copyright 2008 by Gary L. Pullman
Perhaps after watching one too many horror movies while experimenting with LSD, Jim Morrison, late of The Doors, chanted, “Love is sex, and sex is death, and therein lies the ultimate high.”
It’s a perfect mantra for horror films in which a bit of hanky panky precedes the deaths of the participants, who usually expire in a particularly gruesome and ghastly way to show the mostly teen and young adult audiences of such motion pictures that, well, “love is sex, and sex is death, and therein lies the ultimate high.”
For those who aren’t happy unless a movie is more than just a story and for whom horror has to have some sort of justification for its mayhem, L. Vincent Poupard offers a Freudian take on horror films’ inclusion of bodies getting physical.
In his article, "The Symbolism of Sex in Horror Movies,” he argues that sex participants are rebels against parental authority and that they “are most vulnerable when they are having sex” because “hormones take complete control.” As a result, the sexual partners become “oblivious to the world around them,” making themselves perfect victims of a stealthy, possibly voyeuristic, and most likely envious, monster. That’s not why sex is “symbolic,” though. According to Poupard, it’s symbolic because it represents “not paying attention” to the dictates of one’s parents. It’s dangerous, too, he says, because it’s a minefield of “sexual diseases.”
Another reason that moviemakers put sex in their scenes is because sex sells. Especially in Europe, it seems, where the horror films of such directors as Jean Rollin (Zombie Lake [1980] and Oasis of Zombies [1981]); Jesus (“Jess”) Franco (Mansion of the Living Dead [1985], Nightmares Come At Night [1970], 99 Women [1969], Golden Temple Amazons [1986], Sadomania [1981]); and Joe D’Amato (Emmanuelle and the Last Cannibals [1977]) are just opportunities to exploit their audiences with sleaze-disguised-as-horror. (Yes, of course, that may be all the more reason to have seen, or to see, them; that’s the whole point of sexploitation films.)
As difficult as it may seem to believe, there was sex before slasher films. Even as far back as the 1940’s and 1950’s, horror movies exploited youngsters’ urge to merge. The difference between earlier and more recent films is the manner in which sex is incorporated in the plot and shown (or not shown) on the screen. In the older films, sex was mostly suggested. Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho is a good example. Instead of showing, close up and in person, so to speak, detailed sequences of Marion Crane making love to her paramour, the scene starts, not in media res, but after the fact, as Crane, wearing only her undies, dresses.
In a more recent film, Chuck Parello’s Ed Gein (2001), the opening sex scene is mild by today’s standards, with a pair of teenage lovebirds making out on a bench in the Plainfield (Wisconsin) cemetery. The action between them is restricted to some passionate kissing and to the youth’s unbuttoning of a button on his date’s blouse.
They’re scared away by the sounds of Gein’s spade as he opens the grave of a recently deceased female citizen, and they hurry off, the young man zipping his fly as they vacate the premises. Most other contemporary horror films are far less circumspect, preferring to let it all hang out, as it were.
Sexploitation horror films are about the sins of the flesh and the wages of this particular sin, but, even so, they require at least some narrative pretense, which is to say, a plot. Here are those of the ones we’ve mentioned in this post, just so no one can say we aren’t being fair in trashing this trash:
- Zombie Lake: Skinny dipping girls, some bikini-clad and others bare, entice a lake full of Nazi zombies. Huh? Nazi zombies?
- Oasis of Zombies: “An expedition searching for treasure supposedly buried by the German army in the African desert during WW II comes up against an army of Nazi zombies guarding the fortune” (The Internet Movie Database [IMDb]). Huh? Nazi zombies?
- Mansion of the Living Dead: Maximum nudity with minimum gore and a touch of anticlericalism thrown in for good (or bad) measure. No Nazi zombies, though.
- Sadomania: Newlyweds Olga and Michael stumble upon a desert training camp in which the trainees are enslaved women who work at a variety of odd jobs, including prostitution. Olga becomes their latest recruit. Uh oh!
- 99 Women: The movie’s tagline pretty much sums up its plot: “99 women behind bars. . . without men!”
- Nightmares Come At Night: Two topless dancers become friends; then, one of them begins to have nightmares. In her dreams, she kills people. Voyeurs--or, rather, viewers--learn the reason for the murderous dreams: the dancer is influenced by a hypnotic jewel thief who's intent upon eliminating her partners, one by one.
- Golden Temple Amazons: A woman avenges the murder of her parents by helping an expedition sack the tribe’s golden temple.
- Emmanuelle and the Last Cannibals: Emmanuelle goes undercover. In a mental asylum. Where she finds a crazy girl. Who may or may not have been reared by cannibals. A visit to the Amazon will verify whether the patient is truly insane or just homesick.
Those who enjoy a bit of flesh (and necrophilia) with their blood and guts might also enjoy such sexploitation horror flicks as The Curse of Her Flesh, Vampiros Lesbos, The Kiss of Her Flesh, Tou Kui Wu Zui, Where the Truth Lies, Cannibal Ferox, Cannibal Terror, and--well, there are lots and lots of them.
Insider’s Tip: Check out your favorite scream queens on Chickipedia.