A copy of this long thought to be lost legendary movie, which hadn't had a video release during the video boom years, was finally reported to be found last year and eventually appeared online.
It is a very unusual erotic horror film as it is evident from the very beginning with its opening with a quote from Marcuse: throughout the film, lectures on the psychoanalytic theory of Eros and Thanatos (which was the movie's original title in its first and banned version) are heard first from a lawyer who argues that his client is insane, and then from the director of a mental hospital. The basic thesis of the lawyer and the screenwriter is that deviant behaviors are rooted in childhood traumas caused by family or authority figures. It is debatable whether the film was sincerely shot with the aim of promoting such a thesis or whether it is an exploitation film that uses this as a front; I think that both arguments are valid. Regarding the exploitation aspect, the sado-erotic horror/violence scenes contain mise-en-scènes that might be memorable, but the recently surfaced version appears to be a 'trimmed' version: the fotoromanzi edition of the film in my collection is more daring.
More on its versions: As detailed in Curci & Di Rocco's Visioni proibite book, Eros e Thanatos was flatly and firmly rejected by the censors. The filmmakers then submitted a self-cut and slightly re-edited new version titled Raptus. The censors grudgingly approved that version with even further cuts. Some of the shots ordered by the censor to be cut, such as a killer caressing the dead body of victim (which is visible in the fotoromanzi edition) is missing in the newly surfaced print. On the other hand, some of the scenes which the filmmakers themselves had reportedly cut to appease the censor, such as a flogging scene, is present here.
-Kaya Özkaracalar.
