Psychopathia SEXUALIS (1966)
aka ON HER BED OF ROSES
Directed by Albert Zugsmith
Something Weird VHS
THE FILM
When did incest become boring?
I don't know Albert Zugsmith from Pubert Fuggzhit. As the story goes, The Zug had a hand in some classier work before throwing down with the easy-sleaze towards the end of the 1960s. Now, I could do a bit more research, find out the explicits of Zugsmith's career, and share it with you. But my god. The thought of wasting two minutes doing that makes me want to jab a pen in my eye. So let's focus on me not having to do that:
Silence. Drift. Sleep. Dream. Psychopathia Sexualis.
It looks like 1960. It sounds like a Chet Atkins rip-off LP making love to an Echoplex tape delay. A disturbed man named Steffan clutches a rose with a bloody hand, drives a car over and through things. Then, he proceeds to randomly shoot people with a rifle from the top of a mountain. Cops arrive. Steffan turns the gun on himself. All of this took approximately 15 minutes to unwind. All of this was delivered with jittery, faux-experimental angst and no dialogue. All of this felt like Ray Dennis Steckler on a begrudging bender with Frank Perry. I was wooed. I wanted more. I didn't get it.
Psychopathia spends its remaining 85 minutes in a therapist's office, listening to Steffan's lover-neighbor as she: 1. Talks about incest and nympho issues for minutes on end, and 2. Has flashbacks to pool parties, boobs, tongue-kissing, and her "courtship" with Steffan, who also had incestual adventures. I watched the whole thing, from the layers upon layers of back alley psychology right through to the almost-return-to-form-conclusion. And still, I have no idea what happened. Or why. But that's not the real issue. This kind of thing happens all the time with sexploitation films. But some, in the hands of Doris Wishman or Michael and Roberta Findlay, remain quite exceptional in their ability to bridge the "importance" of the 1960s American underground with exploitation's seeming disposability. The problem with this film doesn't lie with inclination; it lies with circumstance.
Erratic and painfully flamboyant, Psychopathia is like a repressed, unfun demo version of Sinthia, The Devil's Doll. It has the feel of someone trying to do things differently, to experiment on some level, but collapsing after 15 minutes. Because they know their craft too well. They can't get away from doing things correctly. So they end up with a fascinating theory, but a questionable form of entertainment…set in a therapist's office…with cameras (mostly) nailed to the floor. Of course, there are moments when the urge pushes through. Visuals come alive, then quickly fade. Bizarre tangents arise, but can't sustain. The more it goes on this way, the more we're reminded of that opening sequence, of how odd and exhilarating it felt. It's enough to make you ache, both for the initial promise, and for a repeat viewing to see if that initial promise was as notable as it appeared to be. But that, unfortunately, is where the sentiment ends.
AUDIO AND VIDEO
Way out of print and never reissued on DVD, this ancient Something Weird VHS is about to implode. The print looks fine, but the tape itself suffers from an odd disruptive pattern during the first 20 minutes of the film. It's like people and cars are getting cut in half by a serious case of the shakes. Then, it all pops back together, only to fall apart again. To answer your question: yes, this was kind of awesome.
EXTRAS
The boring incest was so much better in The House That Vanished. In case you were wondering.
FINAL THOUGHTS
I ache. Psychopathia Sexualis was perfect for 15 minutes; the title, the strangeness, the abandon. I had no idea where it would take me. That's a good feeling. Unfortunately, the film never reached such heights again, limping from what seemed like an entirely different set of creative hands for its remaining 85 minutes. Yet, that tiny glint of jagged distinction made me curious about the rest of Albert Zugsmith's late-60s output. And that's also a good feeling.
— Joseph A. Ziemba, 05.26.11 |
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