Deviation (1971)

Too much of everything

This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

Wow! What a bizarre film! Unfortunately the few funny moments there were were quite overshadowed by it's completely weird and random vibe throughout.

Super, spirited and sexy tale from the master of sex and witchcraft in the English countryside, even if he is Spanish. See also, Black Candles, Symptoms and Vampyres if you like this as much as me. Larraz was very good at catching that brief period in England when it seemed that little rich kids could do just about anything they wanted. And what a lot wanted to do was sex and drugs and play with the paranormal. In this instance we start out with a tale of taxidermy but somehow that gets forgotten and we have a more usual tale of pretty suburban girl lured into posh kids den of iniquity. Lisbet Lundquist is stunning as the vampire like lady with a penchant for the perverse, and worse and her accomplice, Julian is played most effectively by Karl Lanchbury. Its all very believable, the orgy and drug scenes are exceptionally well done and as for the seduction of the elderly chemist by aforementioned vampire like lady, well do see for yourself, if you can find a copy.

A black-clad woman with raven black hair running through a forest, a man frantically nailing planks across the door. The wind is howling, the woman is running among the trees, and the young man, hammer in his hands, nailing the door shut. These two scenes alternate several times. Why is she running that way? Why is he so keen on closing that room?Next we see them in London. The man is Julian (Karl Lanchbury), a taxidermist, and the woman is Rebecca (Lisbeth Lundquist), his sister.He enters a shop and is given a new task by the shop's owner: to stuff a recently deceased dog. He speaks briefly with the shop's owner about the work to be done. Rebecca is waiting outside in the car. On the surface everything looks normal - Julian's youthful looks and civil demeanor are belied by something weird lying behind his facade, and Rebecca, in spite of her groovy 70s looks, looks like a beautiful witch just come from a sabbath. Where ever does Larraz find these exotic women that appear in his films? The next scene show us a couple driving through a road at night - Paul (Malcolm Terris) and Olivia (Sibyla Grey). They drive slowly through the woods, the night is dark. Paul swerves to avoid a indistinct figure in a white poncho and hits something. No harm is done, but the car is stuck. Help is offered to them by - guess whom - Julian and Rebecca that live in a house nearby. This house is used by a hippie sect for their ceremonies. There they play their games, smoke their pipes of peace and indulge in their sexual orgies (but they are not concerned about Satan). Remember, this is early 70s England!Paul and Olivia, the new couple, accidentally(?) arrived in this house, will discover (for good of for bad) the goings-on. And love, repulsion, jealousy and madness will play their hands in what will happen."Deviation" is a sensory trip difficult to translate into words. Larraz' world is unique - landscape, people and sensuality blend harmoniously in his films. He's a good actor's director that can extract natural performances from his actors even when they are at their most bizarre."Deviation" could be labeled as an atmospheric psycho-horror film - from the very beginning we enter a realm of weirdness and fantasy. Those of you that have a weak spot for the early 70s and swinging England should check out this film. See the hippie happenings in "the Refuge". And Rebecca teaches us how to smoke the pipe of peace. All this underlined by the beautiful prog rock score by Stelvio Cipriani.

The first time I saw DEVIATION it messed with my head. The second time I saw DEVIATION it made more sense and gave me some inspiration for a story idea of my own I've been toying with. The third time I saw DEVIATION I realized that one of the things working against the genuine enjoyment of this film is how it'd been handled, or rather not handled as the case may be. Probably due to soundtrack rights more than anything, DEVIATION has only seen one home video release that I am aware of, which is a grubby, washed out, somewhat tattered full frame English language transfer who's color is about all turned sepia.And yet the film has some wonderful Larraz moments: brief periods of intense, life-altering (or ending, depending on what character) brutality that sort of leaves you twitching after the shovel has stopped being hacked about, dreamy orgy scenes where girls in blue sunglasses lie about giving various partners their turns, a lesbian seduction & abandonment, and a really nasty scene that may have influenced John Boorman's DELIVERANCE (1972) where a somewhat despicable pig-like loser is forced to lay a hippie chick at the end of a switchblade.Like Larraz' VAMPYRES and BLACK CANDLES the film often changes gears abruptly after long periods where not much seems to happen, which may be the result of the crummy looking transfer going around: With widescreen photography and proper colors this film could easily have been a "Video Nasty" flavored rival to Nicholas Roeg's PERFORMANCE, which is what I think served as Larraz' primary inspiration. It's advertised as a sex & drugs & rock and roll hedonistic horror romp -- which indeed it sort of is -- but is more of a psychological thriller about an inbred, incestuous English family living outside of the norms & influence of the modern world. A somewhat mismatched young couple happens upon them after an very peculiar road accident and is drawn into their web of indulgence, madness and murder.Jose Larraz was of course a Spaniard by birth but (as documented in Pete Tombs' "Immoral Tales") became enamored by the droll sleepiness of the British countryside, which he transforms into hedge-rowed, claustrophobic nightmare landscapes with his films. Being an early effort this one may seem a bit timid compared to later movies more plugged with his own brand of excess (EDGE OF THE AX, REST IN PIECES, THE HOUSE THAT VANISHED) and it's somewhat slow, deliberate pace can easily be mistaken as aimlessness. But what he is really doing is indulging himself in the mod trappings of British hipster society and weaving a little morality play around the inherent madness of British culture.I switched on the Spoiler Warning button due to the ending so if you don't want it ruined stop reading; The ending is all too familiar to fans of Larraz' work, where what was seen becomes a question rather than the conclusion to a film. Even VAMPYRES concludes on a note of ambiguity (and it's beginning is it's ending, compounding the matter) but here his little gag surprise twist actually works for a change. Compare how this film holds up against his controversial & undeniably sensational BLACK CANDLES (1980) and you'll see what I mean -- and in fact the two films tell more or less the same story, as does his 1978 film THE COMING OF SIN; Young British couple finds themselves trapped in a web of sin by otherwise respectable deviants living outside of the norm of society, one is absorbed into the morass and the other used as a sort of focal point for the morality play, with an ending that is supposed to suggest that it all may have been a dream or delusional vision by a repressed hedonist at heart.If I like this film better than BLACK CANDLES -- and I do -- it is only because this is an actual movie with actors and performances and camera angles and a payoff rather than just a carnival of flesh & brimstone. First-timers to Larraz Land should probably first go by way of VAMPYRES or SYMPTOMS, if you can find it, but like DEVIATION the latter has been shamefully ignored by a present-day media industry that may not be willing to take a chance on a small, grim, nihilistic little project like this with no real heroes or good guys and a head trip ending. Larraz deserves better, he didn't make that many films and they all deserve to be seen again. Good luck finding it.7/10

If you're a fan of director Jose Larraz, you probably won't find this obscure early effort as good as "Vampyres" or "The Coming of Sin" (both of which, unlike this one, have been released on legitimate DVD), but it's better than his recently unearthed (and somewhat disappointing) first effort "Whirlpool",and it's definitely better than most of his later work.A middle-aged man and his young mistress crash their car and end up in the eerie country estate of a creepy young man (the same actor from "Whirlpool"), his sultry sister, and a bed-ridden aunt who seems to be alternately psychic and psychotic. Not surprisingly, the young man is an amateur taxidermist with an interest in tattooed flesh, and the sister turns out to be a crazed sex killer. Strangely though, Larraz doesn't play up the incest angle like he did in "Whirlpool". He also throws in a couple sex orgies with the brother's hippie friends that are pretty gratuitous and really detract from the eerie isolation of the estate. Still this movie has a lot more atmosphere than "Whirlpool" and it has acting that, while certainly not good, does not take away from the plot at least. Probably the he oddest thing about this movie is the sexual coupling of some very unattractive middle-aged and elderly men (including a hilariously horny druggist)with very attractive young women. (If I ever become bald and paunchy and sprout a pair of bad pork-chop sideburns, I think I'll relocate to the English countryside where all the action apparently is).This is probably not the best place to start if you're not already a fan of Jose Larraz, but those already familiar with this offbeat director will no doubt find it pretty entertaining.