Also see Deeky's review of Bizarre
Directed by Antony Balch
Written by Antony Balch, John Eliot, Martin Locke, Alfred Mazure, Maureen Owen, Elliott Stein
Starring Valentine Dyall, Nicola Austin, Sue Bond
R • 1969 • 92 minutes
Whoa. Part comedy, part soft sex film, part horror, part arthouse... this thing is all over the place! Directed by Antony Balch, Bizarre (AKA Erotic Tales From the Mummy's Tomb) is an oh-so-British look at the "Battle of the Sexes," a hot button topic in 1970. A wraparound sequence with an Egyptian mummy (with a pompous Brit accent) introduces various seriously weird vignettes, all reiterating the "Love is a Battlefield" premise.
While the mummy drones on in its monologue about the similarities between love and war and blah, blah, blah, for thousands of years, men and women, blah, blah, blah, a flock of go-go girls shimmy around in a dark room, winding up in boots and panties, a very British kinda thing which has always struck a chord with me. Then, these lads approach the girls and begin pelting them with rotten fruit while jeering them(!). Then, the same guys advance on the girls with rifles. The whole time, the mummy blathers on about love and war some more.
Next, we are introduced to scene after scene of topless girls and shirtless boys while the mummy intones,” Imagine you were making love to this girl", "Imagine you were making love to this boy", "Imagine you were making love to this girl", "Imagine you were making ....”
With that odd, plodding intro over, it's on to the main focus of the feature. Strange segments dedicated to the same love and war theme. I don't wanna give much away, but in most of these, you can see the hook coming from a mile away:
In the first segment, a creepy lady photog and her silent, black-leather clad assistant are doing a photo shoot with a guy along the S&M torture theme. The assistant fetches a saw horse rigged with a sharp metal crossbeam (the Spanish Horse) that the guy is to sit on while his legs are weighted down. They strap him in and head to lunch...
It's back to the mummy, who introduces the next sequence, about an old gent and his young scientist lady who want a boy child to continue the line. Only trouble is, the scientist has inherited a degenerative disease that is likely to cause the child to be a freak...
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Back to the mummy, and it's on to the next story, about a guy sitting around reading and listening to an old woman yabber on during a radio program. He catches a burglar, who turns out to be this hot, black-rubber-garbed dark-haired English beauty. Rather than turn her in, she offers herself up and they spend a decent ten minutes of film time rolling around in softcore coitus before she leaves...
It's the mummy again, and another, really long, wretched piece that's right out of Austin Powers, with a groovy Agent 28 sent to finagle some secrets out of a military attaché. This sequence segues into a really bad slapstick silent film parody called Bedroom Beauties of `29 complete with people slipping and vases crashing against heads and so on... Then it's back to our Agent 28, who slips the attaché a Mickey Finn and attempts to crack the safe (in nothing but boots and panties!-Yum!)...
The next piece is my favorite of the lot. A creepy guy calls for an escort; a hot, busty blonde arrives. Things are fine until he opens a box and she screams. Then, things flash to a truly bizarre scene outside in a park, with the same guy dressed in a child's outfit. The camera keeps panning to these dinosaur statues and back to him. Must be seen to be disbelieved. Then it's back to the hotel scene, where the guy introduces his pangolin (lizard) pet, whom he wants to include in his romp with the blonde....
The last mummy-introduced bit has an old Madame touring her greenhouse with her new valet, describing her sexual conquests, and explaining how she has kept the souls of her 17 past lovers in the plants. As with the preceding segments, I won't spoil the ending for you.
The mummy returns to send-off this utterly strange movie journey and we again see the go-go girls from the beginning and the rifle boys, who drop their weapons and proceed to have a big soft X orgy on the floor while fireworks explode. I purposely didn't give too much away on any of these vignettes, but you can always read other reviews for a "spoiler-included" and all-round better review of this seriously strange film. All-in-all, worth a look (at least once) for fans of weird, bad things.
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All other material © 2006 - 2008 by El Topo Entertainment