SPOLIERS Jane Tsentas, who appeared in two Robert Louis Stevenson themed adult movies (The Jekyll and Hyde Portfolio, The Adult Version of Jekyll and Hide), plays Cassandra the Witch in this tale of boy meets girl with a difference. Tsentas cuts a striking figure caked in dark eye make-up and a big black wig - the film opens with her dressed in leather boots, matching gloves, a Bela Lugosi cape and little else as she does a saucy dance on a coffee table. With the camera ogling her naughty bits Tsentas' gyrations continue for a long time before the unusual opening credits role. Jay (Gerard Broulard) sits in the middle of nowhere, enjoying the quiet of the outdoors and reading a book. Glancing up he's startled to see Cassandra in aforementioned 'Witch' guise walking towards him, her arms lifting her cape shoulder length in a Bat-like motion. As she gets closer Cassandra's image changes to a bespectacled, slightly plain schoolteacher look. The couple chat finding a common interest in witchcraft the subject of Jay's book 'you know you're really my kind of girl' he tells her. All goes well despite Jay's oddness ('it's just that some of my friends think I'm crazy or something') and the couple end up at Cassandra's house where Jay starts to realise his companion may be slightly more clued-up on witchcraft than even he is. Sitting on Cassandra's sofa with her cat, Jay freaks-out when instead of the cat he suddenly sees a smiling, bearded man (Charles Smith) sitting next to him. Accusing Cassandra of being a witch ('really Jay, I know I'm not that attractive but
') Jay's suspicions are confirmed when she turns back into her scantily clad, cape waving bad-self. Climbing on the coffee table again, Cassandra starts making cat noises, Jay seemingly hypnotised strips off and the couple make love on the coffee table. Under the witch's spell Jay telephones Maria (odd-looking, wig wearing Ruthana Lott) his innocent girlfriend (well on account of what she's doing on the other end of the line-maybe she isn't that innocent) and asks her to stop by. Promised 'you'll get what's coming to you' the girl arrives to find a catatonic boyfriend, a very friendly cat, and a host urgent to ply her with afternoon tea 'I simply will not allow you to leave without having some tea, why it just isn't civilized'. One drugged cup of tea later Maria wakes up naked and tied to the coffee table (which Sacrilege's makers sure found lots of uses for)- the cat whose turned into its bearded human alter- ego for the occasion, amorously jumps on top of her. 'Please don't do that' she protests as her boyfriend and Cassandra look on with wacky Reefer Madness-like expressions. After Cassandra and her male/feline counterpart have spent the night exhausting the couple, she delivers the film's punch line 'my sacrilege is complete'. Day breaks, Jay and Maria wake up in the deserted house, they hold hands and get dressed. Flashbacks recall everything you've just seen. The couple run away, Cassandra laughs. 'The End'. Despite its cast of four and short running time, Sacrilege is an engaging little curiosity item. Presented hardcore, but in fact a soft-X feature with inserts, Sacrilege was also originally a colour film but a few prints were struck in black and white. Lab accident or directorial decision? its doubtful we'll ever find out. Try though to see the black and white version which is much more effective, lending the film a visual style that's part underground film and part Night of the Living Dead. As in The Adult Version of Jekyll and Hide, Tsentas is a standout, despite her 'good' and 'evil' Sacrilege incarnations being a far cry from her actual looks. Tsentas also turned up in another horror/sex compo irresistibly entitled Terror at Orgy Castle (71) and until the mid-Seventies was a regular in soft-core features before seemingly disappearing off the face of the planet. Producer and Director duties are credited to 'Michael J Rogers', but the man behind the camera (and that name) was none other than Ray Dennis Steckler, director of The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed Up Zombies. Being a cult director doesn't pay the rent, and in the 70's being a cult director in waiting didn't pay the rent either- Steckler drifted into porn and shot tons of hardcore under false identities including 'Cindy Lou Sutters' and the sinister sounding 'Sven Hellstrom'.
Sacrilege's plot is simplistic, essentially two acts each ending with the corruption of the innocent, and the result is alternately silly, moody and raunchy. Steckler is on record as saying the films he made for others lack the enthusiasm of his famously self-made features. Nevertheless there's something to be said of the way Steckler's X-rated output (Perverted Passion, The Mad Love Life of a Hot Vampire) display a penchant for horrific imagery, that seems to have eluded his 'legit' scare films of the period. Audiences who consider Steckler a spent force by the Seventies on account of his barely-watchable 'Blood Shack', may be pleasantly surprised that the same man could come up with something like Sacrilege, at roughly the same time. Picture an 8mm amateur horror short, whose director somewhere along the line, got waylaid and ended up shooting a stag film instead-and you'll have a rough idea what Sacrilege is like. And the moral of the story? Don't get involved with a woman who calls her cat Lucifer. The colour version of Sacrilege was once available from Alpha Blue Archives alongside another Steckler hardcore movie ('Undressed To Kill'), while Something Weird Video used to carry the black and white version double-billed with 'Satanic Sexual Awareness' directed by 'Otto'. A rock bottom wallow in bad sex and devil-worship- the latter (on screen title: Sexual Awareness) is like many of the 'B' sides in SWV's 'Hardcore Horrors' series a featurette whose listlessness has the unintended effect of reminding you of the merits of the previous feature
Sacrilege's plot is simplistic, essentially two acts each ending with the corruption of the innocent, and the result is alternately silly, moody and raunchy. Steckler is on record as saying the films he made for others lack the enthusiasm of his famously self-made features. Nevertheless there's something to be said of the way Steckler's X-rated output (Perverted Passion, The Mad Love Life of a Hot Vampire) display a penchant for horrific imagery, that seems to have eluded his 'legit' scare films of the period. Audiences who consider Steckler a spent force by the Seventies on account of his barely-watchable 'Blood Shack', may be pleasantly surprised that the same man could come up with something like Sacrilege, at roughly the same time. Picture an 8mm amateur horror short, whose director somewhere along the line, got waylaid and ended up shooting a stag film instead-and you'll have a rough idea what Sacrilege is like. And the moral of the story? Don't get involved with a woman who calls her cat Lucifer. The colour version of Sacrilege was once available from Alpha Blue Archives alongside another Steckler hardcore movie ('Undressed To Kill'), while Something Weird Video used to carry the black and white version double-billed with 'Satanic Sexual Awareness' directed by 'Otto'. A rock bottom wallow in bad sex and devil-worship- the latter (on screen title: Sexual Awareness) is like many of the 'B' sides in SWV's 'Hardcore Horrors' series a featurette whose listlessness has the unintended effect of reminding you of the merits of the previous feature