Soffio Erotico (1980)

Blowjob has nothing to do with the sex act of its title and more to do with the works of Carlos Castaneda and Aldous Huxley. It was the follow-up to Blue Movie for director Alberto Cavallone, who said that it was a “deliberately pornographic film, but with political content. A movie about violence as a means of communication and knowledge in a repressive society.” Cavallone also claimed that it had no actual sex, which several performers dispute, as there were different cuts of the film. It was shot as The Naked Witch.

Stefano (Danilo Michel) and Diana (Andrea Belfiore, Patrick Still Lives) escape a hotel bill thanks to the violent suicide of a woman who has lept from her room’s window. Running to a race track, they meet Countess Angela (Anna Bruna Cazzato), a scarred and one-eyed woman who helps them pick the winning horse and takes them home to her country estate. The journey there should have clued them into something weird, as they pass a skull-faced biker who’d be at home in Tales from the Crypt or Psychomania.

Once there, Angela casts a spell on Diana and when Stefano seeks a doctor to help her, he only meets Sibilla (Mirella Venturini), a gorgeous witch who gives him a magical powder. Once healed, Diana and the Countess leave Stefano all alone in the castle as they head off to a dancing ball. If you’re thinking, “This would be the perfect time for Sibilla to emerge from a mirror and take our male protagonist to a cave and have sex with him,” you are the spirit of Alberto Cavallone and thank you for reading my site.

After returning to the home of Angela, there is a large dance that becomes an orgy until the skull biker emerges, removes her helmet and reveals that she is Sibilla. The enchantress begins a dance of death that takes out everyone except for Diana, Stefano and Angela, who is revealed to also be Sibilla. She is stealing the sex essence of the young couple in order to heal and reincarnate her form. Stefano replies by destroying a mirror, which bring him back to the hotel, where he learns that the woman who fell out of her window to kill herself was Diana. As emergency workers clean her from the streets, Stefano notices Angela and Sibilla watching.

According to Roberto Curti in his book Italian Gothic Horror Films 1980-1989, this film was shot at a villa near Riolo Terme, in North-East Italy, that was owned by a dirty old man who gave it for free, as long as he could watch the more sexual scenes be lensed.

That said, this has more than just sexual ambitions. The director said, “the whole film was focused on the possibility of escaping from our own bodies, by modifying sensorial perceptions through the use of drugs or self-concentration.” Also known as Soffio erotico (Erotic Whiff) and Dolce lingua (Sweet Tongue), this is a movie that brings you in with the promise of titillation and instead wants you to question your perception; the very act of seeing pornography is seeing what should not be seen, as well as being a sinner; it is, in short, occult.

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