A psychological mystery thriller, this film was a weird watching experience for me. Using religion as the background, the film does feature a lot of dream-like/nightmarish sequences with the leading man, often to that extend that you don't always know for sure if he is awake or dreaming himself. This is also not a user film per say, but yeah the lead is bisexual man who is obsessing over another man. So even though the central theme of the film is not gay, the character trait is gay.
Gerard is a bisexual writer. On his way to give. Lecture, he sees a hot man on the train station and completely obsesses over him, but the man soon leaves. During one of his lectures, he meets Christine who asks him to say the night at her place and they have a one night stand. She runs a beauty salon and apparently was married before thrice. Next day, Gerard sees a picture of Christine's boyfriend, a man named Herman, who is the same guy he saw at train station. He decides to stay longer hoping to meet Herman and seduce him. When Christine goes to work, he spends time in weird day dreams. One of the days he sees video reels when he finds out about three of Chirstine's marriages before and how all three men in tragic accidents. Herman soon arrives and Gerard wants him at any cost. When Herman is showing him around the town, Gerard is successful in seducing him, mostly because Herman is star struck with Gerard's popularity in literary circles. But soon Gerard is convinced that Christine is a witch and either he or Herman is going to be her fourth victim. The two men are soon in an accident in which Herman does and Gerard is in hospital. As he is hospitalized, Christine meets another young, attractive man in the hospital lobby, with whom she leaves.
The film uses a lot of Catholic symbols to build the tension associated to smart dialogues including a scene where Gerard dreams of crucified Jesus only in underwear where he is undressing him. I feel that a lot of things in the film are used for shock value. There's strangulation, full frontal male and female nudity, castration, mutilation, simulated sex, a scene in a church with a cross that will shock most people, a gay sex scene in a crypt etc. The basic plot is very simple but is dragged out to nearly two hours before reaching a pointless conclusion. The acting is fine given the film came back in the 80s and its nothing much to write about. Honestly, films like these are not my cup of tea. I am not really sure what the director of the film was trying to say through the many dream like sequences. It was neither a murder mystery nor a sexual thriller despite plenty nudity in the film. It felt more like a hallucinated lead actor and audience just going through the motions of what this guy might be going through. Watch at your own risk. My advice would be to stay away. Its not worth it evener nudity or the mere fact that our lead likes men. (1.5/10)
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