La venganza del sexo (1969)

... aka: Curious Case of Dr. Humpp, The

... aka: Curious Dr. Humpp, The

... aka: Vengeance of Sex, The

Directed by:

Emilio Vieyra

A teenage couple, four hippies, a drunk, a stripper, a housewife and a pair of lesbians are knocked out with ether and kidnapped by a disfigured, clawed fiend. The abductor takes the victims back to a secluded mansion / laboratory/ clinic where they're subjected to crazed Dr. Humpp's sex experiments. Power-mad Dr. Humpp (Aldo Barbero) seems obsessed with making all men more virile and all women nymphos, thinking this ability will help him control the world ("Sex dominates the world... and now I dominate sex!). He tries to accomplish all this with a special serum derived from an "aphrodisiac compound." Other than his monster servant, he's helped along by his dedicated nurse (Susana Beltran), a small army of automaton robot men and a living, talking, pulsating disembodied brain that orders the doctor around and is kept in a glass vat with wires running into it! Police Inspector Benedict (Hector Biuchet) and newspaper reporter George Foran (Ricardo Bauleo) are on the case. George manages to also get kidnapped and finds himself caught between his affections for the nurse and a stripper named Rachel (Gloria Prat). To make matters even wackier, the nurse also has the hots for Humpp (who could care less) and the scarred monster falls in love with Rachel, bringing her flowers and romantically strumming his guitar (?) for her.

I have no clue how the original Argentinian version plays out dialogue-wise, but the English-language dub is comedy gold, and this is the exact type of horror-sex hybrid I can personally stand behind and recommend to fans. No one expects these things to be anything more than sleazy, brainless entertainment, and that's precisely what this delivers. There's loads of soft sex and frontal nudity (which admittedly makes it drag at times), but there's also a nutty, entertaining and often hysterically funny sci-fi/horror story in here, too. And that's more than I can say for today's erotica, whether it be hard or soft. What other sex flick gives you robots, melancholy mutants, talking brains, hilarious dialogue and a completely over-the-top psycho doc? Not many I can think of. The acting is pretty much terrible and the whole thing is just plain silly, but it's wonderfully shot in black-and-white and surprisingly well-made in comparison to others of its type.

Filmed in 1967 but not released until two years later. Many of the sex scenes (nearly 20 minutes worth) were added later by the American distributor and were filmed by Jerald Intrator (who also added new footage to NIGHT OF THE BLOODY APES for its U.S. release). Director Vieyra also made Stay Tuned for Terror (1965), Blood of the Virgins (1967), Feast of Flesh (1967; aka The Deadly Organ), The Naked Beast (1971) and others.

The DVD is from Something Weird.

★★1/2