With MOEBIUS and its family that practices penectomy, Kim Ki-duk goes uber-transgressive

Penectomy? That's the official term for penis removal. (And, yes, I had to search Google to find out if there was even a word for this.) Now: What filmmaker can you quickly think of who might deal in a subject like this? That's right: South Korea's bad-boy movie-maker, Kim Ki-duk. If you guessed Japan's Sion Sono, who has a new film opening next week, you get at least partial credit. Both filmmakers are transgressive, but it seems to me that in Sono's work, the transgression always fills a deeper perspective, while Kim more often uses the transgressive for its own sake, which can sometimes makes his movies seem to exist only as a means to further push that envelope.

So it is with MOEBIUS, the latest Kim endeavor (the filmmaker is shown at right), in which a straying husband makes his wife so frustrated, jealous and angry that she tries to cut off her hubby's dick  He, of course, is having none of this and so knocks her flat. She then wanders into the room of their teen-age son (who of course just happens to be masturbating, having recently seen his father copulating with his mistress in the family car). Mom's anger rises all over again, and -- whack! -- sonny boy is missing something vital, while bleeding like the proverbial stuck pig.

Yes. I know. This WTF moment is just one of many more to come in a WTF film in which Mr. Kim goes over the top and simply stays there until we're laughing ourselves silly (or gagging on some of the grotesqueries). Still, one has to admire Kim's style. He grabs you and doesn't let go, and in this particular movie, he adds something new. (For him at least. I remember a similar stunt being pulled off in The Thief, a 1952 film I saw and was impressed with as an eleven-year-old kid.)

I am not going to tell you what this special addition -- or actually, a subtraction -- is, because after around 20 minutes, it suddenly hit me what was going on here, and I mentioned it aloud to my spouse, who had not yet noticed its absence. This is due absolutely to Kim's abilities as a filmmaker. So assured is this guy that he can hold you for the entire 89 minutes and not have you object to the missing thing at all.

His cast is also very game, and he gets indelible performances from each of them. As the randy dad, Jo Jae-hyeon (above) proves the picture of infidelity morphing into guilt, while Seo Young-ju as the son (two photos below, and at bottom left), offers plenteous evidence that nuttiness is probably genetic as much as learned. And, as the crazed wife, Lee Eun-woo (below) is, well, memorably bonkers and such a grand rendition of the mother-from-hell that even Joan Crawford might be impressed.

After the initial snipping and bleeding, there comes more. Much more. And then dad's girlfriend gets involved with the family son, and we -- and the male family members -- learn all about new ways to achieve orgasm sans penis but with pain. When mom at last returns to the fold, we're ready for just about anything. And that's what we get.

However, all this does not make Moebius a very good movie. It may be impressive in what it accomplishes transgression-wise, but it is finally a rather empty exercise in hugely deviant behavior that does not edify in any way. (Sion's films somehow manage to do this, but it would take a better critic than I to explain exactly why. With Sion, the transgression is part of a bigger picture; for Kim it's the be-all-and-end-all.)

Kim exults in the deviancy and splatter, the horror and pain, and while he manages to take us places we've never been (with people we're not very likely to meet or know), in the end he just goes a bit more over the top. If that's all you want, look no further. (His most recent narrative film prior to this one, Pieta, while transgressive and shocking, had a lot more to offer.)

Moebius, from RAM Releasing, enjoyed a very brief theatrical run in three cities back in August. It becomes available on DVD this Tuesday, October 28, and if history be any guide, it will probably be streaming via Netflix, soon or eventually.

Looking for a groundbreakingly transgressive motion picture? Try David Wnendt's WETLANDS

Whew! It's been awhile since we've seen anything quite like this one. From the opening scene -- in which the movie's heroine, Helen, who has terribly trying hemorrhoids, takes us down to an underground bathroom where fetid water and overflowing toilets skeeve us out -- the new movie WETLANDS, directed by David Wnendt, will almost immediately takes pride of place in our list of in-your-face, don't-see-'em-that-often, super-transgressive films. And it is, for much of its 105 minute running time, one hell of a lot of fun.

Mr. Wnendt, who also co-wrote the screenplay with help from Claus Falkenberg and Sabine Pochhammer, adapted from the novel by actress/writer Charlotte Roche, sees to it that we are almost immediately swept up in one of the most bizarrely entrancing scenes ever created of bacteria -- seen so up-close-and-personal that it's like we're in some updated remake of Fantastic Voyage. Then we settle down to really learning who our heroine is, what she wants and how she dreams and schemes and manages to get it.

Helen is played by an actress new to me, Carla Juri (above), but her performance is so indelible that I can't imagine we won't be seeing more of her (though, in terms of nudity and flesh, there's little you won't have seen by the end of this film).

Ms Juri is absolutely beautiful, that's for sure. But if her performance were not so rich and spiky and alternately nasty and lovely, the movie would not work even half as well as it does. Whether she is scratching one of those hemorrhoids (above) or being nicely serviced by a sudden and very attractive new boy-fuck (below), the actress makes her ever-alert and comic/near-tragic character one for the books.

Her parents split up when she was younger, and as do many children of divorce, she wants them back together at any price. Once her too intensive exploration of her nether regions gets her in some major physical trouble, she finds herself hospitalized -- which proves an almost too-perfect place for her various schemes to come to fruition.

Along the way, we meet her sweet best friend, Corinna (Marlen Kruse, above, left) and in the hospital, her ever-present and exceedingly helpful nurse turns out to be a gorgeous hunk named Robin (Christoph Letkowski, below, left). We also meet her mom and dad, both of whom prove as bad and bothersome as we might have expected, giving the grown daughter they've produced and badly raised.

Yet the filmmaker manages to properly share the blame here; even the smarmy adults have a redeeming moment or two -- including Helen's self-satisfied doctor (Edgar Selge, below), who gets a bit of a come-uppance, though in a manner that almost proves fatal to the giver. Wetlands finally wears out its welcome a bit sooner than we'd like. It's maybe 15 minutes too long, and ties up its loose ends too predictably. But boy, does it offer some fine, nasty fun (and hot, skeevy sex) along the way.

The movie, another good one from Strand Releasing, in German with English sub-titles, opens theatrically this Friday, September 5, here in NYC at the Angelika Film Center, and the following Friday, September 12 in Los Angeles at the Landmark NuArt and another six cities. Over the coming weeks it will play in around 25 locations across the country. You can see all of them, and their specific theaters, by clicking here.

LAIR OF THE WHITE WORM is back! Now, stream Ken Russell's juiciest, naughtiest, campiest treat

It's been decades since TrustMovies first viewed this little horror treat, brought to the screen by no less than Ken Russell, and starring a very young Hugh Grant, a very sexy Amanda Donohoe, a younger-than-you'll remem-ber-but-funny-as-ever Peter Capaldi and chock full of just about everything Mr. Russell loved to rub in our faces: trans-gressive sex, Christianity trashing and paganism, here joined by a delectably sexy fanged female, a giant snake, and other fun tropes most often found in the horror genre. THE LAIR OF THE WHITE WORM, I believe, is the only one of Russell's films that was a "pure" (or maybe impure) genre piece, though many movie buffs found many Russell movies horrors of another sort.

I've always had a mixed response to this filmmaker's work. (Mr. Russell, who died in 2011 at the age of 84, is shown at left). My favorites are his black-and-white musical biographies made for British television and his very interesting artist bio Savage Messiah. Now that I've seen Lair/Worm again, I must add it to that list of favorites, too. Ken probably ought to have tackled even more genre pieces, because what these film require, along with what Russell clearly had in spades -- the knack for bringing to the horror genre his special kind of transgression -- apparently produced that rare match made in sleazy-movie heaven.

The filmmaker guides his oddly assembled cast (which also includes the likes of Catherine Oxenberg (above, left), that adorable little blond Sammi Davis, (above, right) and everyone's favorite British oddity Paul Brooke (below) to pile on everything from horror to comedy, romance to adult/teen sex (and then teen murder) arriving at a destination that can only be called Camp Wonderful.

Just viewing that old and fondly remembered Vestron Pictures/Vestron Video logo should jolt a number of viewers back to a certain low-end-but-lots-of-fun memory lane. But Lair/Worm is so all-over-the-place that, if you are anything like me, and have not seen the film in decades, then you will also probably have forgotten so much of it that it will seem new and funny and pretty special all over again.

Mr Russell is not particularly good on suspense or surprise, and the villain is rather obvious from the start. But the filmmaker is so good on doing what he loves best -- shocking us with some heavy-duty fantasy elements that combine religion and sex (remember The Devils?) along with pairing Jesus (above) with, well, you'll see -- that the movie almost immediately assumes pride of place in the hearts of the irreligious.

Plus, there's Ms Donohoe, one of whose first major roles this was, and -- boy, oh, boy -- does she impress. So much so, in fact, that I am not sure anything she did subsequently registered quite so strongly. The actress gives her all, whether it's in black boots, panties and negligee (above) or sporting a set of fangs (below) that would have Dracula himself running for the hills.

Mr. Grant (below, left) is almost the straight man in the piece, and so is rather wasted by not being able to show much of his usual charm. Mr. Capaldi (below, right) has more fun with his role and actually registers more strongly here. But we're not coming to a Ken Russell film for charm or romance, are we? So lean back, hold on (yes, it is rather a bumpy ride), and enjoy the utterly bizarre, creepy and funny goings-on.

You can now stream The Lair of the White Worm via Netflix (click here for the link) or via Amazon Instant Video and on DVD.

Tinto's brassy SALON KITTY (1976) brings some awfully naughty Nazis to Blu-ray

What in the world? Trust-Movies had heard about SALON KITTY off and on for more than three decades since its release in 1976. Riding the wave of Radley Metzger soft-core and Gerard Damiano hard-core, Italian impresario/
would-be history buff/sexcapade connoisseur Tinto Brass came up with the marketable notion of combining the sex and decadence of Visconti's The Damned (including two of its stars, Ingrid Thulin and Helmut Berger) with the based-on-fact tale of a brothel catering to important Nazi military men that simultaneously recorded their most debauched activities, while assessing the level of their fidelity to the Führer.

To this end, the brothel must be stocked with the cream of the Aryan crop -- ladies who were both gorgeous and loyal to National Socialism. In what is definitely Signore Brass' (shown at right) finest moment, the recruitment and training of these young ladies are shown to us in the kind of full-bodied (and then some!) attention-to-detail that might be described as eye-opening and shocking -- if it weren't so damned funny. Not simply full of full-frontal (and this goes for both the gals and the guys), the movie's private parts are often played with, decorated and -- in my favorite moment -- used a bulls-eye by a randy Reich marksman.

The young ladies first appear to us in military uniform (above) looking exceedingly daunting. And then, uh, out of uniform, below.

Soon they are introduced to the cream of the SS, who, when called upon to serve their country in an unusual new manner (below) are more than willing to strip --

and, as it were, engage....

Up to this point, what we've seen is simply raunchy, randy, rather silly fun.  But then our young ladies must be trained to service every possible type of desire, and at this point things take a decidedly more unusual turn.

In these short scenes, I think, the movie reaches its pinnacle and nadir simultaneously -- jolting us beyond mere titillation and turn-on into something that touches the profoundly trangressive because it combines things we don't often see, let alone think about, in the same frame.

All this takes place within the first half hour or so of the movie, and once the brothel has been set up -- Mr Berger (above, in Nazi drag) plays as the officer in charge and Ms Thulin the madam -- the film wanders into more typical  territory, with the young whore we get to know best (Teresa Ann Savoy, above, with Berger, and below) falling in love with a military man (Bekim Fehmiu, below, right) who's had second thoughts about Socialism, Nazi-style.

Did I mention that the movie offer a collection of musical numbers, too? Yes, with Ms Thulin (below) singing her heart out in English -- or perhaps she's been dubbed. Here, Brass filches from Fosse's Cabaret, but the numbers at least make for interesting filler.

Overall, Salon Kitty is an original, all right, but this is not necessarily a recommendation. A crazy combo of cunts (natural, shaved and decorated), cocks (mostly flacid, just like the storytelling, but a few at half-mast or higher) and cabaret, the movie moves too soon from stupidly bold and bizarre to simply soap opera.

For Berger fans, however, the film offers a nice surprise: Throughout the actor has been dressed to the teeth (mostly in Nazi-themed black leather) while around him clothes are coming off like crazy and bodies writhing to beat the band. Finally at the finale, the actor gets his moment in the sun (in the steam room, actually), and, yes, he's a sight to behold.

Salon Kitty is available now, for rental or purchase, on DVD and Blu-ray -- and the transfer for the latter is a damned good one: crisp, rich and bright with gorgeous colors and decent enough sound quality.  Oddly, Netflix doesn't stock the Blu-ray edition, only the DVD, so for Blu-ray, you'll have to go to GreenCine for rental, and for sale, to the film's distributor Blue Underground. (Blockbuster appears to stock the movie, and in Blu-ray, too, but when you click "Get It", you discover that you can't -- a typically annoying Blockbuster move.)