9 Lives of a Wet Pussy (1976)
** (out of 4)
Ferrara's first feature-length film is this hardcore effort about a rich New Yorker (Pauline LaMonde) who writes to her tarot card reading friend (Dominique Santos) about her various sexual encounters. These encounters include various men and women and we also get a sequence in a gas station bathroom where she pretty much has to rape the worker. Ferrara has pretty much forgotten all about this film as he had his name changed in the credits to Jimmy Boy L. and whenever asked about his first film, he actually talks about his second, THE DRILLER KILLER. It's funny but this and THE DRILLER KILLER actually have quite a bit in common. THE DRILLER KILLER was a horror film that contained gore and violence yet it pretty much tried to stay away from the genre as if the director was just forced into making it. I think the same can be said here because we get hardcore scenes yet they're filmed in a way as if the director was saying he'd much rather be doing something else. This might be why he's also refused to talk about the film or have anything to do with it. The sex scenes are all rather ugly without any decent camera-work but this could be said about the entire film. It looks incredibly cheap and seems to have been put together on the run. Ferrara does manage to create a rather weird atmosphere but the voice over narration and silly dialogue doesn't help matters. One of the most outrageous scenes has a father passing out drunk and then his two daughters rape him. Yes, not step daughters but actual daughters. There's a rumor that Ferrara was involved in hardcore scenes but I really don't think that's the case. He appears in a scene but I think it's rather obvious, due to the editing, that there's a stand-in doing the actual work. In the end, there are certainly much better hardcore movies out there so this here is going to be for Ferrara fans who want to see the film he wants nothing to do with. I'm not sure what he has against this movie but it's certainly a lot better than THE DRILLER KILLER.
** (out of 4)
Ferrara's first feature-length film is this hardcore effort about a rich New Yorker (Pauline LaMonde) who writes to her tarot card reading friend (Dominique Santos) about her various sexual encounters. These encounters include various men and women and we also get a sequence in a gas station bathroom where she pretty much has to rape the worker. Ferrara has pretty much forgotten all about this film as he had his name changed in the credits to Jimmy Boy L. and whenever asked about his first film, he actually talks about his second, THE DRILLER KILLER. It's funny but this and THE DRILLER KILLER actually have quite a bit in common. THE DRILLER KILLER was a horror film that contained gore and violence yet it pretty much tried to stay away from the genre as if the director was just forced into making it. I think the same can be said here because we get hardcore scenes yet they're filmed in a way as if the director was saying he'd much rather be doing something else. This might be why he's also refused to talk about the film or have anything to do with it. The sex scenes are all rather ugly without any decent camera-work but this could be said about the entire film. It looks incredibly cheap and seems to have been put together on the run. Ferrara does manage to create a rather weird atmosphere but the voice over narration and silly dialogue doesn't help matters. One of the most outrageous scenes has a father passing out drunk and then his two daughters rape him. Yes, not step daughters but actual daughters. There's a rumor that Ferrara was involved in hardcore scenes but I really don't think that's the case. He appears in a scene but I think it's rather obvious, due to the editing, that there's a stand-in doing the actual work. In the end, there are certainly much better hardcore movies out there so this here is going to be for Ferrara fans who want to see the film he wants nothing to do with. I'm not sure what he has against this movie but it's certainly a lot better than THE DRILLER KILLER.