rdoyle29 A strange little film that's a bit like a softcore sex version of "The Twilight Zone". A mummy hosts a series of odd horrorish stories involving sex ... a woman photographing a series of pictures of medieval torture devices really tortures her male model; a female burglar has sex with the man of the house and robs him anyway; and so on. It's somewhere between a brainy sex film and a fairly lame horror anthology. Director Anthony Balch had previously worked with William S. Burroughs, which isn't all that far off from the tone of this one.

Leofwine_draca As the title might just suggest, this is without a doubt one of the weirdest movies I have yet to sit through for review purposes. An obscure, utterly offbeat and indescribable comedy sex film unlike anything else filmed before or after, this cheeky affair comes courtesy of Anthony Balch, the man who later gave us the sublime HORROR HOSPITAL. BIZARRE is an Amicus-style anthology of sex-related stories, interlinked by the unforgettable image of a talking mummy (gravelly-voiced Valentine Dyall provides the vocals) who discusses mankind's war between the sexes and its various fetishes. Into the stories are woven with such images as naked women (and men) rollicking in slow-motion in the hay, erotic strip-teases, and a literal battle between machine gun-wielding youths and erotic go-go dancers armed with straight razors. Things culminate in a quite appropriate orgy, intercut with fireworks to provide a spectacular conclusion to the evening's entertainment.The first story is fairly graphic, a horror-themed tale of torture and depravity which will have any male viewer crossing his legs in sympathy. It concerns a creepy female photographer who employs a handsome young man to pose with a number of torture contraptions for her forthcoming art book. So far, so good, but when the unfortunate fellow is strung up over a "Spanish Horse", a hobby horse with a huge razor blade between the legs, and left to dangle during a lunch break, things take a turn for the worse as he is slowly castrated. The second story is more serious in its approach, but with an unintentionally hilarious conclusion. A young woman marries an older man, whose previous wife and son have died. Desperate for another boy, the woman gets pregnant but neglected to tell her husband that due to a inherited disease the baby will be born a mutant. The brief-but-hilarious special effects of the mutated child and the fun performance from Kenneth Benda make this a solid and fairly understandable vignette.The third story literally displays the ultimate use of the "feminine wiles" when a yuppie catches a female cat burglar ransacking his house. The pair are soon rolling about in the sack for an extended session, but the tables are turned for the finale when the woman goes on burgling the house and the man realises he has been duped, and is unable to telephone the police due to what has happened between them. Next up is a silly but pretty amusing spy spoof featuring Maria Frost as Lindy Leigh, Agent 28, hired to track down some top secret documents. Lots of bedroom antics and predictable jokes follow, including the highlight of a wannabe 1929 silent bedroom farce which is absolutely hilarious and spot-on in its depiction of such silent film behaviour.The next vignette is about a strange young man who hires a call girl and attempts to introduce his pet lizard into the lovemaking antics. She is understandably concerned and beats a hasty retreat, leaving the would-be lover forlorn and contemplating writing to a newspaper about his rejection! There's a laugh-out-loud flashback involving some roaring model dinosaurs and a heavy dosage of weirdness to make this one completely and enjoyably odd. The final story is probably the least interesting of the lot, but has a neat idea behind it: an old biddy has imprisoned the souls of her previous lovers into her pot plants, which are now kept in her greenhouse! Only there's a twist when the man that got away returns seeking vengeance...As a film, BIZARRE is bolstered and made enjoyable by a tongue-in-cheek approach and actors who play their parts with a campy and irreverent tone. This is worth tracking down for those who like their movies strange, strange, strange, as it's unlikely you'll ever see anything quite like this oddity again.

ThrownMuse A mummy narrates vignettes about men, women, and the sex between them. Huh? At the beginning, the mummy randomly asks the viewer, "Imagine having sex with this girl. Imagine having sex with this boy" about 37 times, while flashing pictures of half naked mod youths. Later, said mods boys pelt mod girls with...vegetables? If you ignore (or fast forward) through the mummy's rambling, the shorts aren't bad in their own right. I found a few of them rather funny. My personal favorite is one where the sexually-confused man tries to convince a girl to have sex with him while his pet lizard sits on the bed. This is one, well, bizarre movie.

gavcrimson SPOILERS INCLUDED Antony Balch was the famed abominable showman of the swinging London era- as a distributor and cinema programmer his niche lay in retitling Euro-sexploitation fare with 'bums on seats' titles like Do You like Women, Don't Deliver Us From Evil, When Girls Undress and The Weird Weirdo. In the early months of 1970 Balch released his own first feature length film, a contentious film about the battle of the sexes, executed in portmanteau style. Supremely offbeat by nature- Secrets of Sex has survived all these years essentially in anecdote form- not that its hard to see why- for no one forgets the only British sex film narrated by an Egyptian Mummy easily. Locked in a chest to hide from the husband of his lover, the narrator ended up buried alive- emerging thousands of years later as a Mummy who has observed the war of the sexes and become drawn to the more 'bizarre aspects of human behaviour'. Voiced by Valentine Dyall the Mummy watches a girl strip, theres further cut- aways to lovely ladies and shirtless men with machine guns- over which the Mummy repeats 'imagine you were making love to this girl, imagine you were making love to this boy' as a form of mantra atypical of the films ambiguous sexual view. 'When the Saints go Marching in' is heard as go-go dancing girls get cabbages and tomatoes thrown in their direction- the machine gun men advance, a girl draws a cut-throat razor- the battle of the sexes begins. Our man in bandages laments how people 'will go to any lengths to get what they want' with that we're spirited off to a photoshoot with a torture chamber theme. A male model feigns pain for an older photographer who seems a little too much into her work- the creepy situation is added to by her assistant, a not unattractive girl who nevertheless comes across as a Caligari somnambulist. 'Norma go get me the Spanish horse' she says prompting the arrival of this torture device- a sort of hobby horse with a blade down the middle which the suspended victim has to straddle- gradually the horse will dissect its victim between the legs (ouch). The ghastly inevitable happens with the model left to die this horrible death in the contraption while the women chat away during dinner, returning to find a dead bloody mess that makes the perfect book cover- some people really do have to suffer for their art. With horror movie shots of lightening we're onto the second tale- Mary-Clare a female scientist despises her older husband Sacha for his greed and privilege. Sacha longs for a son but when Mary-Clare discovers she carries a defective gene she knowingly gives birth to a freak monster son instead- raise that thing daddy-O. Next up a young man catches a female thief looting his house 'Christ, a bird'. The allure of the bad girl proves too much for our Genet reading hero who joins her in an amorous shower and some risque bedroom antics. After sex, the girl continues robbing, he threatens to call the police but both know things have gone a little too far for that- they won't buy his story but the girl drawing his attention to a picture of his wife imagines someone will. Following that is a detour into the misadventures of spy Lindy Leigh-Agent 28 complete with comic book like intertitles charting her missions - whether its donning white knickers to creep around a foreign embassy or checking out 'Bedroom Beauties of 1929' a nudie silent farce- in a sex cinema. Lindy seduces a military attache, slipping him a mickey finn 'sleep well sweet jerk' and tries her hand at topless safecracking, only to end up locked in the safe where she finds agents 1 to 27 'that military attache wasn't so stupid after all'. Then we have 'the strange young man' who rings up for a call girl- enter little dolly Sue Bond- whose bemused by this nerds attempts at 'hip' speak which includes referring to her as 'pigeon'- but all goes wrong when he gets out his pet lizard 'Pangy' telling her how permissive it would be if the reptile watched or better still joined in their lovemaking. 'Not for all the coffee in China' is Sue up for the geeks plan and makes for the door while he considers writing to the Financial Times- outside Sue runs into an old women saying sweet nothings to her own lizard 'beddy byes'. Finally a dotty dear relates how she imprisoned the souls of former lovers in potted plants to her valet- the one way conversation turns to the one man who escaped her. He is, of course the valet who strangles her 'die you filthy, alien garbage heap'. Arriving full circle back to the machine gun men and the go-go girls 'armies are disarmed' and the battle turns into a free for all orgy intercut with shots of fireworks- 'so it goes on, and on, and on'. Secrets of Sex encapsulates every aspect of Balch's gloriously outrageous career- from his early experimental shorts made with William Burroughs, to his life long love of horror movies and the censor-baiting exploitation film distributor. Mostly-improvised the film comes across as a freaky yet very personal chain of thought, spanning everything from the sweet Lindy Leigh episode to horrific imagery that rivals any 1970 horror movie- a dynamic penchant for tongue in cheek humour cuts through the film like its mascot spanish horse. An incredible headtrip to lay on audiences- Secrets of Sex lives up to everything you'll ever read about the film and Balch himself who by all accounts, was as colourful as his films. Secrets of Sex is a terrific film for people who like their movies with a healthy disregard for normality.