Runtime: 106 minutes
Directed by: Nico Mastorakis
Starring: Bob Behling, Jane Lyle, Jessica Dublin, Gerard Gonalons, Jannice McConnell
From: Omega Pictures
Yeah, this was an endurance test! For awhile now I’ve known of this infamous Greek movie, filmed in English with plenty of English-speaking market by a Greek director for export. This literally was made only for money, because director Nico Mastorakis saw The Texas Chain Saw Massacre-the opening here blatantly rips of that off-and wanted to create something even more shocking. On that account, he succeeded. However, heaven knows this isn’t as good or well-regarded as Tobe Hooper’s classic.
A young British couple (Christopher and Celia) go to the Greek island of Mykonos for what seems like a honeymoon. In actuality, they are murderous sociopaths who do all sorts of heinous things along with an unusual kink or two. This includes:
Bestiality
Watersports
Blasphemy
Sexual assault
Homophobia
Voyeurism; oh, there’s plenty of that
Racism
Drug abuse
And more I won’t spoil. The movie was written in only a week and it shows. It’s far more about being appalling rather than appealing, more about offending than writing a compelling story and the acting talent varies wildly.
As I’ve alluded to in other reviews, shock movies like this aren’t usually my thing. That doesn’t mean I’ve avoided them entirely: I’ve seen A Serbian Film, for crying out loud. I’ve only seen this Mastorakis movie because it was my first and the others I check out from him will be less outrageous. By the third act (where for some reason we start hearing Christopher’s narration when that wasn’t a device used beforehand) this really started to run out of steam. Not even nice cinematography of what looked like a charming little island and an interesting score from Nikos Lavranos that goes in unexpected directions could keep my interest throughout.
This wasn’t as bad or punishing as I expected; at the same time, it was obvious why this was a Video Nasty in the UK that was actually prosecuted. Not that many people have probably done so, but undoubtedly this is one I won’t ever revisit.
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