Monday, April 6, 2015

Die teuflischen Schwestern (1977)

... aka: Aberraciones sexuales de una rubia caliente (Sexual Aberrations of a Hot Blonde)
... aka: Deux soeurs vicieuses (Two Vicious Sisters)
... aka: Devilish Sisters, The
... aka: Frenesie erotiche di una ninfomane (Erotic Frenzy of a Nymphomaniac)
... aka: Satanic Sisters
... aka: Sexy Sisters

Directed by:
Jesus Franco

Sexually-aggressive Edna (Pamela Stanford) picks up a guy named Joe (Kurt Meinicke) in a club and takes him back to her oceanfront villa. There, things take an admittedly strange turn as she has her maid Sarah (Esther Moser) disrobe both on them on the living room sofa. But before things can get too hot and heavy, Edna excuses herself to the bedroom so she can have a word with her sister Millie (Karine Gambier). Millie turns out to be a "dangerous nymphomaniac" who must be chained up to her bed in a room that doubles as a jail cell (!) where she writhes in agony until she can get some. Edna then calls to her male visitor into the room and offers him up the "fantastic surprise" of her sister's body to use any way he wants. However, Millie has first instructed Edna to "...stay and watch us, the way you always do!" As Millie and the male visitor go to town, Edna hides behind a beaded curtain and takes care of herself with a candle (!?) No, this isn't going to be your everyday run-of-the-mill sex film, folks.







Millie hasn't left her room in six long months, has traumatic flashbacks to her childhood when she used to hide and watch all of her sister's kinky sexual proclivities and is one drugs that are supposed to help temper her schizophrenic delusions. In an effort to pacify her, the live-in nurse Maria (Marianne Graf) gives her a vibrator and tries to do other *a-hem* nice things for her, while Edna doesn't help matters any by going into town, picking up a white-haired male gigolo (who also happens to be the same guy who raped Millie as a child!) and letting him have his way with her as long as he doesn't "leave any bruises." Edna seeks advice from world-renowned psychotherapist Dr. Milton Arcos, who recommends Millie be denied stimulants of any kind (including sex) if she's ever to make a recovery. However, there's the possibility some people don't actually want her to get better because there's a 12 million dollar inheritance the troubled girl is set to collect on her 21st birthday. Well, granted she's of sound mind when the time comes...






Though this sounds - and pretty much is - pretty twisted, there's something oddly charming about this one that I can't quite put my finger on. I think a lot of that has to do with the goofy English-language dub-over done by a group of cheeky people who obviously had a hard time stifling laughter saying things like "What a terrific tool!" And then there's the head-scratching exchange, "Have you ever seen how the fish make love?" "No." "Neither have I, but I can imagine how they would do it. If I were a male fish and you were a female I would want to make love to you." The story itself really isn't too bad and is surprisingly coherent by the director's standards, though it leads up to a finale that falls completely flat. But hey, not many people are going to watch this for the story anyway, are they? The good news is that the entire cast - female and male alike - spend the majority of their scenes sans clothing and engaging in near X-rated sex and most of them look pretty good doing it.







Aside from the ladies, there are two male exploitation regulars of note on hand. The first is Jack Taylor as Millie's physician Dr. Charles Barnes, who gets to shove a thermometer up Millie's ass in his very first scene and basically lounge around in bed in the nude with several of the other ladies in all his scenes thereafter. The second is Eric Falk (best known as the kung fu biker rapist 'Stileto' in the sleaze gem MAD FOXES) as one of the sleazy studs hired to service Millie. Being part of Franco's late 70s series for Swiss producer Erwin C. Dietrich, the photography, music and overall production values are decent for this kind of film. Even the villa interior has a cool decor, with blown-up black-and-white photos of cats gracing all the walls.







The uncut Anchor Bay DVD is packaged as Sexy Sisters (the same title used by original VHS distributor Private Screenings, who were the first to offer up the film to American viewers [in a heavily cut version]) but the on-screen title calls it Satanic Sisters. Under any name, this is a decent Eurotrash flick. The German company Ascot Elite offers it on both DVD and Blu-ray, with English options.

★★1/2

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