Some films leave behind no real clues to their maker’s identity other than of course what is contained in the films themselves. In the case of Satans Lust, we can deduct that its makers had a twisted sense of humour, counted horror movies and the occult as pastimes, had only the basic idea of how to make a movie, and had a big, big thing about lingerie. Oh, and little time for punctuation, don’t go expecting anything as fancy as apostrophes here, this film is called Satans Lust not Satan’s Lust.
Satans Lust was one of thousands of films saved from the dumpsters of America by Something Weird Video, a company currently in the process of winding down its operations now, but one that leaves behind an amazing legacy of exploitation film preservation. For sure, the positives of Something Weird Video far outweighed the negatives, but the negatives were definitely there. I do remember ordering from them in the pre-internet days, and while my first order passed without any problems, a second order from them failed to materialise. Subsequent attempts to reach them by snail mail (remember this was pre-internet) was only met with a blunt letter effectively saying “we sent your video out, not our fault if you didn’t get it”. As a result I tended to favour picking up bootleg copies of their releases, rather than dealing with the company directly. Which is a shame as obviously I’d have rather been putting money into the pockets of the people who were saving so many films from oblivion, rather than the people who were stealing from them. What with there always being the risk that your tapes would never arrive though, the alternative of visiting various Film Fairs in the UK and picking up Something Weird bootlegs from there, remained a far more attractive, play it safe option.
Something Weird stuff, as well as the output of similar companies like Alpha Blue Archives, Luminous Film and Video Wurks and The Incredibly Strange Filmworks, were heavily bootlegged on the UK collectors circuit back then. Giving Brits a second hand look at some of the archival explorations that were being made in the States. Everything from long lost sexploitation like The Curious Dr Humpp and Confessions of a Psycho Cat, to the films of Jose Mojica Marins and then obscure horrors such as The Bloody Pit of Horror and The Horrors of Spider Island. The real eye openers however were the violent, frequently horror themed hardcore sex movies that Something Weird Video dabbled in releasing and Alpha Blue Archives seemed to exclusively deal in. The likes of Forced Entry, The Devil Inside Her, School for Dead Girls, The Haunted Pussy, Sex Psycho and Hardgore collectively gave you the thrill of experiencing cinema at its most extreme, taboo bashing and beyond the pale.
Satans Lust was the joker in the pack of these hardcore excavations. It’s a film that manages to play its horror elements straight while also being an outlet for an especially juvenile sense of humour- this is after all a film in which one of the main characters is called Manheim Jarkoff. Shot in early 1970s Hollywood, Satans Lust sees Pamela Goodright (Judy Angel) and her chemist beau Wayne (James Mathers) investigating the suspicious death of their old school friend Carla. The realisation that Carla couldn’t drive –due to her being colour blind- makes her fiery death behind the wheel of a car seem most unlikely. Sure enough Carla has been snuffed out by a Satanic coven headed by film producer Manheim Jarkoff, and assisted by Edith, a 300 year old Salem witch, and their idiot henchman Boris (Ron Darby). Jarkoff’s film production company, the non-so subtly titled ‘Satanic Film Productions’ is but a front for the coven’s debauched black masses. At which the company’s female employees, like the ill-fated Carla, are tied spread eagled to an altar, dildoed by Edith –who dons a strap-on for such occasions- and finally burnt alive with lit torches.
It might initially appear the unlikeliest of comparisons, but the more I watch Satans Lust, the more I can’t help be drawn by how much it resembles one of those creaky old Monogram horror films from the 1940s. The bland, romantic leads, the Hollywood setting, the Eastern European villain with his smoking jacket, outlandish schemes, hypnotic powers and weirdo underlings. Strip away the fucking, and ignore the fact that it’s in colour and Satans Lust would fit right in with The Corpse Vanishes, Invisible Ghost, The Ape Man and all the other cheap, weird movies Bela Lugosi made in order to get high. Satans Lust’s leading lady Judy Angel, was an early star of American hardcore films who’d come to prominence in Howard Ziehm’s Mona- the Virgin Nymph, and appeared visibly older than the porno chic stars who were destined to eclipse her. The real casting surprise in Satans Lust however is George ‘Buck’ Flower who plays Jarkoff. In a lengthy career as a character actor Flower was rarely out of work, usually playing winos or grandpas. Flower was a regular in John Carpenter films, showed up in B-Movies and even Hollywood fare like the Back to the Future series. Prior to such high end gigs Flower had also been a mover and shaker in LA’s softcore industry, appearing in Harry Novak sexploiters and Ilsa She Wolf of the SS, usually under the porn-de-plume ‘C.D. LaFleur’. A friend of mine worked on a 1990s film that had Buck Flower in its cast, and remembers him being “a pain in the ass” to deal with, who kept trying to upstage the lead actors. Behaviour that saw him being mostly cut from the film in question.
There’s no such holding Flower back in Satans Lust as he hams it up outrageously, ranting and raving Satanic mumbo-jumbo in what sounds like a mixture of cod-Latin and cod-Chinese “ABO-CO-CO-CHUNG-YARHO”. Buck Flower is the life of the wild party here, clearly having a ball playing a character who is equal parts Bela Lugosi and Brother Theodore, with a nutty Dwight Frye laugh thrown in for good measure. While fellow character actor Strother Martin might have raised eyebrows with his Satanic turn and brief full frontal flash in 1971’s The Brotherhood of Satan, this pales in comparison to Buck Flower’s looney antics here, which includes a great deal of presiding over black masses, wearing a cape and little else. Initially Satans Lust appears to be keeping Flower at arm’s length from the hardcore sex, with a scene where Jarkoff hypnotises Pamela then screws her in his office actually allowing him to leave his trousers on. Even in this respect Satans Lust isn’t entirely consistent though, with at least one later scene –in which Jarkoff and Boris are both being blown by Edith- where Flower is clearly participating in for real sexual activity.
Another review of Satans Lust that I’ve read speculated that Flower might have also been this film’s director. Since everyone involved in the film is now either dead, as in Flower’s case, or long since vanished into the LA night, it’s likely that speculation is all this can ever be. Still, it is an intriguing theory, Flower certainly wasn’t a stranger to ghost directing, working second unit on several early 70s skinflicks and even the 1983 Pia Zadora vehicle The Lonely Lady. The unrestrained, unstoppable grandstanding Flower does as an actor here, would also make sense if he and the director were one in the same. Another peculiarity is that while the film is highly generous when it comes to giving all of the other actors close-ups, Flower himself is entirely filmed in long and medium shots. Even without his trademark hobo beard though, Flower’s pudgy frame, distinct voice and character actor features all give the game away.
The directorial style of Satans Lust alternates between amateur indifference and frenzied enthusiasm. Some scenes are flatly filmed in single long shots with zero camera movement, adding to the comparisons between this and the thread barest of 1940s horror films. At other times Satans Lust suggests those behind the camera were in danger of a heart attack. Anything involving female underwear is guaranteed to get this film’s pulse racing. A nothing special scene between Wayne and Pamela suddenly comes alive when Pamela sits down on a couch, prompting the hitherto static camera to crash zoom onto her legs in pursuit of a peek at her stocking tops. Erotic camera placement also comes into play during a later scene where Jarkoff hypnotises Pamela into performing a striptease for him, which is shot from ground level looking up between the actress’ legs as a lustful Manheim Jarkoff ecstatically bellows his demands. “Miss Goodright take off your skirt...now Miss Goodright take off the blouse...take off the panties Miss Goodright, huh,huh,huh,huh”. Satans Lust has no qualms about sharing its fetishes with the world.
Such horny, inspired moments tend not to extend to the regular sex in the film, which sees Satans Lust revert back to indifferent mode. Scenes of the aged, patsy faced Judy Angel making love to her boyfriend Wayne, a hairy, overweight, mustachioed guy, are as erotic as watching Joe Spinell going at it with Regina Carrol’s mum. What you tend to remember the most about the Wayne/Pamela sex scenes are the slow-motion close-ups of Wayne’s face in supposed ecstasy, his greasy hair swinging from side to side. As Wayne, James Mathers is one of those guys who carries himself like an ape, arms dangling down, legs slightly apart at the knees. Seeing him lumbering around the Satans Lust set in this ungainly manner causes you to wonder if the poor chap has lost a bunch of bananas. Credibility and good taste be damned, Satans Lust insists on portraying Wayne as God’s gift to women, who quickly manages to talk Pamela into sex (“just let me be your daddy”) and awakens long dormant romantic feelings in Edith. Yes, getting the hots for this sweaty anthropoid is all that is needed for Edith to put aside hundreds of years of servitude to the Devil. As well as possessing the craziest eyebrows in the movie, and rocking a proto-goth chick look, Edith has the ability to transform herself into a black cat. One minute, a confused, fresh out of the shower Wayne is trying to shoo a pesky moggy out of his bathroom, the next moment he is being confronted by a sexy witch, who hypnotises him into going down on her.
The Satans Lust soundtrack is as insane as anything happening onscreen, incorporating everything from horror movie sound effects to ‘Marcia without hope’ and ‘Death of a Soldier’ from The Good, The Bad and The Ugly soundtrack and incongruous, easy listening album cover versions of ‘I Will Follow Him’ and several Beatles numbers. In a typical example of the film’s perverse humour, a scene that calls for Jarkoff to lube Pamela’s tight ass is scored to ‘I Want To Hold Your Hand’ (the other Beatles numbers in the film are ‘Yellow Submarine’ and ‘Good Day Sunshine’). The freaky is what really finds favour in Satans Lust, whether it is a character being turned into a skeleton while they’re in the process of frigging themselves with a candle, or the appearance of the Devil, who throws a tantrum at Edith (“witch, oh witch, hear me witch...you have fallen from the throne of evil, you must be punished or destroyed!!!, you have had love with a mortal, hahahahahahaha”) and insists on her being flagellated for her sins.
For all its Satanic theme and horror movie incident though, Satans Lust registers as more silly and mischievous than dark and heavy, possessing the kind of zany quality associated with Ray Dennis Steckler circa Rat Pfink A Boo A Boo and Lemon Grove Kids Meet the Monsters (though there’s not remotely enough fellatio in Satans Lust to give serious consideration to Steckler being behind the camera here). Satans Lust is like being invited to an early 1970s Hollywood Halloween party, populated by good natured sex maniacs with an occult fetish...whip out the strap-on Edith....put on the easy listening Beatles album Manheim...light up the torches Boris...hey, the ape is taking his clothes off. Corny and unoriginal as it sounds, this film really knows how to raise hell.
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