Sadomania (1981)

Simply Perfect

Just so...so bad

It's no definitive masterpiece but it's damn close.

Highly Overrated But Still Good

With 'Sadomania', director Jess Franco has deftly created yet another cinematic masterpiece, while at the same time he completely blows the lid off of the shadowy underworld of topless female slave camps. (Not surprisingly, this gem was completely ignored by the snooty snobs on the Oscar committee!) The film also exposes just how easy it is to assemble a bevy of attractive young 'actresses' in the middle of nowhere and convince them to degrade themselves for an entire film. A young newlywed couple is honeymooning along a desolate, rocky, section of the Spanish coastline, (why?!), when they are suddenly hijacked and taken prisoner by the sadistic warden of a local slave camp and her, topless, female armed guards. The husband is quickly released and ordered to never return, (oh, O.K.!), while his hot wife remains captive. She is placed with the other slaves and forced to crack rocks along the coast, beneath the blazing sun, and under the watchful eyes of the guards. Their uniforms consist of 'Daisy Duke' short shorts and sneakers. In fact, there is not a bra in sight for the entire film. These poor wretches aren't even provided with some basic sunscreen! Enter the 'Governor', a man who lacks any morals, nor, apparently, any blood flow to his penis. He and his warden like to kill prisoners for sport. One blond hottie soon gets in a fight with one of the guards, and the warden orders that they fight to the death to settle their differences. The fight scene which follows is of such complexity that it clearly took seconds to choreograph. Blondie finally dispatches her adversary, but her skill, and body, have caught the attention of the Governor. He has her brought to his home, where he devises a perverted plan which will finally allow him to successfully pork his smokin' hot wife. Enter 'Panzer' the Wonder Pooch, (I just made that name up). Panzer is a large German Shepard with a fondness for hot, blond, slave chicks. As the Governor and his wife watch, Panzer is set loose upon the naked and shackled slave chick. He dives into humping slave girl with gusto. (Surprisingly, Panzer chooses the missionary position over doggy style!) This sick display of bestiality is enough to finally give the Governor a stiffy, and he is able to successfully pork his wife to completion. (Panzer later won the award for 'Best Dog on Blond Chick Sex Scene' at the Cannes de Alpo awards.) Next, the Governor's wife decides to sell slave girl to another slaver, and she drives her to a local wharf to make the deal. Following the sale, the evil slaver locks slave girl in the cargo hold of his boat and sets sail for.....who knows? As expected, his own horniness soon gets the better of him, and he begins raping slave girl. She spots his gun in his belt and sees an opportunity for escape. She uses her feminine charm to convince the slaver to unshackle her, and when he does she quickly snatches the pistol from his belt. Now with the upper hand, she displays a moment of sheer stupidity. She holds the gun a mere few inches from his face and upraised hands and orders him not to move. Of course, he immediately swats the gun from her grasp, and then proceeds to continue dry humping her into submission. The viewer is treated to the sight of his hairy ass rising and falling between her thighs. At this point, my curiosity has been more than satisfied, and I decide to extricate myself from this sucking vortex of suckiness. Sorry, if you want to know how it all ends you'll have to waste an hour and a half of your own life. 5 stars given only for the wealth of gratuitous topless and full frontal nudity. Show less

In Spain, a newlywed couple parks their car in a deserted land to make love and they trespass a private property. They are taken to a women's prison and the husband Michael (Ángel Caballero) is released by the warden Magda (Ajita Wilson) while his wife Olga (Uta Koepke) is arrested and forced to hard labor. Soon she befriends Kanita (Andrea Guzon) and Tara (Ursula Buchfellner) and she learns that the women in the prison are submitted to sexual abuse to satisfy the sadistic and lesbian warden and the impotent Governor Mendonza (Robert Foster) and his bisexual wife Luwa (Gina Janssen). Meanwhile her husband returns to the prison with a friend expecting to rescue Olga while Kanita and Tara are sold to a brothel."Sadomania - Hölle der Lust" is a soft-porn with a ridiculous and absurd story of sexual violence. Michael's friend is murdered and forgotten by the plot. Olga never dresses a shirt after rescued by her husband. But who cares? This sleazy and outrageous exploitation shows one of the greatest number of naked women, including the 20 year-old German Ursula Buchfellner, who was the Playmate of the Month and centerfold of October 1979. The warden is performed by the transsexual Ajita Wilson. My vote is three.Title (Brazil): "Sadomania"

My God. I've been trudging through the Jess Franco DVDs in chronological order for quite some time now and had become somewhat inured to the ingredients: lots of nudity, lots of lesbianism, a cameo appearance by Franco, the old zoom in zoom out, and some attractive and well-shot location footage. Put it all together, and you've got yourself an exploitation flick! The films vary in quality but almost all clock in at the 70-80 minute range, meaning even the worst of them (I'm looking at YOU, Voodoo Passion) aren't long enough to get boring.And then there's Sadomania. Why Franco and producer Julio Parra decided to pad this one out to an engorged, Tolstoy-esque 102 minutes I can't imagine. Happily the length is not entirely reliant on repetitive bumping and grinding, but it is still a bit of a chore to sit through. However, it's worth it to see Franco and star Ajita Wilson partake of a little simulated gay sex. I guess.

I can't help thinking that this is Franco's 'hamage' to the Marquis de Sade's "One Thousand Days of Sodom". People (in this case women) abducted to serve as slaves to a privileged elite? Check. Kinky sex? Check. Torture including whipping? Check. Victims chosen at random to be killed? Check.Thank goodness Franco didn't go the whole hog and introduce cinema audiences to the delights of coprology (and indeed coprophagy), another perversion that crops up repeatedly in de Sade's tediously long and disgusting saga.I rather hoped that this film would fall into the 'so bad it's good' category. But even the acres of naked flesh and numerous sexual encounters didn't make up for the dismal dialogue, dreadful acting, elusive plot and - just to put the tin hat on it - dubbing AND English sub-titles (a belt and braces approach missing from the women's costumes). The Alsation gave a very professional performance though.Of course I could be wrong about the de Sade angle. After all, I failed to realise that the actor playing the head warden at the 'prison' was a trans-sexual. I must pay more attention to the size of people's hands in future.According to another reviewer, the film was banned in the UK. Well it clearly isn't any more, though I fancy that the nipple-needling scene was cut to satisfy the censors. On the DVD I watched, it was only clearly visible on the Spanish trailer (which, in case you're wondering, I watched to compare it with the English one).The DVD also features an interview with Jess Franco, though you'll need better Spanish than mine to understand it. Unless I'm much mistaken it's neither dubbed nor sub-titled. And it points out that the person sodomising the character played by Franco is Ajita Wilson disguised using a moustache. Kind of ironic, given that (s)he had had the requisite appendage surgically removed.