Whirlpool (1970)

José Ramón Larraz’s Whirlpool is an erotic horror movie with an interesting history. It’s an Anglo-Danish co-production shot entirely in England by a Spanish director and post production was done in Italy. It was released in 1970 and within a couple of years vanished completely. It became one of those legendary lost movies, to the great frustration of fans of the fascinatingly odd movies of Larraz. It was however not lost after all and a few years ago it received a Blu-Ray release from Arrow.

Tulia (played by former Penthouse Pet Vivian Neves) is an aspiring fashion model. She accepts an invitation from Sarah (Pia Andersson) to spend a weekend with her in the country. Sarah is a middle-aged woman with some vague connection to the world of fashion modelling. Sarah lives in a cottage with her nephew Theo (Karl Lanchbury). Theo is a keen photographer. He’ll be able to take some photos of Tulia. Theo and Tulia will both enjoy that.

Before this happens we’ve already had a scene in which an attractive nude young woman wakes up in bed next to Sarah. Whatever happened in that bed was clearly not to the young woman’s liking. She’s heading straight back to London pronto.

At this point one has to consider Tulia’s motivations, which are a little confused. Her problem is that having established a very tentative toehold in the world of fashion modelling she thinks she’s a sophisticated woman of the world, but while she isn’t totally naïve she isn’t as sophisticated as she thinks she is. She’s also a city girl and it has never occurred to her that spending a weekend in an isolated cottage in the country with a woman she’s met once and a young man she’s never set eyes upon might involve some risks. She’s also very young.

The fact that Sarah is a lesbian doesn’t shock her. The fact that Sarah takes an obviously sexual interest in her doesn’t shock her either. It might be an adventure.

A game of strip poker ends with Tulia and Theo getting it on on the living room floor. At which point something happens that should ring major alarm bells for Tulia, but Tulia is too inexperienced to recognise its significance.

There are some three-way games of flirtation and seduction. A drive in the countryside with Theo leads to a situation that should ring even louder alarm bells, but Tulia shrugs it off.

Of course Tulia’s lack of alarm may have something to do with those special cigarettes Sarah plies her with. The idea that they might contain ingredients other than tobacco doesn’t occur to her.

Tulia does wonder what happened to Rhonda. Rhonda was a girl who also spent some time at the cottage. Tulia has seen nude photos of her shot by Theo. Apparently Rhonda just suddenly went back to London. We, the audience, know that Rhonda was not the naked girl in bed with Sarah at the beginning of the movie so we know that a number of young women have accepted invitations from Sarah.

Tulia eventually figures out that there’s more going on than just an older lesbian looking for pretty bed companions. The fact that Sarah is middle-aged is important but in more complex ways. Sarah and Theo are both wanting to drag Tulia into their sex games but there’s another occasional player as well. All the sexual motivations in this household are perverse in very complicated ways. There’s also something significant about the differing motivations of Sarah and Theo but to say more would be to risk spoilers.

Tulia is hopelessly out of her depth and would be wise to leave, if she can.

The acting, which is a little stilted on the part of all the key players, could have been a problem in a straightforward realist movie but in a movie such as this the fact that it’s a bit off just adds an extra layer of strangeness. The real problem was probably not the dialogue but the script. It’s a fine complex twisted story but the dialogue is very stilted and doesn’t ring true. This may simply be that Larraz, who wrote the screenplay, was Spanish and just hadn’t yet developed an ear for natural English speech patterns and colloquialisms. It’s a problem that isn’t so noticeable in his later films which makes sense. As he made more movies in England he would naturally have become more comfortable with the language. Whirlpool would have benefited from some dialogue polishing from a native English speaker but the budget presumably would not have stretched to that.

There’s plenty of nudity and sex which earned the film an X rating in the United States. The sex is rather graphic for 1970. There’s also some reasonably graphic violence.

This is a non-supernatural horror movie. Or at least that’s probably the case. There are sequences that can be interpreted in various ways, and which can be seen as hinting at the supernatural, or perhaps the paranormal. It’s another way of increasing our sense of unease.

There are certainly things in this story that make no sense. The first act of violence not only makes no sense in plot terms, it makes no sense in character terms. At times you wonder to what extent Larraz is being deliberately mystifying and to what extent these problems are simply a sign that this was his first feature film and he was still learning his craft.

One thing that strikes me about Larraz’s films shot in England is his relationship with the English landscape. Of course to a Spaniard the English landscape was as exotic as the Spanish landscape would be to an Englishman and I get the feeling that Larraz saw it as offering interesting cinematic possibilities. He certainly uses it here to create an atmosphere of isolation and menace.

The most interesting thing about Whirlpool is that what appears to be a linear plot is in fact cyclical. Whirlpool is a flawed movie but an interesting one. Recommended, and if you’re a fan of Larraz’s later work you’ll certainly want to see this one.

The Arrow Blu-Ray offers an excellent transfer and there’s audio commentary by Tim Lucas.

I’ve also reviewed Larraz’s Vampyres (1974) and Symptoms (1974). Both are very much worth seeing.