Nine of the best smutty, cult arthouse films

Thundercrack!

The horror film may be having a renaissance at the moment, with (former) big stars like Demi Moore and Hugh Grant recently appearing in Substance and Heretic respectively, yet one can assume this will never happen with porn. Yet horror and porn are two sides of the same coin – both extreme states of (sex and violence), very visual and visceral (blood and flesh). Indeed, the camera loves flesh and blood.

Despite the likes of Netflix having oodles of sex and male genitals (see ‘Everybody screamed when they saw it! The sudden rise of penises on TV’ in the Guardian), violence has unfortunately always been more of a socially acceptable activity than sex.

When porn has fleetingly gone mainstream in the past, such as the 1970s when films such as Emmanuelle, Deep Throat, The Devil in Miss Jones and Debbie Does Dallas all achieved box office success, the films themselves were actually all abismal, risable affairs with terrible acting and plots, despite the idea of porn being seen briefly as chic.

But when the same thing happened with horror films – going mainstream in the 1970s – the results were stunning: The Exorcist, Halloween, Alien, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Dawn of the Dead and The Omen were all box office smashes but also groundbreaking masterpieces, ushering in whole new sub-genres in horror.

Porn, mostly, lacks any kind of plot, acting, mise-en-scene or anything at all to hold interest, really. The following list, however, if not masterpieces, are certainly experiences. Many of them, despite lots of explicit sex, aren’t in the least bit erotic, mostly due to being too weird or violent, which usually puts a dampner on any titillation. I have no doubt that the Scala showed all of the following numerous times; I have the dubious honour of having seen all of them. All now available on DVD/Blu-ray.

Thundercrack! (Curt McDowell, 1975)
Take elements of a black and white, gothic horror melodrama, add hardcore sex scenes – hetrosexual and homosexual – and a gorilla, and you have Thundercrack! Has to be seen to be believed.

Singapore Sling (Nikos Nikolaidis, 1990)
Featuring the finest deep-focus black and white photography since Citizen Kane, this Grand Guignol film noir is about “a man searching for his long-lost lover [who] is kidnapped by her killers, an insane, mother-daughter duo, and they force him to commit various sexual atrocities with them” (IMDB). Like “erotic vomiting”. Not a phrase you hear every day.

Immoral Tales (Walerian Borowczyk, 1973)
Since I last wrote about Borowczyk, he’s gone legit, with seasons of his films showing at the ICA and BFI, as well as a Blu-ray box set (which I own, natch) of his early, best films and animations released some years ago. Immoral Tales consists of four stories adapted from Surrealist writers and poets to create a beautiful if disturbing film of incest, masturbation, mass murder and loss of virginity.

Cafe Flesh

Cafe Flesh (Rinse Dream, 1982)
With the ICA recently showing the UK premiere of the 4K restoration, and the Guardian interviewing the director, ‘Rinse Dream’ (actually Stephen Sayadian), it seems the distrubing post-apocalyptic-porn-musical that is Cafe Flesh has also gone semi-respectable.

Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (Russ Meyer, 1965)
I’m watching Russ Meyer movies for their boundary pushing female enpowerment and quickfire editing, not the big boobs, I would say in vain, when caught in the act. Actually this early black and white cult Meyer movie is restrained compared to his later work, as we follow two sadistic go-go dancers who go on the rampage in the desert.

Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom (Pier Paolo Pasolini, 1975)
Pasolini's final film, based on the novel by the Marquis de Sade, still has the power to shock. The film transposes the action to 1944 fascist Italy and depicts the torture of a group of young people by fascists.

In the Realm of the Senses (Nagisa Ōshima, 1976)
Based on a true story from 1936, Ōshima’s controversial study of sexual obession focuses on a fomer prostitute’s love affair with her boss at a hotel.

Divine in Pink Flamingos

Pink Flamingos (John Waters, 1972)
Proudly peverse film featuring Divine as the “filthiest person alive”, and one of the filthiest films ever made.

Last Tango in Paris (Bertolucci, 1972)
Brando and butter.

Previously on Barnflakes
Top ten films shown at the Scala cinema
The lost art of the double bill
Scala Beyond
RIP Nagisha Oshima, 1932-2013
The films of George Kuchar, 1942-2011
The films of Walerian Borowczyk
Scala Forever!
Double Bill Me