The plot – take a deep breath – goes thus: A seemingly normal, if somewhat diffident, young man, Arthur Barlen, murders his girlfriend and goes into hiding. His mother calls her brother, detective Bill Barlen, for help. He tries to persuades the official investigation to lay off as he pursues the case. An address book leads him round various if his nephews' conquests/victims – who all confirm his somewhat strange practices – and an enigmatic surgeon who hides a bizarre secret….
Think Percy meets Mad Love / The Hands or Orlac crossed with 60s/70s sexploitation roughie and you won't be far off the mark…
Pseudonymous director Doris Wishman – credited here as Louis Silverman – has a non-style that just about defies description and analysis, being as deconstrutive of conventional continuity editing and performance norms as, say, Jean-Luc Godard, Robert Bresson or – dare I mention him in this company – Jess Franco at their most radical. The difference, of course, is that whereas the Frenchmen and the Spaniard knew full well what they were doing in terms of distanciating the spectator, Wishman didn't really have a clue about technique and, in shooting feet, ornaments and other apparently random non-signifiying details or concentrating on the (non-)reactions of the character who isn't speaking rather than the one who is has his/her lines delivered via voice over, was simply doing whatever was cheapest.
The Region 1 DVD from Something Weird is pretty much par for the course: the film itself is about as good as you could expect given its age and origins, with this being compensated for by a typically extensive package of extras.
Copyright © K H Brown 2002-2005
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