I went for a walk. The Shangri-Las were on my headphones. The roads were quiet and the sky was overcast. The only things that existed were Mary Weiss’s dual-tracked vocals, reverb that bled over everything, and huge drums. I lost myself in the music and it was a small and beautiful moment. When I got home, I watched Bloody Mansion Death.
Now, there is no time for small and beautiful moments. There is only time for lingerie.
Naming a movie Bloody Mansion Death is like naming a movie Tank Explosions or High School Boobs. It guarantees success. The audience knows what they want, and by watching, they hope to get it. This SOV slasher features blood, a mansion, and a bunch of death. Technically, it could be considered a success. However, these elements are only a means to an end. And that “end” is lingerie, fur coats that are made out of skunks, and the use of the theme song from Jaws. By the way, this movie is Turkish.
A woman wearing lingerie dances to shitty synth-pop while having her photograph taken. The mailman delivers a letter. She’s so happy! Another woman wearing lingerie is crying. An old man gropes her legs. She cries even more! Yet another woman wearing lingerie (this time with sequins) is sitting in front of a roaring fire. The phone rings. She is also so happy! What does this mean? Don’t know. Don’t care. The only thing that matters is that seven women end up at a mansion in the middle of nowhere. They get there by boat. We see it happen. Seven times.
Before long, it is time for the ladies to take off the fur coats and hang out in lingerie again. Sometimes, they argue. There is a fist fight. One girl changes her lingerie every few minutes and prances around in front of the other girls, as if saying, “My lingerie is sluttering more than your lingerie, tee-hee!” Then, the film cuts to some kids playing soccer while the Bee Gees’ “Stayin’ Alive” is heard. The kids find a dead guy in the bushes and get this — it’s the old guy who groped the girl in the beginning of the movie! Back at the mansion, the lights go out, then come back on. Death by knife! Death by poison! Death by strangulation with one shoelace! It was all so exciting that I barely noticed the lesbian shower scene.
Turkish films are never short on ambition. They strive to not only equal the more famous movies they’re ripping off, but also surpass them. Take Tosun Ile Yosun aka The Turkish Laurel & Hardy, for instance. Where the real Stan and Ollie were dedicated to making the world more beautiful through laughter, their Turkish counterparts had much loftier goals. Namely, stealing balloons from children and punching donkeys. Such is the case with Bloody Mansion Death. Falling somewhere between Jean Rollin’s Fascination (there’s a cement dock in front of the mansion plus nudity) and Boardinghouse (duh), this is what happens when slasher movie conventions are improved upon. This what happens when the killer’s point-of-view focuses on bushes. This is what happens when music from Raiders Of The Lost Ark plays over a fake news broadcast.
Bloody Mansion Death is only boring if you give it your undivided attention. It’s a 69 minute Turkish film with Greek subtitles that is basically people bitching, saxophones wailing, and other people staring into the camcorder. There is no consistency or tact, but there is a four minute scene of a woman tip-toeing through the mansion.
I loved this movie.
