When I was a younger man, I loved low-budget horror films and exploitation flicks. There was something so exciting about a film filled with graphic violence and explicit sex. For a while, I tried to watch the most extreme films that I could. There were weird internet bragging rights that came with the fact that you had seen the most depraved films imaginable.
Buy Waves of LustI’ve since mellowed out quite a bit. Those films don’t really interest me anymore. That’s mostly due to having a child. There is something about being completely responsible for another human being that made me less interested in watching people commit horrible acts against each other on screen. I think the real turning point was when I watched A Serbian Film while my baby girl was sleeping in my lap. That juxtaposition was just too much for me.
There is a twinge of that old feeling left in the back recesses of my mind, though. Some leftover remnant still calls out to watch that stuff. I do still like cheesy, low-budget horror films, and when I got the offer to review this new Raro Video release of Waves of Lust, I jumped at the chance. Of course, once the disc landed on my desk, I immediately wondered why.
It was directed by Ruggero Deodato, who helmed Cannibal Holocaust, one of the most notorious horror films of all time. Like that film, Waves of Lust has something of a political agenda, enough that fans can hold onto while defending the film, but not enough to really convince anyone.
Irem (Al Cliver) and Barbara (Silvia Dionisio) are lying on a beach when they start to watch Giorgio (John Steiner) and Silvia (Elizbeth Turner) rather recklessly skiing. Giorgio keeps cutting Barbara off, eventually making her fall. Then he turns the boat around and skis right up to her, nearly taking her head off.
Irem and Barbara decide that Giorgio is the type of rich asshole who could kill the poor girl and get away with it. They hatch an (ill-conceived) plan to help her out. They wait for them to come ashore, and find a way to befriend the couple. Soon enough, Giorgio has invited them to his boat for a pleasure cruise.
Giorgio continues to be abusive to Silvia. She takes it without fuss. Irem and Barbara confront her about it, and she admits that she does want out of the relationship, but she’s scared. But she also does like it when he’s kind to her. Giorgio’s affections begin moving toward Barbara. He regularly attempts to seduce her. He kisses her, touches her, and takes her top off at the drop of a hat. Usually in front of Silvia and Irem. Barbara seems more than willing to let him have her, but he never consummates the deal.
Meanwhile, Irem keeps trying to seduce Silvia. She is less excited by this proposition but isn’t necessarily against it either. Giorgio is insanely jealous and ups his abuse whenever he sees them looking at each other. Oddly, he doesn’t seem to mind when Barbara seduces Silvia and even encourages their developing sexual relationship.
There is a lot of drinking, partying, and verbal warfare. One day they go scuba diving, and that’s where things take a turn. Silvia gets stuck in a small cave and barely survives. She blames Giorgio for this. Later, his mask malfunctions and he thinks one of the others must have sabotaged it.
The filmmaking makes all of this unclear. Honestly, I had no idea it was Silvia that was stuck underwater until she got saved and came ashore. I barely even knew she was in trouble. We see them underwater. Then we see someone go into the little cave. We see their legs kicking, and the music grows intense. Irem takes his mask off for some reason and swims to the cave. The editing is muddled and confusing. I assume they simply weren’t able to get a lot of underwater footage and had to (poorly) edit together what they did get. There are several close-ups of Giorgio where he is clearly at the bottom of a pool, not the ocean. You can obviously see the wall of the pool. They didn’t even bother to cut the seams out of the shot.
Anyway, from there, Giogio grows even more paranoid and abusive. Eventually, things turn violent, and our heroes must find a means of escape off this boat.
There are moments in the film that aim at political messaging. On several occasions, characters talk about how Giorgio’s wealth and political power allow him to do whatever he wants to do. He even admits he could kill Silvia and get away with it. But those moments are fleeting and toothless.
Mostly, the film seems like an excuse to have the two women get naked as often as possible. Seriously, I think Elizabeth Turner spends more time with her top off than on in this thing. There isn’t a lot of physical violence, but there is lots of verbal abuse.
Deodato is not an unskilled director, and there is enough here to keep me entertained. But just enough. In my youth, before I had access to the Internet and a thousand other movies, I would have liked this very much. But as a tired old man, who has seen more than enough of this sort of thing, I’ll never need to revisit it.
Raro Video presents Waves of Lust with a new 4K restoration of the film. It does look about as good as you can expect a film with this pedigree to look.
- Extras include the following:
- Audio Commentary by Film Historians and Hosts of Wild, Wild Podcast Adrian Smith and Rod Barnett
- Deleted Scenes
- Making-of Documentary Erotic Tsunami
- TV commercials directed by and commented on by Ruggero Deodato
That audio commentary is especially fun. There is no one, and I mean not a single person in the world, that considers Waves of Lust to be a great film. This is not Art with a capital “A”. This is not, as Martin Scorsese would say, “cinema.” But there are definitely people who love exploitation movies. It is certainly possible to appreciate films like this as grand fun. I had a lot of fun listening to those two film critics fill an entire commentary track with attempts to fully appreciate the film.
I imagine anyone thinking about purchasing this film knows what they are getting into. For those folks, I can definitely give it a recommendation. This is a nice release of Italian exploitation cinema.
