It isn’t often that a disc ends up on the Maniacs stoop with little (to no) previous knowledge of it’s existence being had, but here’s one that took us by surprise, courtesy of Vancouver, B.C.’s own Creepy Six Films, a little two-tale shocker entitled SEX AND DEATH: THE MOVIE VOL. 1. Proceed, if you dare……… 

First up is SEX AND DEATH: 1977, which tells the story of Lorraine (Danielle Korda), a mysterious brunette that is losing patience with her shaggy-haired husband Dez (Christian Skott). Not only is Dez a dead-ass lay, but he has the nerve to punch Lorraine full-on in the face while she’s sleeping, an act which adds to her growing psychosis and prompts her to gut the loser with a samurai sword while he prepares for a shower, collecting his innards for a stew to be consumed at a later date. Around this time (it’s difficult to ascertain exactly when, given the fractured timeline of the story), she discovers that she has contracted the mother of all STD’s, the major symptom of which is a nasty little phallus-shaped organism that occasionally pops out of her cootch. When confronting her friend Susan (Sarah Sands) with the question of her sleeping with her husband yields no answers, she drops into a cinema to watch a horror film entitled “BLOOD OF SATAN’S TONGUE” that inflames her libido to such an extent that she must rush home and pleasure herself.   

Unbeknownst to her, she is being spied upon by her landlady Audry (executive producer Nicole Hancock), who is understandably incensed over Lorraine’s non-payment of rent (a duty of the deceased hubbie), but upon a second visit accepts a gift of some Dez stew, and later, some intimate sharing of another kind that leads to a predictable end. After putting in an order for “the cure” (a one-time-only offer), she is once again face-to-face with her adversary Susan, and soon the true nature of their shared experience comes to light……. 

Next is TORCHED, where a young and attractive student nurse named Deanna (Michelle Boback) is brutally raped in her apartment’s elevator by a creep wearing a surgical mask and brandishing a stun gun. Somehow, she manages to pull herself together, but before you can say MS. 45, a prowler breaks in and attempts to repeat the ordeal, but not before Nurse Dee stuns his ass (it appears that said gun was left behind in the first attack) and ties him up, injecting him with ill-gotten tranqs and leaving him for some later amusement. 

When she returns to the university hospital, she is informed by her friend Leanne (Tamara Pender) that slimy Dr. Tyson won’t hold her previous evening’s no-show against her, as she is most assuredly his favorite co-worker, and that she needs a boyfriend, or at least a “fuck buddy”. What does she suggest? A night at the local frat hangout, the Bloody Fox, of course! Naturally, Dee (as her friends call her) is more interested in pouring urine samples on and blow-torching the leg flesh of her captive, but okays a night on the town anyway! 

On that evening, Leanne shows up at her friend’s pad with Dee’s neighbor Trevor (Ryan Haneman, who must share the same stylist as country singers Keith Urban and Billy Ray Cyrus, we’re talkin’ serious moptop/chin-art/embroidered Western shirt action here), a smooth-talking carpenter with an eye for his female neighbor, and off they go. Later, Dee returns in an extremely inebriated state, and jumps Trevor’s bones in his apartment, though her expression shows that maybe she isn’t enjoying it all that much. At least not as much as shoving hypodermic needles into her captive’s most tender of areas! As her relationship with Trevor blooms, unfortunately so does her mania, and after an unsavory discovery or two, it becomes obvious that no one who comes into close contact with Nurse Deanne can emerge unscathed. 

Well, dang, what to say about all of this? First off, S&D’77 is an interesting experiment in jumpy editing and early 70’s Jess Franco worship, coupled with a “body in revolt” concept that screams of the early works of fellow Canadian David Cronenberg (SHIVERS being the most obvious influence). Early on, director/cameraman/editor Vince D’Amato and DP/set designer Sasha A. Popove decided they wanted to emulate the look and feel of European sexy horror films of the 1970’s, and that the best way to achieve this was to shoot on 16mm film and to dress everything up in strange vintage fashions and décor, not to mention finding some pretty interesting pre-existing locations.  That’s all well and good, but on first viewing, S&D’77 looks and feels more like a 19m, 22s promo/investor’s reel than a finished film, though a fairly interesting one. The jumpy storytelling is a bit hard to grasp on to, and leaves one feeling that there is probably less going on than the filmmakers would have you believe. That said, it does have a pretty cool overall look to it, and while the acting is never above the level of your average porn film, it doesn’t have to be in order to entertain, and D’Amato and Popove do an admirable job of getting their stylistic obsessions on the screen for what had to have been a pittance.

Twice as gruesome, wild, and long, Ryan Nicholson’s and D’Amato’s TORCHED is the clear winner here, at least as far as re-watch and “tell your friends” value goes. Shot on DV, it benefits greatly from Nicholson’s (“also known for his gory FX work on films like FINAL DESTINATION and RIPPER: LETTERS FROM HELL”, the case proudly states) splattery and thoroughly repugnant set pieces (the penile trauma is a goddamn showstopper!), as well as a story that cops the best bits from films like REPULSION (trauma + too much alone time in the apartment = cray-zay!), AUDITION (extensive needle torture), MS. 45 (urban rape/revenge taken to semi-justifiable extremes), and IRREVERSIBLE (a cranial smashing that is another goddamn showstopper), yet still manages to come up with a bad taste riff or two of it’s own that, as extreme as they are, never seem to be as cynical or lame-brained as anything put out by Troma in the last ten or so years. Michelle Boback’s portrayal of the victim-turned-victimizer is a fairly charismatic one, at least for it’s gusto if not total believability (she does lean a little too far into Catherine O’Hara-isms in at least one scene, but without such levity the film would be difficult to endure, even at 42m), and if the other performers can’t match up to her intensity, it’s not really their job to. 

Overall, SEX AND DEATH: THE MOVIE VOL. 1 (yes, there’s a volume two, look for a review here soon) is an indie horror release that is worth a look from viewers with a taste for extreme grass roots entertainment. Whether it will be picked up as a pressed release for distribution by a bigger outfit remains unclear at this time (it is currently available only as a “limited edition” dvd-r from the Creepy Six site), but given the amount of inferior DTV horror schlock that’s out there, it stands a damned good chance.

Pretty standard 2.0 stereo track here, that sounds crisp and clear, with only a couple of bits of dialogue sounding under-recorded or difficult to make out. Music (by Mickey Evil) and effects are balanced well, and while it’s not a presentation that stands up and shouts “AIN’T I WONDERFUL?!?”, it’s perfectly serviceable for the feature.

These include LOOKING AT SEX AND DEATH: 1977 (3m, 45s), an interview with Sasha Popove where he briefly discusses the influence of continental early 70’s horror films on the short (disappointingly, Franco is never mentioned by name, because you can bet that these guys are major VAMPYROS LESBOS nerds), as well as the decision to shoot on film, and their good fortune at being bequeathed some dynamite vintage wallpaper. Next is the SEX AND DEATH: 1977 UNCUT DIGITAL COMIC BOOK, which is a 21 “page” comic adaptation, digitally rendered, using screen grabs. It’s arranged very artistically, but if you can’t make out the text (using your player’s zoom function is no help) or scroll through it manually, what’s the point? Also included is a TORCHED audio commentary with D’Amato, Nicholson, and producer Peter Speers that is energetic and fairly informative (despite digressions right, left and center), and covers many aspects of the script-to-film genesis, locations, and at least one surprising revelation regarding one of the film’s more memorable torture segments. Finally, there are trailers for two other Creepy Six releases: SEX AND DEATH: THE MOVIE VOL. 2 and HUMAN NATURE.

From the Great White Northwest’s own Creepy Six Films comes a nasty little slice of exploitation film-worship with the unlikely title of SEX AND DEATH: THE MOVIE VOL. 1, a 62m feature made up of two shorts: SEX AND DEATH: 1977 and the longer (at roughly 42m) TORCHED. While the former is a case of beautifully-shot but murkily-constructed style over substance, the latter is a gritty and gruesome exercise in revenge-as-black comedy that will have you grabbing your crown jewels in agony. Worth a gander, so sayeth the Evil One!

For more information, hit the Creepy Six Films website by clicking here.