Shock Xpress - Necrophilia in the Movies

"The last taboo! There's a phrase to be seen on the cover of many a paperback, and it usually turns out to refer to cannibalism. I wonder. There seems to be a general feeling that, in extreme circumstances, eating people may be excusable. Suppose, though, that the survivors of that notorious Andean air crash, rather than eating their dead fellows, had - well, you know...

In the endless list of strange sexual activities, all of which are enjoyed by someone, somewhere, necrophilia must rank pretty highly on the taboo scale. Furthermore, it may be the most extreme perversion to have been portrayed in generally available film."

In a fascinating article in the third Shock Xpress book ("A Coffin Named Desire"), Colin Davis delves into the depiction of necrophilia in the movies. This is the first post in a series of posts featuring films discussed in Davis's article.



Terror! Il castello delle donne maledette (Dick Randall, 1974)




Flesh For Frankenstein (Paul Morrissey and Antonio Margheriti, 1973)

Shock Xpress - Massimo Pupillo (pt. 2)

In an article in the third Shock Xpress book, movie journalist Lucas Balbo interviews director Massimo Pupillo. These are some movies mentioned in the article.


Il Boia Scarlatto (Massimo Pupillo, 1965)




Bill Il Taciturno (Massimo Pupillo, 1967)

Aarseth Watching Video pt. 1 - Euronymous, Saint of the Pit

"La sainte de l’abîme est plus sainte à mes yeux!"

Gérard de Nerval, Artémis


From this interview with Øystein "Euronymous" Aarseth (conducted probably shortly after Per Yngve Ohlin's suicide on April 8th, 1991):

"And now over to something more humouristic...yes... snuff-movies. Who had been the perfect actor for a snuff-movie, and why the hell aren't they legalized? Don't you think that every video-store should have its own section with snuff-movies?

EURO: Actually I think it's great that movies like that are forbidden. If they were legal and easily accessible, all the small trend children would be watching them, and then it would not be something extreme anymore. It's just the same what happened to death metal it became something everyone could buy in every store, something normal and accessible for everyone. All the mystic and evil atmosphere is GONE. I do not think snuff-movies are funny, I think they are DARK. I've seen people laugh at them, but that's probably because they will not be themselves. That is the best way to watch such a movie to try to FEEL the actual pain of the victims. It becomes much more gruesome then, and that's great. One must be alone in the darkness and suffer with the victims. If you watch it with other people, they will often talk, laugh and so on, and then you get more distanced from it. It's not supposed to be funny (death to fun), it's much better when it's depressive."

In the early nineties, the Norwegian state practiced a severe system of censorship. Horror films were either heavily cut or banned outright. Even relatively innocuous British horror films such as British horror films such as House of Whipcord and Twins of Evil were forbidden.

In all probability, Aarseth was bluffing when he claimed he had seen snuff movies. Snuff movies, films which depict the actual killing of a human being, are nothing more than an urban legend. In the (thoroughly researched) 1994 book "Killing For Culture. An Illustrated History of Death Film from Mondo to Snuff" film journalists David Kerekes and David Slater concluded that no such films have existed anywhere, at any time. Probably, Aarseth made the common error of mistaking notorious gore films such as Man Behind The Sun, Cannibal Holocaust and Guinea Pig 2: Flowers of Flesh and Blood for actual snuff movies; another possibility is that Aarseth categorized films from the Faces of Death series as snuff films.

Kerekes and Slater made some useful observations with regards to the social function of the myth of the snuff movie:

"Snuff is the ultimate debase, a monster that must exist because it cannot be proven not to exist. As such it is exploited by campaigners fighting 'Satanism', pornography and 'video nasties'. For bureaucrats seeking publicity and missionaries seeking funds, it is a tool - the demonized apotheosis that necessitates their crusade. It is what the public must fear and what these bodies will serve to protect the public from (and in recognizing it, will themselves remain untouched and immune). For the 'transgressives', on the other hand, it is the next inevitable step down the slippery slope - like all marijuana smokers will become crack addicts; like all beer drinkers will turn to hard spirits; like all porn viewers will resort to sex crime."

The myth of the snuff film, constructed by ".. bureaucrats seeking publicity and missionaries seeking funds..." was appropriated and used by Aarseth. This imaginary terror, this demented obsession of modern-day inquisitors, inspired Aarseth to wrest the demonic power of the snuff movie from his contemporary media landscape to cast that image back at Norwegian society. By publicly, ostentatiously claiming to consume snuff movies, Aarseth desired to become Norwegian society's "...ultimate debase...".

"Actually I think it's great that movies like that are forbidden." Aarseth's words illustrate the observation that transgression is a 'dual operation', an interplay between interdiction and transgression. Neither transgression nor interdiction can take place or have meaning without the other. Transgression does not deny the interdiction: on the contrary, it reaffirms the interdiction. For Aarseth, if snuff movies wouldn't be forbidden, if they would be legal and easily accessible, they would be meaningless. Aarseth needed his bureaucrats, missionaries and inquisitors. Aarseth was not only an artist who desperately desired to ruin that staid Christian society of which he was a part; he also was an artist who longed for a society that would deny his right to exist.

Where (inquisitorial?) criticism and theory regard the consumer of horror films to be in a sadistic-voyeuristic collusion with the camera, Aarseth "...suffer[ed] with the victims", as if he attempted to open up the boundary of the silver screen to feel "...the actual pain of the victims." Rather than assaultive, Aarseth's gaze is receptive, introjective, opening up to the pain of the victims. Carol Clover's classic 1992 book Men, Women and Chain Saws. Gender in the Modern Horror Film suggests that Aarseth's reception of snuff films is structured similarly to the reception of horror films:

"The evidence suggests that the first and central aim of horror cinema is to play to masochistic fears and desires in its audiences - fears and desires that are repeatedly figured as 'feminine.' It may play on other fears and desires too, but dealing out pain is its defining characteristic; sadism, by definition, plays at best a supporting role. To the extent that a movie succeeds in 'hurting' its viewers in this way, it is horror; to the extent that it does not try, it is not horror but something else."

Even if Clover is wrong to simply identify the consumption of horror films with sadomasochistic practices, she is right in the sense that both masochism and the consumption of horror films foreground an intimate sensation of corporeal suffering. With Karmen MacKendrick, both masochism and the consumption of horror films can be described as a 'counterpleasure', which are "...pleasures which queer our notion of pleasure, consisting in or coming through pain, frustration, refusal. (...) They are pleasures that refuse the sturdy subjective center, defying one's own survival, promising the death not of the body but, for an impossible moment, of the subject..." (sourced here).

Aarseth's approach to the consumption of snuff movies was solitary and contemplative: "One must be alone in the darkness and suffer with the victims. If you watch it with other people, they will often talk, laugh and so on, and then you get more distanced from it." Rather than consuming these films in a gregarious manner, Aarseth experienced the agony of the victims in solitude. For Aarseth, the consumption of these films must take place outside the banalities of ordinary life, cut off from the normal communication of emotions.

In the citation above, Aarseth expressly linked his ideal way of consuming these film to the experience of a "mystic and evil atmosphere": i.e. to mysticism and the left-handed sacred. This is particularly interesting in connection to the consumption of horror films as a counterpleasure which threatens the death of the subject. It would seem that the experience of corporeal suffering through the contemplative consumption of horror films is not only close to eroticism, but also to (left-handed) sanctity. Bataille: "The Saint is not after efficiency. He is prompted by desire and desire alone and in this resembles the erotic man." (sourced here).

In the white light of the desert, Christian hermit Saints identied ecstatically with a tortured and crucified Christ. In the pit-like darkness of his room, illuminated only by the somber blue light of the cathode tube, an enraptured Aarseth identified with the tortured and murdered victims of snuff films.

Shock Xpress - Massimo Pupillo (pt. 1)

"In Terror Creatures, when I needed a jumping heart, I prepared the effect myself without the aid of any specialist. First I bought a pig's heart and a Japanese toy for a dollar. It was a little doll with a rubber ball hand-pump connected to it. When you squeezed the rubber ball, the doll jumped. I inserted this mechanism into the pig heart and it worked perfectly. Thump, thump, thump. The heart would beat perfectly as soon as you squeezed the pump."

In an article in the third Shock Xpress book, movie journalist Lucas Balbo interviews director Massimo Pupillo. These are some movies mentioned in the article.


L'Amore Primitivo (Luigi Scattini, 1964)




5 Tombe Per Un Medium (Massimo Pupillo, 1965)

Shock Xpress - Nowhere Nice (pt. 5)

In the first article of the third Shock Xpress book (titled 'Shock'), "Five Nights In Nowhere Nice", music journalist David Kerekes tells of his depressing experiences as a subscriber to cable television. Here are some trailers of films mentioned by Kerekes in the article.


The Astro-Zombies (Ted V. Mikels, 1968)




Skinned Alive (Jon Killough, 1990)

Shock Xpress - Nowhere Nice (pt. 4)

In the first article of the third Shock Xpress book (titled 'Shock'), "Five Nights In Nowhere Nice", music journalist David Kerekes tells of his experiences as a subscriber to cable television. Here are some trailers of films mentioned by Kerekes in the article.

L'Abîme des Morts Vivants (Jesus Franco, 1981)




Tian Whang Jou Whang (Tso Nam Lee, 1976)

Shock Xpress - Nowhere Nice (pt. 3)

In the first article of the third Shock Xpress book (titled 'Shock'), "Five Nights In Nowhere Nice", music journalist David Kerekes tells of his experiences as a subscriber to cable television. Here are some trailers of films mentioned by Kerekes in the article.


Troma's War (Michael Herz & Lloyd Kaufman, 1988)




Sleepaway Camp (Robert Hiltzik, 1983)

Shock Xpress - Nowhere Nice (pt. 2)

In the first article of the third Shock Xpress book (titled 'Shock'), "Five Nights In Nowhere Nice", music journalist David Kerekes tells of his experiences as a subscriber to cable television. Here are some trailers of films mentioned by Kerekes in the article.

The Toxic Avenger, Part II (Michael Herz & Lloyd Kaufman, 1989)




Eaten Alive (Tobe Hooper, 1977)

Shock Xpress - Nowhere Nice (pt. 1)

In the first article of the third Shock Xpress book (titled 'Shock'), music journalist David Kerekes tells of his experiences as a subscriber to cable television: "There is a hole in the TV time continuum. It is in my house. Newcomers to satellite or cable television will recognize the affliction known as channel hopping. Bouncing through the stations, one after another, not really watching anything in particular. I turn on my newly acquired cable TV access and commence to channel hop - a woman gives birth, a lion jumps over a small wall and mauls several other animals, advisertisement, advisertisement, advisertisement, Mountain plays a song, a football match from 1987 is re-run, a shark rams the cage from which a diver observes... On station 35 I hesitate."

Here are some trailers of films mentioned by Kerekes in the article, "Five Nights In Nowhere Nice".


Flesheater (S. William Hinzman, 1988)






Les Mémés Cannibales (Emmanuel Kervyn, 1988)

Shock Xpress - Walerian Borowczyk

The penultimate article in the second Shock Xpress book is written by Colin Davis and discusses the career of Polish filmmaker Walerian Borowczyk. Surprisingly, there are only two trailers for Borowczyk on YouTube.

La Bête (Walerian Borowczyk, 1975)




Docteur Jekyll Et Les Femmes (Walerian Borowczyk, 1981)

Shock Xpress - Frederick R. Friedel

From an article by David Kerekes titled "Huh? Two Films By Frederick R. Friedel", in the second Shock Xpress Book:

"[Friedel's] command of action sequences and tension is good, but when he puts his players in an old farmhouse with a homicidal teenager, or into a barn following the rapture of a kidnapping, what aught to constitute atmosphere just comes out a sticky mess."

Axe (Frederick R. Friedel, 1977)

Shock Xpress - Home Grown British Crud (pt. 8)

This final episode of a short series of posts which features trailers of British horror films mentioned in an article in the second Shock Xpress book, 'For Adults Only! Home Grown British Crud, 1954-1972', by Mike Wathen. The article examines British horror films made by producers hoping to emulate Hammer's success. Blood on Satan's Claw is one of my favorite horror films.


Blood on Satan's Claw (Piers Haggard, 1971)




Doomwatch (Peter Sasdy, 1972)

Shock Xpress - Home Grown British Crud (pt. 7)

This short series of posts features trailers of British horror films mentioned in an article in the second Shock Xpress book, 'For Adults Only! Home Grown British Crud, 1954-1972', by Mike Wathen. The article examines British horror films made by producers hoping to emulate Hammer's success.


The Haunted House of Horror (Michael Armstrong, 1969)




Zeta One (Michael Cort, 1969)

Shock Xpress - Home Grown British Crud (pt. 6)

This short series of posts features trailers of British horror films mentioned in an article in the second Shock Xpress book, 'For Adults Only! Home Grown British Crud, 1954-1972', by Mike Wathen. The article examines British horror films made by producers hoping to emulate Hammer's success.


The Sorcerers (Michael Reeves, 1967)




Curse of the Crimson Altar (Vernon Sewell, 1968)

Shock Xpress - Home Grown British Crud (pt. 5)

This short series of posts features trailers of British horror films mentioned in an article in the second Shock Xpress book, 'For Adults Only! Home Grown British Crud, 1954-1972', by Mike Wathen. The article examines British horror films made by producers hoping to emulate Hammer's success.


Witchfinder General (Michael Reeves, 1968)




Incense for the Damned (Robert Hartford-Davis, 1970)

Shock Xpress - Home Grown British Crud (pt. 4)

This short series of posts features trailers of British horror films mentioned in an article in the second Shock Xpress book, 'For Adults Only! Home Grown British Crud, 1954-1972', by Mike Wathen. The article examines British horror films made by producers hoping to emulate Hammer's success.


Night of the Big Heat (Terence Fisher, 1967)




The Asphyx (Peter Newbrook, 1973)

Shock Xpress - Home Grown British Crud (pt. 3)

This short series of posts features trailers of British horror films mentioned in an article in the second Shock Xpress book, 'For Adults Only! Home Grown British Crud, 1954-1972', by Mike Wathen. The article examines British horror films made by producers hoping to emulate Hammer's success.


Corridors of Blood (Robert Day, 1958)




Island of Terror (Terence Fisher, 1966)

Shock Xpress - Home Grown British Crud (pt. 2)

This short series of posts features trailers of British horror films mentioned in an article in the second Shock Xpress book, 'For Adults Only! Home Grown British Crud, 1954-1972', by Mike Wathen. The article examines British horror films made by producers hoping to emulate Hammer's success.



First Man Into Space (Robert Day, 1959)





Curse Of The Fly (Don Sharp, 1965)

Shock Xpress - Home Grown British Crud (pt. 1)

This short series of posts features trailers of British horror films mentioned in an article in the second Shock Xpress book, 'For Adults Only! Home Grown British Crud, 1954-1972', by Mike Wathen. The article examines British horror films made by producers hoping to emulate Hammer's success.


Devil Girl From Mars (David MacDonald, 1954)




The Trollenberg Terror (Quentin Lawrence, 1958)

Shock Xpress - Mariangela Giordano (pt. 4)

This is the fourth and final post in a short series of posts honoring Italian exploitation star Mariangela Giordano. She was interviewed in the second Shock Xpress book by film critics Alan Jones and Mark Ashworth.


Patrick Vive Ancora (Mario Landi, 1980)




Le Notti Del Terrore (Andrea Bianchi, 1981)




La Setta (Michele Soavi, 1991)