Bacchanale Review

Reviewed by T0MBOne  on  3/27/2009

BACCHANALE (1970) reveals a series of dream events running through the guilt-ridden mind of a young beauty over the course of a night's rest. It's a rather strange and sometimes surreal trip that mixes suspense and horror with graphic sexual situations. Amero shot most of the film in black and white but through an array of colored gels; he mixes in some full-color footage almost as an occasional special effect. VCX has re-released BACCHANALE in a widescreen edition as part of their Cal Vista Classics series, which debuted in 2008.

BACCHANALE opens with green tinted b/w cemetary images and a voice crying "Gordon, Gordon." Then, the credits roll. The green tinted b/w imagery continues as a sleeping female figure, Ruth (Uta Erickson) departs her sleeping body via a super-imposed ghost figure. By a fireplace, her ghost encounters a nude kneeling couple with strange hand-shaped outlines on their faces. Ruth touches them but mostly watches as the duo lie across the floor in a 69 position, which leads to a mish fucking in accompanying flashes of blue and pale blue tints. Cumshot on her tummy---!!!! outa !!!!!

Ruth exits out a door into a blue city environ and descends a fire escape. When she looks down, she sees a spiraling fire escape in light green but with a red dot at its center. Her descent down the stair case merges with her descent down a stair case at a party, a sort of hippie fashion show with an announcer, a dude strumming an acoustic guitar and other party guests. Ruth notices a mortuary casket in the room and approaches it. There, she finds a sort of faceless phantom with a dark hat. She tells this phantom to let her in these darkened gates and when she enters a dark shadowy umbrella-carrying figure follows her.

At the party, the phantom says "Gordon isn't here" then Ruthie sees herself in the mortuary casket. Lightning strikes.

The action shifts to Gordon's cemetary plot where a naked Ruth writhes infront of his tombstone, beneath shadowy figures holding umbrellas. This set looks pretty cheap and cheesy, almost as bad as the cemetary stuff from Ed Wood's Plan 9 from Outer Space. In tighter shots, Ruth's writhing also reveals some sort of astro-turf beneath her.

That phantom returns, says "there is evil here" and tells Ruth to return to her friends and to find her own truth. Ruth walks around with some gay fashion designer guys then returns to the tomb where the phantom figure disrobes among these strange columns.

Ruth wanders around him, disrobes then the duo embrace and fall to the astro-turf in a sea of swirling fog. Close-ups of nipple sucking and Ruth's reaction shots lead to pussy sucking and dick sucking. Ruth rides cowgirl with fog blowing around her body then she takes a mish fucking, then the duo fuck kneeling and kissing, which leads to the duo kissing upon a lone carousel horse---!!! outa !!!!!

Super-imposed water imagery leads to the phantom and Ruth by the river where the phantom instructs her to complete her journey. She returns to the party where the casket appears in the bathroom.

The naked dude with the hand outline on his face is lying in there. She gently caresses around his prick then grabs his balls, which leads to a hand job---!!! outa !!!!!

Voice-over reveals Ruth's mother describing Ruth and Gordon's realtionship as "wicked and unnatural" then Ruth says "I love Gordon."

On the fire escape, Ruth obtains a key. Her black and white self meets her other self, a color version that opens her coat revealing a stream of blood flowing between her naked boobs (used for the background of the DVD cover art), down her legs and splashing upon her white shoes. She uses the key to enter some sort of rocky underworld that's tinted in reddish-orange hues.

The next 20 minutes of the 76 minute BACCHANALE is this strangely tinted underworld sequence where Ruth encounters a cave girl and her male servants among the rocks.

Ruth watches as the cave girl whips a few of her servants and sticks the whip handle up a dude's asshole. The women end up in an embrace while servants embrace each other behind a nearby window---!! outa !!!!!

Ruth's brother Gordon emerges from the depths of the cave. Wearing a military outfit, Gordon tells Ruth "I'm okay, sis," then Ruth asks "was it wrong what we did?" Ruth touches her brother and her hand bleeds in another nice full-color effect. So, Gordon is dead, Ruth realizes; the cave girl and servants surround Ruth and cry out "guilty, guilty," which was plain silly, silly.

Ruth encounters the phantom one last time; her ghost returns to her sleeping earthly form and that's it.

BACCHANALE describes itself as "the ultimate hard core film." The first 20 minutes is an amazing array of images and sounds but BACCHANALE loses its way once the lead character descends into places not fit for a low budget film, namely the cemetary and rocky world, which look every inch like a cheap set. The film works best when Ruth wanders about the modern world, whether it's the fashion show, the spiral fire escape, or her own apartment. Kudos to Amero for attempting such a dificult undertaking reminiscent of Polanski's REPULSION, but the the final third of the BACCHANALE falls a bit flat in its attempt to resolve this gulity conflict (an incestuous relationship with Gordon) that haunts Ruth in her night of dreams---!!! 1/2 outa !!!!!

Extras include the original trailer to BACCHANALE plus trailers and short bonus scenes from other titles in the Cal Vista Classic series from VCX.