La visita del vicio (1978)

La visita del vicio: Directed by José Ramón Larraz. With Patricia Granada, Lidia Zuazo, Rafael Machado, David Thomson. Lorna is a beautiful widow living all alone at her country chateau, with only her books and paintings for company. Then one day Triana, a wild gypsy girl who has been raised in an orphanage is brought her home by her friend Sally and her husband. She asks her to take care of her while they are away. She takes the girl under her wing, an sensuous relationship develops between them. Soon the pair are lovers. But Triana has a dark secret that manifests itself in frightening dreams of domination and humiliation. She has recurring nightmares of a naked man on horseback assaulting and abusing her. At the same time, the naked horseman begins to appear in reality. The girl, convinced that he represents her doom, resists him; but the artist is intrigued and a bizarre erotic triangle is established.

“Unless you like dreamy softcore erotica and get a kick out of watching naked guys ride bareback on horses, THE COMING OF SIN has very little to recommend it to fans of Euro Horror like myself. I sought this out based on director Jose Ramon Larrazu0026#39; reputation from other films of his like DEVIATION, THE HOUSE THAT VANISHED, VAMPYRES and the wildly over-rated BLACK CANDLES. Iu0026#39;ll even admit to guiltily enjoying some of his later shockers like BITS u0026amp; PIECES and the teen oriented SAVAGE LUST. While they are an inconsistent lot, the films do have two elements in common, specifically an air of artful creativity and some sort of a payoff.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eTHE COMING OF SIN is by contrast a long trip for an extremely short day at the beach. A fetching young gypsy girl with a penchant for sleeping in the nude comes to live with a ravishing aristocratic blond painter who very quickly helps her dark guest come to grips with her bisexuality, which is par for the course for these sort of things. Tension is added in the form of Chico, a Duran Duran lookalike who spends the majority of the film riding around completely naked on a horse. Like the girl he is also a gypsy and lives in a hut he made down by the river where he spends his time lying around waiting for women to wander by. Seems like kind of boring living to me but whatever, thatu0026#39;s Spain for you.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eChico eventually joins the ladies at the house after some nonsense involving trampled flowers, lost necklaces, breech loading shotguns, 19th century figure painting, and the filmu0026#39;s iconic dream image of the gypsy girl crouching inside a life-sized horse model. You sort of have to see it to understand what I mean but the running theme in the film is that none of the sumptuous imagery and erotic tension ever really pays off aside for some softcore fumblings. The movieu0026#39;s alternate English title VIOLATION OF THE BITCH has to do with the scene where Chico proves his love to the lady of the house by apparently buggering her while the family is over for a dinner party. Gee whiz!u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eAll of it leads up to a climax of violence that happens for no particular reason at all, other than perhaps Larrazu0026#39; wish to try and pull the rug out from underneath the trenchcoaters who would be flocking to the grindhouse to see the movie. The problem is that the movie — while as sleazy as they come — isnu0026#39;t really sick or demented enough to warrant some of itu0026#39;s reputation, and reading over some of the other comments here I wonder if perhaps the version I saw on a PAL format DVD may have been missing some scenes.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eIf anything this is sort of a Euro Sleaze couples movie, chock full of both female and male nudity, all of it very tastefully and artfully photographed. And hence the problem with it on a thematic level for those used to Larrazu0026#39; more well-known work: Itu0026#39;s a bit too tasteful and aside from the bizarre dream sequence involving the horse never really grabs the imagination. Which may have been the point — to make a watchable little softcore that doesnu0026#39;t really push the envelope too much. The film was made at the end of the Franco era in Spain when overt sexuality was a no-no on the generalissimou0026#39;s cinema screen and might have simply been an attempt to make a cheap little sex thriller with a cast of about eight people, and on that level it isnu0026#39;t bad.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThe bottom line is that if you want to watch Euro Trash softcore without much in the way of plot you should give this one a try, as the film is endowed with the steamy soft focus look of a Penthouse spread. But if you are drawn to Larrazu0026#39; horror work youu0026#39;ll be scratching your head and watching the runtime clock tick off waiting for something to happen. Unfortunately, not much does.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003e4/10”