Count Zaroff (Michel Lemoine) dreams of chasing naked girls on
horseback, having his perverse ways with htem & killing them. When
he one day spontaneously picks up a female hitchhiker, he soon decides
to make his dreams come true, soon beating her up, chasing her by car
& running her over. Fact is that these violent fits might be induced
by his servant Karl (Howard Vernon), who swore to his father, servant of
the original count Zaroff, a violent man in his own right (see Most
Dangerous Game, from which this movie [admittedly] draws
inspiration) he would make a violent pervert out of the young count (!).
But the young count is disturbed by the death of his former lover Anne,
who died in his arms & who every now & again appears before him
to further haunt him & disable him to have a normal sexual
relationship with a woman. So, when he has his new secretary stay at his
castle, originally to do his inventory, but soon he would rather ahve
sex with her, Anne's image appears in a mirror & the count
immediately loses interest in her & has her chased to death by his
dog. Soon hereafter a young couple, Francis & Muriel, whose car has
broken down, appears on his doorstep, & they show a little too much
interest in the count's torture chamber to not end up on the torture
rack & eventually die when Karl purposely forgets to free them in
time. Back at his workplace, Zaroff is haunted by more & more
nightmarish images, causing him to rush back home in a hurry, only to
see Anne yet again, who he follows to the same shed she originally died
years ago, to have sex with her, only to then notice it's not Anne after
all but his servant girl Jeanne, who soon dies when falling onto spikes
conveniently lying about. Zaroff is lured by Anne's spirit to the
cemetery & into her grave where he finds her in all her beauty &
starts to make love to her, only to suddenly realize she is only a
skeleton, maddened, he realizes he is locked in with her, she has
finally had her revenge ... & he will probably go insane &/ die
(this is not actually shown but seems to be a plausible conclusion).
Servant Karl has to admit defeat, realizing that Anne was stronger than
him after all, & he drives off - not knowing that Anne is sitting
right behind him, waiting to kill him off, too ... The rare
example of a blend of horror & SM-erotica that actually works as a
haunting & nightmarish piece of film, which has actually less to do
with Most Dangerous Game than the title would suggest, but does
include a nice subplot about ghosts & possession. The actors,
unfortunatley are not quite up to their roles, giving jsut uninvolving
wooden performances (except for Howard Vernon of course, who is his
usual odd self).
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