The so-called "roughies" of the exploitation era – sex films with a high quotient of coercion and sexual violence – are amongst the most problematic of the films of the era for a contemporary audience. What doubtlessly went down a treat in the Grindhouse cinemas of Times Square strikes any sensitive modern view are distasteful and reactionary. Armand Weston's is one of the most technically accomplished of these films, yet despite its finesse, its sexual politics made it uncomfortable viewing.
Cathy is an average American teenager (the actress playing her is a little too mature for the role) whose Christian parents persuade her to spend a couple of weeks in a mental institution for observation after they discover that she occasionally smokes marijuana and has tried cocaine. The institution is a proper madhouse, a cross between an old time bedlam and the kind of 20th century institution exposed/exploited by Sam Fuller in Shock Corridor. The doctors are authoritarian and uncaring, the orderlies are abusive and the inmates are complete and utter loons. No sooner has Cathy been inappropriately and intimately searched in every orifice by her burly black male nurse than she is put into the "day room" with as berserk a bunch of nuts as could be imagined. They gibber, stare, indulge in paranoid fantasies, act out sexually and intimidate the newcomer. This sequence is very weird and well-shot, all Dutch angles, extreme close-ups and fish-eyed lenses overlaid by appropriately spooky synthesiser sounds. It is also bleakly funny, as when an inmate approaches Cathy and introduces himself as a poet, inheritor of the mantle of Blake, Baudelaire and Rimbaud; he then speaks a poem, which consists simply of the work "f**k" chanted increasingly loudly and uncontrollably. Moments like this feel like we're in John Waters territory.
The nurse rescues Cathy in the nick of time from being raped in the day room, a salvaging which is undermined by her being actually raped by three inmates that evening, in the very next scene. This is the first extended hardcore session in the film (about 20 minutes in). There can be few cinematic sights as unedifying as seeing hardcore performers enact a gang rape, although at least on this occasion to victim does not come to enjoy it. The nurse intervenes again and chases off her assailants, but is merely irritated that he didn't get to take Cathy's virginity first. This is a typical moment in a film which, at every turn, seeks to undermine the idea that human beings can have empathic or caring feelings towards others. It is notable that both the nurse and one of Cathy's inmate assailants are black and with both men we don't get to see their sexual organs or any actual penetration of the actress (we do with the white actors). It is unclear why this should be (the film post-dates Behind the Green Door which contained an extended interracial coupling).
Cathy's complaint to her doctor about the rape is taken as more evidence that she is deranged. She finds herself transferred to a private asylum run by a sinister old grey-beard, Dr Gabriel. Far from being the caring resort that Cathy needs and expects, Gabriel turns out predictably to be running a sex cult which inducts – through torture, whipping, rape and isolation – its young, female inmates into some twisted form of sexual liberation. The film becomes much more of a normal porn flick about this point (around 40 mins in), with threesomes, orgies, girl-on-girl and "sadie max" numbers interspersed in the genre-typical ways identified by Linda Williams in her seminal study Hardcore. These numbers are punctuated by scenes of Gabriel – who never himself joins in the sex – explaining the rules of his cult and how he came to form it; he was a preacher's son and failed pastor who turned from god to debauchery, so as in certain other films of the period (e.g. The Devil Inside Her) extreme sex is shown as a reaction to Puritan repression.
By the end of her initiation, Cathy is showing clear signs of Stockholm Syndrome, as although she is now free to leave the cult, the threat that this would mean never being allowed to return makes her fear – this is now a place in which she feels safe. The films odd mix of reactionary sexual political and radical interrogation of the notion of self is apparent here. Cathy's self is formed by the experiences she has been put through, there is hardly a core person there; yet the film's narrative worryingly maintains that a woman's sexual awakening can be encouraged by the forced coercion into sexual inhibition by others. At the close of the narrative, Cathy discovers that the friend who introduced her to drugs is a new initiate – her distress persuades Cathy to help her escape (but Cathy will stay herself), but this is a set-up – the friend was Gabriel's minion from the start. The last shot Cathy waiting for further punishment for this transgression into empathy. It seems that the cult won't be satisfied until Cathy's entire life is pursued in, as the title suggests, "the defiance of good." The acting is often risible, although Jean Jennings as Cathy is convincingly unconvinced that what is happening is in her own best interests throughout. Weston's script has plenty of plot-holes and silliness, yet his camera direction is stylish and intriguing throughout. He composes intelligently – when Gabriel speaks about the cult headquarters being in eternity, outside time and space, Weston slyly keeps a toilet in shot, undermining the idea that human bodies can escape temporal and physical facts. His direction makes the film, despite its repellent content, witty and constantly worth watching, suggesting he's one of those rare masters of cinema style (alongside Damiano, Metzger, de Rome and Toby Ross) working during the golden age of porn.
Cathy is an average American teenager (the actress playing her is a little too mature for the role) whose Christian parents persuade her to spend a couple of weeks in a mental institution for observation after they discover that she occasionally smokes marijuana and has tried cocaine. The institution is a proper madhouse, a cross between an old time bedlam and the kind of 20th century institution exposed/exploited by Sam Fuller in Shock Corridor. The doctors are authoritarian and uncaring, the orderlies are abusive and the inmates are complete and utter loons. No sooner has Cathy been inappropriately and intimately searched in every orifice by her burly black male nurse than she is put into the "day room" with as berserk a bunch of nuts as could be imagined. They gibber, stare, indulge in paranoid fantasies, act out sexually and intimidate the newcomer. This sequence is very weird and well-shot, all Dutch angles, extreme close-ups and fish-eyed lenses overlaid by appropriately spooky synthesiser sounds. It is also bleakly funny, as when an inmate approaches Cathy and introduces himself as a poet, inheritor of the mantle of Blake, Baudelaire and Rimbaud; he then speaks a poem, which consists simply of the work "f**k" chanted increasingly loudly and uncontrollably. Moments like this feel like we're in John Waters territory.
The nurse rescues Cathy in the nick of time from being raped in the day room, a salvaging which is undermined by her being actually raped by three inmates that evening, in the very next scene. This is the first extended hardcore session in the film (about 20 minutes in). There can be few cinematic sights as unedifying as seeing hardcore performers enact a gang rape, although at least on this occasion to victim does not come to enjoy it. The nurse intervenes again and chases off her assailants, but is merely irritated that he didn't get to take Cathy's virginity first. This is a typical moment in a film which, at every turn, seeks to undermine the idea that human beings can have empathic or caring feelings towards others. It is notable that both the nurse and one of Cathy's inmate assailants are black and with both men we don't get to see their sexual organs or any actual penetration of the actress (we do with the white actors). It is unclear why this should be (the film post-dates Behind the Green Door which contained an extended interracial coupling).
Cathy's complaint to her doctor about the rape is taken as more evidence that she is deranged. She finds herself transferred to a private asylum run by a sinister old grey-beard, Dr Gabriel. Far from being the caring resort that Cathy needs and expects, Gabriel turns out predictably to be running a sex cult which inducts – through torture, whipping, rape and isolation – its young, female inmates into some twisted form of sexual liberation. The film becomes much more of a normal porn flick about this point (around 40 mins in), with threesomes, orgies, girl-on-girl and "sadie max" numbers interspersed in the genre-typical ways identified by Linda Williams in her seminal study Hardcore. These numbers are punctuated by scenes of Gabriel – who never himself joins in the sex – explaining the rules of his cult and how he came to form it; he was a preacher's son and failed pastor who turned from god to debauchery, so as in certain other films of the period (e.g. The Devil Inside Her) extreme sex is shown as a reaction to Puritan repression.
By the end of her initiation, Cathy is showing clear signs of Stockholm Syndrome, as although she is now free to leave the cult, the threat that this would mean never being allowed to return makes her fear – this is now a place in which she feels safe. The films odd mix of reactionary sexual political and radical interrogation of the notion of self is apparent here. Cathy's self is formed by the experiences she has been put through, there is hardly a core person there; yet the film's narrative worryingly maintains that a woman's sexual awakening can be encouraged by the forced coercion into sexual inhibition by others. At the close of the narrative, Cathy discovers that the friend who introduced her to drugs is a new initiate – her distress persuades Cathy to help her escape (but Cathy will stay herself), but this is a set-up – the friend was Gabriel's minion from the start. The last shot Cathy waiting for further punishment for this transgression into empathy. It seems that the cult won't be satisfied until Cathy's entire life is pursued in, as the title suggests, "the defiance of good." The acting is often risible, although Jean Jennings as Cathy is convincingly unconvinced that what is happening is in her own best interests throughout. Weston's script has plenty of plot-holes and silliness, yet his camera direction is stylish and intriguing throughout. He composes intelligently – when Gabriel speaks about the cult headquarters being in eternity, outside time and space, Weston slyly keeps a toilet in shot, undermining the idea that human bodies can escape temporal and physical facts. His direction makes the film, despite its repellent content, witty and constantly worth watching, suggesting he's one of those rare masters of cinema style (alongside Damiano, Metzger, de Rome and Toby Ross) working during the golden age of porn.