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VHS MOVIE REVIEW : BREAKING POINT (1975)
After THRILLER: A CRUEL PICTURE (1974; aka: THEY CALL HER ONE EYE), director Bo Arne Vibenius made this, a psychosexual thriller about a woman-hating office worker named Bob Bellings (Anton Rothschild) who becomes a rapist/murderer. When we first meet Bob, he's following a woman home from the grocery store. He forces his way into her apartment, rapes her and beats her over the head with a heavy glass ashtray, killing her. We next see him at his job (where he seems to be the only man in an office full of women), stamping paperwork, calling his co-workers "bitches" under his breath and watching a newscast of his crime, where a psychiatrist named Sigmund tells the viewing audience that 87% of women want to be raped and maybe this latest victim wouldn't have been killed if she just let the rape happen and didn't fight back. It becomes apparent after a short while that we are seeing the world through the balding and mousey-looking Bob's eyes and not everything we see and hear may be the truth. A beautiful female co-worker comes on to Bob, so he takes a long lunch hour and follows her home, where she gives him a blowjob (yes, this film is full of hardcore sex scenes), he ejaculates on her face and, after she pleases him some more, he gets dressed and returns to his boring job (When he returns, he hears a story on the TV news that everyone will be issued a permit to carry guns!). Yes, Bob is a schizophenic (he listens to tapes on the subject in his car), and the only time he seems happy is when he is playing with his model trains or reading train magazines. It seems to get him sexually excited and one time, when reading a train magazine, he fantasizes about getting a blowjob from a beautiful woman and a fly lands on the tip of his erect penis. He goes to flick it off and hits his dick instead, making him scream out in pain. Bob rents a car and travels the streets looking for his next victim. He finds a woman, follows her home, forces her to strip and has sex with her. While he is raping her from behind, she picks up a pair of scissors and stabs him in the leg. She escapes in her car, but Bob chases her and she dies in a fiery auto accident when her car slams into a house and explodes. The next time we see Bob, he is giving a cup of coffee to one of his female co-workers that is full of his sperm ("I'll teach that bitch!"). He then goes to a gun dealer, where he purchases a pistol and "fragmentation ammo" (they explode on contact) and then goes to a schoolyard to watch the children play. He picks up a young girl from the playground and drives her to a secluded section of the snowy forest, where he feeds her candy. Thankfully, nothing happens (I was nervous as hell that something would) and he drives her home (She asks him, "Shall we meet again?" and he sternly says, "No!"). After another episode where Bob picks up a hooker and they fuck in his rental car, the film takes a strange turn. While Bob is walking down the street, he is taken hostage by some bank robbers and driven to a secluded section of the forest. DO NOT READ THE FOLLOWING IF YOU DO NOT WANT TO KNOW THE FINALE! Bob gets the drop on the bank robbers and kills them all with his pistol and fragmentation ammo. When a police helicopter overhead mistakens him for one of the bank robbers, Bob grabs a machine gun and shoots the helicopter out of the sky. He hijacks a car off the highway and drives to the airport, where he picks up his wife and young daughter, who were away on vacation. When his wife asks him how things have been, he replies, "You know nothing ever happens in this shit town!" END OF SPOILER. Since this is a well-made film, I was taken by surprise when the first hardcore sex scene appeared. Director Bo Arne Vibenius used hardcore shots for his previous film THRILLER, but BREAKING POINT is much more pornographic and misongynistic in it's approach to sex (if that's possible to imagine). All the sex depicted here is how Bob thinks it should be: For the man's pleasure only. It's mostly blowjobs and doggy- style, with some titty-fucking and a scene of a girl pleasuring herself with the gearshift of Bob's rented car (When he returns the car to the rental office, the gearshift knob is missing!). Truth be told, I liked this film better than THRILLER because it's use of sex and violence as a metaphor is much more pronounced and profound. There's a scene where Bob is walking through a park one night and he witnesses a mugging and walks right past the victim's body, only to be mugged himself immediately afterward. It seems that Bob is mugged often, because he keeps money hidden underneath his watchband. He simply gives it to the knife-wielding mugger and they both move on as if nothing happened. The surprise ending is a shocker and a perfect way to end the film. I can honestly say I did not see it coming. Director Vibenius (who uses the pseudonym "Ron Silberman Jr." for his directorial and scripting credits and "Stan Kowalski" [an inside joke] for the producer credit) never directed another film after this, which is a shame because BREAKING POINT (not to be confused with the 1976 thriller starring Bo Svenson or the 1993 crime drama starring Gary Busey) is a taut, disturbing psychosexual thriller. Also starring Irena Billing, Jane McIntosh, Susanne Audrian, Bertha Klingspor, Adolf Deutchand and Joachim Bender. The print I viewed was sourced from a Swedish-subtitled VHS tape. Rated XXX. { text from critcononline.com }
VHS MOVIE REVIEW : ABBY (1974)
While in Africa on an archaeological dig, Dr. Garnet Williams (William Marshall) finds a wooden vessel in a cave and opens it, unleashing the ancient demon Eshu, the demon god of sexuality (among other nasty things). Meanwhile, in Louisville, Kentucky, Williams' preacher son Emmett (Terry Carter), his wife Abby (Carol Speed) and Abby's mother Miranda (Juanita Moore) are seen moving into a new house. It's not long before the ultra-religious Abby begins experiencing floating objects, moving furniture and other supernatural doings in the new house. She is raped in the shower by Eshu (we see subliminal flashes of Eshu [actually Carol Speed in demon makeup]) and it's not long afterward that Abby is possessed by the demon, slicing her arm up with a butcher knife and freaking out at one of her husband's sermons at church (she throws one church member through a door and drools all over him). Abby begins to physically and mentally deteriorate (she begins talking foul language in a deep voice and punches Emmett in the nuts) and Emmett, at first, fears Abby is on drugs, but her brother, police detective Cass Potter (Austin Stoker), doesn't believe that is the problem. When Abby rips her clothes off in front of two church members (Emmett says to her, "Whatever possessed you to do a thing like that?"), rapes Emmett in their own bed and kills the church organist, Mrs. Wiggins (Nancy Lee Owens), by giving her a heart attack, Emmett calls his father in Africa and begs him to come home. Dr. Williams, you see, is also a priest and has performed exorcisms in the past. Emmett puts his wife in the hospital, but all the tests find nothing wrong with her, so the doctors recommend she see a psychiatrist (they never get the chance to go). When Dr. Williams arrives in Louisville and attempts to help Abby, she runs out of the house and Emmett steals a car (!) to go looking for her. Abby ends up at a bar, where she kills a series of men while fucking them (she fucks one guy to death in his Cadillac and it fills up with smoke as she begins talking in her possessed voice). Emmett and Cass catch up with her at the bar (she tosses everyone around like a ragdoll) and then Dr. Williams arrives (Abby/Ushu says to him, "Hello motherfucker!"), performs an exorcism ("The light of God binds you!") and gets Eshu to go back into his wooden vessel. Abby wakes up with no memory of what has happened. Praise the Lord! Warner Bros. successfully sued to stop ABBY from being screened shortly after it was released because they believed it followed the plot to their hit from the previous year, THE EXORCIST, a little too closely. While that may have been true (the subliminal flashes, the possession theme, trip to the hospital for tests, etc.), this film contains enough original touches to be an entertaining film on it's own right (American International Pictures, who released this film theatrically, pulled it from release without putting up any fight at all). There have been more blatant rip-offs of THE EXORCIST than this (BEYOND THE DOOR, anyone?), so it seemed a little harsh when this film was pulled and hasn't had a legitimate release in any form for over thirty years (It should be noted that when Warner Bros. tried to stop the release of BEYOND, the courts decided that Warner Bros. didn't hold the rights to the possession or exorcist themes). Director William Girdler (ASYLUM OF SATAN - 1971; GRIZZLY - 1976, and many others until his unfortunate death in a helicopter crash while scouting locations in the Philippines in 1978) has fashioned a film, while exploitative (I never liked the term "blaxploitation"), still maintains it's religious convictions and is believably acted by all. William Marshall, fresh off his starring turns in BLACULA (1972) and SCREAM BLACULA SCREAM (1973), does a marvelous job in the exorcist role, his booming baritone voice shaking the rafters as he attempts to exorcise Eshu out of Abby's body. The exorcism at the bar is a sight to behold, as Marshall spouts religious mumbo-jumbo, while Abby screams out obscenities and acute observations (My favorites being, "Loyalty! All crap!", "Violence! That's your nature! and "Don't play games with me, you simple-minded shit!") while the bar explodes around everyone. This is good, mindless fun that, unfortunately, got railroaded into obscurity. The gray market DVD by Cinefear Video looks to have been sourced from a beat-up 16mm print, but it is watchable and contains the trailer, a radio spot, stills, lobby cards, pressbook, posters and an informative background article as DVD extras. Definitely worth an investment. Also starring Charles Kissinger (a regular Girdler player), Elliott Moffitt, Nathan Cook, Don Henderson and Bob Holt as the voice of the demon Eshu. American International Pictures wanted to change the name to THE BLACKORCIST before it's release, but saner heads prevailed. A Cinefear Home Video Release. Rated R. { text from critcononline.com }
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