of padding footage. All the potentially intriguing plot elements (the gypsy girl's history, the horseman's background…) are ignored in favor of long and meaningless sequences containing two female lead characters staring at each other naked or posing for nude portraits. The climax is totally implausible since it contradicts with everything the script attempted to make us believe earlier on, but hey, at least the VHS cover art wasn't a lie. José Ramón Larraz has always been one of my favorite Euro-exploitation directors (the man was single-handedly responsible for "Vampyres", "Black Candles" and "Symptoms") but this is unquestionably one of his lesser efforts. Unless you're a tolerant and extremely open-minded fan of odd exploitation sleaze, avoid!

I've picked up the DVD because I liked the weird cover. It wasn't quite worth it but it wasn't that bad either. The best thing about this "Spanish Emmanuelle" (that's what the producers expected from director Larraz) is the dream sequence in which a woman is placed inside some model of a horse. Well, you have to see it. It leaves everything to the imagination of the viewer and depending on how sleazy your mind actually is, the scene comes across as very naughty. Otherwise, it's harmless softcore stuff with a rather weak ending.

My rating: 4/10

Here's another sumptuous-looking, highly atmospheric and sensuous fantasy from Spanish art-exploitation director Larraz, who was responsible for Vampyres, the finest of modern vampire movies. The scenes are bathed in soft-focus greens and ochres, emphasising the dreamlike pastoral setting and highlighting the players' striking emerald and almond eyes. The three main characters are gorgeous in unique ways, the Spanish guitar score is a perfect complement to the mood, there is one memorable surrealistic image, and the story is absorbing and quite unpredictable. Only the rather arbitrary ending is a let-down. A perfect example of the heights reached by 70s Euro-fantasy, with psychological and cultural subtexts intensifying the conventions of the erotic and horror genres.

Larraz is one of those directors who succeed in making a picture with virtually no money (e.g. Jesus Franco). By using some unorthodox images like a naked man on a horse, and by doing some smart editing, he manages to give this film a creepy feeling that shows you don't need millions to make a decent picture.

This does not mean this is a good movie, although it had some strong scenes, including the infamous horse-with-woman-inside scene, it has a weak ending, a couple of standard middle-of-the-road sexscenes and the acting is (as always in eurotrash cinema) rather amateuristic.

I'd recommend this to anyone who has seen every Franco 70s movie available and wants to see something similar. However, Larraz made a much better picture with Vampyres which stands much higher on my all-time top eurotrash list.