Director: Jess Franco
Year: 1970
Country: West Germany/Spain/Liechtenstein/United Kingdom
Alternate Titles: De Sade 70; Eugenie... the Story of Her Journey into Perversion
Genre: Sexploitation
Plot:
Upset about their daughter's insolence, a couple send her off to live with her eccentric aunt and her brother who induct her into various sexual games and exploits in order to prepare her for the arrival of a bizarre host and his associates who follow the works of the Marquis de Sade.
Review:
Overall, this is quite an enjoyable if slightly flawed effort. What works incredibly well with this one is the fervent eroticism on display that tends to evoke more than simply sexual couplings and hookups. Featuring no end of those as the film utilizes a slew of scenes featuring the older couple inducting her into their luxurious lifestyle that includes all manner of designations in their conquests, there's also the setup of doing everything they can with the sole intent of seducing her. Whether it be playfully bathing together, sunbathing nude, or setting in motion the idea of exploiting her naivety to their advantage, the end result is usually a genuinely erotic sequence being the main outcome situated amongst the cruelty featured in the final half that maintains a fantastic psychedelic atmosphere.
If the film has a flaw, it's the exaggeratedly sluggish pacing that takes quite a while to get going. As the majority of the first half here focuses on the needs of the parents to send her away, the couple's lifestyle full of extravagance and luxury that posits them as a fantastic foil for her later on once she visits and the inner workings of the cult that exists on the outskirts of the storyline, this one takes quite a while getting to the overall point here with these taking up quite a lot of the running time on display. Most attempts at disguising this with eroticism and sensuous love-making allow for a fine distraction but as it doesn't always work that point becomes quite pronounced. This manages to become the main drawback against this one as there's not much else to hold it back.
Overview: ****/5
A genuine Eurosleaze erotic classic, this one manages to get quite a lot to like about it while only featuring a few small issues that aren't even that detrimental overall to hold it down. Those that are appreciative of this style of arthouse sexploitation style of filmmaking, are fans of this genre, or enjoy the work of the creative crew will have plenty to like here while only those that don't go for any of these factors should heed caution.
MARQUIS DE SADE'S PHILOSOPHY IN THE BOUDOIR (aka EUGENIE) (1970) - Restored 1080p HD Movie Trailer - Blue Underground from Blue Underground on Vimeo.
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