House of the Lost Girls
(La maison des filles perdues, 1974)

Pierre Chevalier

France / Italy

85 min, color, English (dub)

Review © 2007 Branislav L. Slantchev

Why, the hell, am I watching these things? At this point, I have two options. I can plead temporary insanity but this won't do because my track record suggests something much more permanent. The second option, as usual, is to blame someone else. In this case, it is all Sandra Julien's fault. I don't mean to suggest that Ms Julien somehow personally misled me. But she did consent to appearing in this film, and she did not refuse to have her name prominently displayed in the credits.

For $100, I will love you too	Gratuitous shot of Magda Mundari

For those readers who have done all their celluloid excursions in the backwoods that is mainstream cinema and therefore have no clue who Sandra Julien is, I have two words only: Shiver of the Vampires. Yes, I know that's four words but only two are relevant. If you have not seen this Jean Rollin film, then you really should not be reading reviews of Eurotrash cinema but should immediately order that film (okay, you are allowed to rent it); you are trying to mix with highly cultured civilized company here. Geez! If this is still vague, let's just say that once you see Ms Julien, you are very unlikely to forget her if you are a heterosexual male or a lesbian.

Not distress yet, but soon will be	The sex slaves racket is my business

So she "stars" in this outing that would have been a vicious movie indeed if it weren't so blatantly concerned entirely with whatever the director could pass under the censors' radar. It's basically wall-to-wall nudity with tons of softcore sex (none of it consensual), and whenever women are not getting raped, there are some guys who sort of run around without any discernible purpose except to fail to rescue the women who have been, are in the process of being, or will be raped. With all this involuntary sex, you'd think the film is either gross or should appeal only to people who would not be caught in public sharing their erotic fantasies. But you would be wrong, and I will explain why.

You got me, I am wearing white after Labor Day	How much for that dress you're wearing?

First, the story or whatever scraps of logic I can summon to link the scenes together. As far as I could tell, the film could have been edited in just about any random order and it would still remain basically the same. Narrative isn't exactly it's strong point. The title, for once, is not entirely misleading. There's a house and there are girls. In fact, plenty of girls. They are not exactly lost, however. At least not lost in the sense that they did not google the directions to the grocery store before leaving the house. They are lost more in the sense of being kidnapped and taken to a remote location where they are forced to prostitute themselves. I can't say "sell" because all they get for letting guys paw them is a shared bedroom and no unsupervised trips to anyplace else. A minor mystery of the film is how come all those random clients know about that remote location. I must have missed the billboard signs with the "House of the Lost Girls: Come and Find Them" (catchy, no?). Ok, we'll let that slide.

This is 003.5, the early, manual, version of Bond	I wish I did not have to kill her

The film opens with Yvette (Magda Mundari) getting naked. She will be doing that a lot, so no need to pay close attention. Her client Mr Gaston (Raymond Schettino) is not interested in humping, at least not while they are in the brothel. As it turns out, he's in love with the starlet, so he offers to elope with her. She gladly agrees and (sadly) puts her clothes back on. Not to worry, though, because right in the middle of what I assume was a tense chase (they must have drove with at least 20 mph without anyone following), they stop in the middle of the freaking road to take a walk in the woods. Yes, that's right. In the middle of a chase. Leave the car in the middle of the road. Walk alone in the woods. But this is not a horror film, it's an exploitation movie. All that happens that Yvette restores the natural equilibrium by getting promptly naked again. This time Mr Gaston is all for it. In fact, he's thoughtfully brought a blanket for the purpose. Nothing beats a well-planned elopement.

Not consensual	When I said "casual dress" for the raid, I did not mean "wear no pants"

They go to the police and Yvette explains precisely how she was kidnapped. The inspector looks stunned as you would if you heard the story. "So I was going to see my boyfriend and I, like, hitched a ride with this dude with a repulsive moustache. His little buggy kept, like, breaking down even though I didn't hear any engine trouble. So I was late and my boyfriend had left. The bastard. So I sort of went with the buggy guy to that really neat restaurant where I got invited backstage. I thought it was to see the manager's engravings but instead he raped me. Then I got raped by some guys who were stuffing an unconscious woman in a chest. Then I got drugged and stuffed in a chest myself. Then I may have gotten raped some more, and then I was forced into prostitution." Sad story, indeed. Even if does make one wonder what this girl is using as brain substitute.

You there! This is my special agent Poke-Stick!	This guy got purposefully hurt to experience Catalonian health care

As I said, there's a lot of raping going on. However, none of it is brutal. Most of it is even funny. Yes, you heard me, I said "rape" and "funny" in the same sentence. That's because the film does not fetishize violent rape fantasies. Instead, it titillates with very mild sex in which women fall flat on their backs, lose whatever little clothing they had on (usually not much), and then "struggle" by assuming sexually convenient and suggestive positions, moaning, and occasionally emitting an entirely unconvincing "Oh, no." One thing I learned from this is that going "Oh, no! You, beast! Oh!" does not work nearly as well in stopping rape as, say clobbering the guy with a blunt object, hacking off his overactive genitalia, or at the very least kicking him in the balls. But since these women put up as much struggle as my pajamas when I get dressed in the morning, I think violence was least on their minds. In other words, the film is not about rape fantasies. It presents an oddly G-rated view of what should have been a rather sordid and brutal topic.

I know 428 ways to make my fighting stance more ridiculous	The dirty "pigeon crate" throw technique

The whole point of the film is to present as many ladies naked as possible. Unfortunately, a lot of these ladies look much better with all their clothes on. In fact, Ms Julien herself does not appear very appetizing, which proves once and for all that 50% of the looks come from the actress and 50% comes from the director knowing what the hell he's doing. Rollin may not be able to tell a story to save his life but he sure knows his visuals. Chevalier, on the other hand, apparently trained at the "Jess Franco Weekend School on De-Eroticizing Even the Most Sexually Alluring Woman." He must have graduated with high honors. To add insult to injury, he has this secret service guy with the code moniker Sigma (IMDB claims he's played by Jack Taylor but I don't think so) run around, participate in some lame fights, and generally not accomplish anything until Ms Julien shows up as an undercover agent to run around, participate in some lame rapes, and generally not accomplish anything. Somehow, however, the bad guys are defeated in the end, probably because the filmmakers ran out of money to film more full frontal nudity and rape.

One pretty incompetent agent (read this as you wish)	Yes, this is a legitimate question. I know because I just passed the sexual harassment exam.

There were a couple of bright spots in the film. I liked the fight choreography. It was almost as hilarious as anything William Shattner has ever been in. I was quite partial to the "hit the guy with a crate full of pigeons" technique which would probably cause apoplexy to any PETA member who sees it. Some of the women were attractive in that vague 1970s porn flick sort of way. Unfortunately, seeing so many naked women in such a quick succession is, frankly, boring. I much preferred the "detective" work of the two agents even though I never had any idea what they were trying to achieve. They kept going to the same places and somehow the bad guys always became aware of them, so they always landed in a lot of trouble. Seeing marginally competent bad guys is in itself worth something.

Triply not consensual	Obligatory gratuitous shot of Sandra Julien

I have some godawful bootleg DVD which is sourced from a fourth-generation VHS rape. It's widescreen at 1.85:1 (obviously not anamorphic) and the quality is exactly what you would expect. I am guessing it was taped from some TV broadcast in some possibly Scandinavian country because it comes with burned-in subtitles in some crazy language I don't understand but that obviously has quite a few words with German roots. The English dub is passable although flat and listless as usual. I have removed the greenish cast from the screen-caps for this review, so don't get any ideas about the actual quality. This film is only for people who would love to see Sandra Julien. Unfortunately, it is precisely these people who will most likely be very disappointed with her "performance" here. Avoid.

January 11, 2007