Rare Zombie/Alien/Porno From France –– Oui!!!

Recently came across this pretty amazing '78 French horror/porno/sci-fi flick known as PORNO ZOMBIE, but whose actual title is LA FILLE A LA FOURRURE (Girl in the Fur Coat?)

In the same genre as EROTIC NIGHTS OF THE LIVING DEAD, it adds a fascinating sci-fi angle to a Jess Franco-like plot involving a just-married couple whose pending consummation is interrupted by the appearance of the husband's late wife (yes, the dead wife reappears). This creates some complexity, needless to say.

A story in one review of the film explains that director Claude Pierson's screenwriter wife (Huguette Boisvert) was happy for Claude to make porn as long as proper emphasis was placed on the importance of marital relations in the film. Well, I'm happy to report that Ms. Boisvert's condition does work in this film's favor because much of the sex is quite loving and very erotic, and that makes for a steamy, unusual tone.

This French treat is the best horror/zombie/porno hybrid I can think of, and the female screenwriter's addition of aliens to the couplings (and one beautifully shot moonlit orgy) works a treat. A synth score underlines the horror elements, and a memorable score for piano and some strings enriches the sex scenes and the film's forest setting.

Though promoted as such in some markets, this is not really a zombie film, it is more of a porno/sci-fi film with a zombie film vibe (ZOMBIE LAKE, OASIS OF THE ZOMBIES). Had I been told Jess Franco directed this, I wouldn't have been shocked, but the sex scenes don't possess the Franco point of view.

Ultimately, the plot doesn't make any real world sense, but spending ninety minutes in the cinematic world of this film was a rare pleasure.

(I researched the work of Huguette Boisvert (who often wrote as Elisabeth Leclair) and, wow!, she's been incredibly prolific, and did write a number of obscure French films I'm very fond of including TENDRE ADOLESCENTE, JEUNES FILLES POUR PARTOUZES, LA GRANDEV RECRE, and ALL ABOUT WOMAN. Admittedly, some of these titles I've only watched un-subbed).

Goke, Body Snatcher From Hell

The 'Gokemidora' (that name is like something ripped from old time Dr.Who) is my kind of alien -- a blue, putrid, gooey puddle who creeps across a spaceship floor like runaway diarrhea . Shapeless, perhaps attractive on his own planet, mean-spirted, evil, he defines what a monster -- a thing! -- really is. I love the Gokemidora. I love him for his otherworldly ways.

Goke - Body Snatcher From Hell (When Horror Came to Shockiku collection; Criterion) , is perfect Japanese pulp, a film so nutty, so inventive, so gosh darn entertaining, it plays like an unearthed Ed Wood film from an alternative universe where Ed insisted on solid production values, eschewed stock footage, pressured his writer to strengthen the characterizations, but forged ahead, as Eddie always did, with audacious concepts that were truly his own.

Of course, Ed didn't direct Goke; that credit goes to Hajime Sato, the talented director of one of Japan's genuine (almost) unseen gems, the '65 Ghost of the Hunchback (aka House of Terrors aka Kaidan aidan semushi otoko; Toei); a film whose only Western release was in Italy. For a while, a crappy VHS of the Italian release did the grey market rounds, and that's how I caught and fell immediately in love with its utter strangeness, insanity, and thick mood.

For big hunchback fans, it's the cat's meow.

The Italian release is dubbed.

Below is the stunning colour poster:

Horror and sci-fi meet and greet in Goke, a true original that fuses outrage at the war in Vietnam (and war itself) with a survival story not unlike Ishiro Honda's brilliant Matango, released five years earlier. After a plane encounters shabby weather, a distressed, red sky, a terrorist threat, and a close call with a light resembling the outer glow of a saucer, the pilot manages to crashland the craft on a rocky plateau where creepy horrors lurk. The feel for atmosphere and suspense that Sato demonstrated so well in Hunchback is in plentiful supply in Goke. While finessing a strong science fiction scenario, Sato lays on the scares and surprises with masterful strokes, a rich choice of colors, and an exotic location. Stunning cinematography by Shizuo Hirase, who also shot The X From Outer Space and Genocide (two other titles included in this box set), and fine special effects and miniature work, combine to produce a stellar work truly deserving classic status.

The film's climax features a superb shot of dozens of glowing alien spaceships hurtling towards a compromised version of our home planet. It's a grand, epic ending that Ed Wood would have applauded. Of course, by '68, (when Goke hit screens) Ed had had his heyday (relatively speaking), and his finest works, Plan 9 From Outer Space, and Bride of the Monster, were already nine and fourteen years old respectively. One watches Goke with warm appreciation for its purity and innocence, and laments how terribly calculated and bloated so much sci-fi and horror is these days.

The fourth film in this wonderful box set is the hypnotic Living Skeleton, a film I've covered on this blog several times already over the years, and surely an influence on John Carpenter's The Fog.

A link is here: http://phantomofpulp.blogspot.com/2009/07/living-skeletons-never-die.html

The Criterion version is, for the first time, officially subtitled in English, while the transfer appears similar to the Shockiku Japanese DVD I've reviewed.

If you're curious about Goke's true origins, the film doesn't go there. Although he's a body snatcher in the tradition of flicks like The Thing and The Hidden, he's most probably not from hell. Unless hell is running trips to Earth via spaceship these days.

Plan to spend an evening with the 'Gokemidora'. I won't say he doesn't bite. That would be denying his true nature.

It's Not Easy Being a Saucer-Man

Invasion of the Saucer Men has been part of my life since I was old enough to crawl. It's tattooed onto my psyche. And will remain there, I'm sure, until the day (or night) I die.

Like The Man From Planet X, these guys get my sympathy rather than my outrage.  Although they appear to be bent on invading the world and, more importantly, enslaving women, I was never convinced that they were fair dinkum about it. Not with looks like that. Even if they could get a woman into the sack, do you really think she'd juice up for them? -- for such puny, sickly looking jokers with faces full of veins and skin a permanent shade of jaundice? Not likely. If they were rich, maybe... but my sources assure me that these dudes don't have two dimes to rub together. 

Aliens like this can only be rapists, I suppose. They're destined to spend their nights applying lube to places they're not exactly welcome to enter, and employing bowie knives as instruments of foreplay. Even lube dries up eventually, and a guy's gotta get tired of constantly re-applying it. And what about chaffing? Pushing your extraterrestrial johnson into an earth woman's dry, unyielding vagina, lube or no lube, is going to take its toll eventually. When you insist on raping outside your species, you do pay a steep price. Ask any zoophile!

  

This great still has always been a favorite of mine. It tells us that these guys are no fans of human romance. They're no suckers for the Valentine's Day bullshit that every man dreads each year. In fact, when these intergalactic yahoos see examples of  it, they want to fuck it up. And who can blame them!? In this documentary image, it's hard to tell if that clawed hand with the pointy fingers is getting ready for a grope, or itching to strangle the stuffing out of the bloke because he's wearing a suit and tie at the drive-in (surely a hangable offense in anybody's book). Aliens are definitely jealous bastards. They can't stand it when earth men (in suits!) dare to snuggle with earth women (in next to nothing). It really gets their goat. Unleashes the Green-Eyed Monster. Come to think of it, the original Green-Eyed Monster was probably an alien, and that's where the expression came from.

This little green pervert is really taking his chances, though. What if he gropes the bloke instead of the dame? How can he see where that hand's going? Does it have its own set of built-in eyes? Well, yeah, it does, but I'm not so sure the view was clear. I reckon the guy's a gambler, and he knows his odds are even. He's getting off on not knowing whether he's about to become a fiend or a fag.

   

Speaking of fags...

I've always had my suspicions about the Liberace lookalike above -- he's wearing black lipstick by Crikey! He's very well dressed, too, and his Dracula hairstyle looks a little too camped for my liking. Sir Christopher Lee was never this poofy.

So why then is Saucer-Face strangling him? Do Saucer-Men hate fags? According to a certain Baptist church in the South, God hates fags, but is it fair to assume that because God hates them, aliens do, too? Is our tall, green friend strangling Liberace with the intention of killing him, or is he strangling the late, great piano player in order to help him achieve orgasm? If the latter is the case, aliens are clearly attuned to the needs of fags, and ought to be acknowledged for the contribution they're making to queer culture.

 

Finally, let's address the issue of the name 'Saucer-Men'. If you were an invader from space with a penchant for the orifices of both sexes, a homicidal contempt for romance, and a psychotic desire for the destruction of entire planets, would you be cool with being called a 'Saucer-Man'? It's not the most masculine name, is it? It doesn't grab you by the throat and make you shit your pants.

Saucer. Man. 

Oh, let's give the little green man his saucer and milk, children. 

Hey mom, look at that cute little flyer saucer and the funny green man inside it. 

Speaking for these aliens, I wouldn't be too happy with the name. It definitely demeans my ambitions. How can I be expected to instil fear in Earth women when my name makes them think of something you place a cup of tea on?

How can I rape with a mean spirit when my crib is a fucking saucer? A saucer!!! At least call it a spaceship. A spacecraft. A star destroyer! I like that one. Invasion of the Men From The Star Destroyer. Yes, that carries weight! It creates a picture of fearsome beings traveling with big guns.

Some alien invaders get the good names. Xtro, for example.  If an Earth woman were to receive an email telling her that "Xtro is Coming", she'd be locking the doors and windows and calling the police. On the other hand, if she got word that a visit from a Saucer-Man was imminent, she'd stay in her chair for a while, get up slowly, then open the window to let him in for a laugh. 

No woman (or man) calls 911 when a Saucer-Man's at the door.

If you do, however, you're a goddamned Saucer-Pussy (Yes, you, too, ladies!)