06-06-2020, 05:17 PM
A man driving along a rural road at night brakes when a woman stumbles out in front of him. She is fully clothed, and none of it diaphanous. Nonetheless, this is a Jean Rollin film, so there's a naked woman hiding in the bushes nearby. When the driver asks the dressed woman if she's okay, she's flighty, can't remember who she is, though vaguely thinking her name is Elizabeth. When asked if she's alone, she looks uncertainly about, whispering Veronica? That's the naked woman. But they don't see her because she's hiding, and finally the man coaxes Elizabeth into the car, and they drive off as Veronica whispers, "Don't leave me alone!"
From another car, following, we hear, "We've got to get her back."
Thus begins this paranoia-laced tale of two women who've escaped the Black Tower, an asylum housing patients afflicted with a virus that slowly robs them of their memories -- or are the treatments causing that?
The setting is mostly the Black Tower, a modern skyscraper with a smattering of lesser skyscrapers around it. No castle ruins, shipwrecks or graveyards here. No vampires either. Still, Rollin graces this urban setting and the Black Tower interiors with a paranoid vibe, by turns claustrophobic and agoraphobic, through his amazing camerawork.
Elizabeth is the main protagonist, played by Brigitte Lahaie, who had a notable nude scene in The Grapes of Death. She first caught Rollin's eye while he directed her in the porn flick Sensual Vibrations in 1976. Noting how she stood out with her engaging personality and "incredible charisma," he recruited her for his more aesthetic films. Her self-assured radiance (and figure) was a real scene-stealer in The Grapes of Death, despite her only being a secondary character and introduced late.
Sorry if I'm over-emphasizing Brigitte Lahie, but I felt it important that you know that she probably doesn't gag easily, something to reflect on if you ever find yourself in a dentist chair in the middle of a pandemic.
Getting back to The Night of the Hunted, Elizabeth is recaptured by evil doctors and returned to the Black Tower, where she finds Veronica, who has also been captured. They recognize each other on some subliminal level and take comfort in being reunited, though remembering little of why. Meanwhile, the man who had rescued Elizabeth finds out where she is and sets out to rescue her again.
This is not a very good movie. It has a threadbare plot that is forever spinning its wheels. This is surprising, since Rollin was given carte blanche with the project. Well, there was a catch, making it a deal with the devil. He had to meet an almost impossible deadline.
Thus the long sex scenes, and I mean long, especially those involving Brigitte Lahaie, because, well, she's pretty good at them and has incredible stamina. So the movie is a compromise, strong in the mood department, with paranoia, identity loss, and a sense of secret authoritarian control as the main themes, but weakened by scenes that feel like filler, mostly composed of nudity and sex.
Have I just faulted it for gratuitous sex and nudity? Wash my mouth out with soap!
Watch it before your next dental cleaning. And remember to floss.
From another car, following, we hear, "We've got to get her back."
Thus begins this paranoia-laced tale of two women who've escaped the Black Tower, an asylum housing patients afflicted with a virus that slowly robs them of their memories -- or are the treatments causing that?
The setting is mostly the Black Tower, a modern skyscraper with a smattering of lesser skyscrapers around it. No castle ruins, shipwrecks or graveyards here. No vampires either. Still, Rollin graces this urban setting and the Black Tower interiors with a paranoid vibe, by turns claustrophobic and agoraphobic, through his amazing camerawork.
Elizabeth is the main protagonist, played by Brigitte Lahaie, who had a notable nude scene in The Grapes of Death. She first caught Rollin's eye while he directed her in the porn flick Sensual Vibrations in 1976. Noting how she stood out with her engaging personality and "incredible charisma," he recruited her for his more aesthetic films. Her self-assured radiance (and figure) was a real scene-stealer in The Grapes of Death, despite her only being a secondary character and introduced late.
Sorry if I'm over-emphasizing Brigitte Lahie, but I felt it important that you know that she probably doesn't gag easily, something to reflect on if you ever find yourself in a dentist chair in the middle of a pandemic.
Getting back to The Night of the Hunted, Elizabeth is recaptured by evil doctors and returned to the Black Tower, where she finds Veronica, who has also been captured. They recognize each other on some subliminal level and take comfort in being reunited, though remembering little of why. Meanwhile, the man who had rescued Elizabeth finds out where she is and sets out to rescue her again.
This is not a very good movie. It has a threadbare plot that is forever spinning its wheels. This is surprising, since Rollin was given carte blanche with the project. Well, there was a catch, making it a deal with the devil. He had to meet an almost impossible deadline.
Thus the long sex scenes, and I mean long, especially those involving Brigitte Lahaie, because, well, she's pretty good at them and has incredible stamina. So the movie is a compromise, strong in the mood department, with paranoia, identity loss, and a sense of secret authoritarian control as the main themes, but weakened by scenes that feel like filler, mostly composed of nudity and sex.
Have I just faulted it for gratuitous sex and nudity? Wash my mouth out with soap!
Watch it before your next dental cleaning. And remember to floss.
I'm nobody's pony.
![[Image: La_nuit_des_traquees_poster_1979_blahaie.jpg]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/9a/La_nuit_des_traquees_poster_1979_blahaie.jpg)