This obscure Eurotrash porno film stands out from the pack for one reason: it is perhaps the only hardcore film that presents the taboo subject of bestiality in an erotic rather than gross-out format. It is currently circulating on the underground (bootleg?) circuit.
Borowczyk's THE BEAST tackled this genre successfully and has become a cultivated classic. But watching that film the question has always been: Why is the beast so fake looking? Why didn't they just hire Rick Baker and do a credible makeup effects job? That has been the sticking point for films of this ilk, which I assume are made for real, docu style, for a tiny fetish segment of the market. I saw Alex de Renzy's once-famous import ANIMAL LOVER back in first-run on Times Square and it was for real, but strictly off-putting. Many filmmakers, like Joe D'Amato, have tossed in a few seconds of over-the-line woman meets animal footage to null effect since.
But director Pierre Reinhard, who has some fantasy film experience beyond his day job of grinding out porn, is up to the task in BEATRICE, elevating this programmer to a "worth a look" status.
The basic story of a bored countess (beautiful Dominique St. Claire) having sex with the count, his friends and their dutiful servants, goes nowhere, but is more than spiced up by her constantly being turned on by memories of watching a young girl in her stable seduce and make love to a stallion. We're not talking Proust here, but this 7-minute explicit sequence is spread piecemeal throughout the film, leading to a preposterous finish where St. Claire imagines that her deceased husband has come back to life in the form of the stallion (!).
This nonsense is punctuated by a healthy quota of kinky scenes, including several golden showers, group sex and a heavy emphasis on master/servant relationships. But it is the girl-with-horse action that sets BEATRICE apart.
Through careful use of establishing shots, and frequent "reminder" closeups of the stallion whinnying, Reinhard very convincingly makes the sex scene between a fairly attractive young (unidentified) actress and the beast look real. I infer that she is actually making love to a rather long marital aid device, but unlike the usual fantasy-sex films of this type it looks real. Net effect is a potential turn-on, just as Sirpa Lane's playing footsie in THE BEAST proved to be.
