Bizarre (Secrets Of Sex)
1970

For much of its length, Bizarre isn't really a horror film. Actually, let's not beat around the (hairy) bush here - it's a sex film.
It's not pornography, you understand - far from it. But much of the goings-on tend to deal with the kind of lurid fantasies young boys used to have in the early 70s - lots of topless women, secret agents and so forth. There's the occasionally over-hirsute fanny - even the occasional penis (flacid, of course). But the whole thing is, as was usually the case in the days before the UK got its own R rating, pretty tame stuff. There's certainly nothing here to worry the vice squad, anyway.
Bizarre ends up on this site for two reasons - firstly, it's an anthology along the lines of Amicus's output. And secondly, it was made by Anthony Balch, who went on to mastermind the superb Horror Hospital. And when Bizarre veers into horror territory, it's pretty successful.
The whole film is narrated by the sonorous Valentine Dyall, in the guise of a mummy who gradually deteriorates throughout the picture. Much of the film takes the form of strange, disjointed episodes of life, cut with strange visions of people "having it off" (that's what they called it in the 70s). All very odd.
After a weird introduction featuring three naked people and a quote from Milton's Paradise Lost, the first story unfolds - a judge in ancient times (presented by much stock footage of palm trees blowing in the wind) is told that his wife's lover may be in a trunk. He orders the trunk buried without opening it, and throws away the key. That's it. And that pretty much sets the standard for the rest of the film.
Dyall's mummy tells us: "For a thousand years these eyes have been hidden in the blackness of time. That is to say, a thousand of your years. But on certain occasions, I have been able to… observe the uncertain struggle of the battle of the sexes…"
I'm assuming here that he's supposed to be the lover in the trunk. But seeing as this dialogue has been uttered while a slightly too-fat stripper has been doing her thing on-screen, it's difficult to take it all in.
"The fruits of victory do not go to the strongest or the cleverest," he adds. "As I myself have good cause to know!"
He continues: "Imagine this girl was making love to you…" (no thanks), and we're then treated to a bunch of women disco dancing. Their clothes fall off, an unseen audience starts booing them and pelting them with cabbages(?), and a bunch of Robin Askwith-alikes turn up and start threatening them with guns. The girls respond by brandishing cut-throat razors.
This is probably all very clever, but as far as I'm concerned, makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.
Still, at least we're finally at…

Story 1
The first story involves a photographer who's work is slightly dodgy, to say the least. S & M seems to be her thing, because after all, as she says: "Generally speaking, the more intelligent a person is, the more they react to pain…"
She gets her latest model to straddle a razor sharp "Spanish horse" and then attaches weights to his feet (ouch). As the poor boy sits there with nothing but a pair of white loon pants between him and a split difference, he utters the immortal line: "Come on, don't hang about… this is torture!"
The outcome is, as you'd expect, leg-crossingly painful.

Story 2
Now, here's a bizarre one (to coin a phrase). Mary Claire is a scientist, and Sascha is her rich lover. He wants a kid, she gives him one. But she's not mentioned the congenital birth defect she's carrying, and he ends up with a monster. That's it.

Story 3
After that disappointing but at least slightly horrific chapter, we veer straight into soft porn territory with the next little vignette. A man catches a burglar in his home, and rips off their mask to reveal… "Christ! A bird!"
She replies to his incredulity with: "Just a minute… you can deal with a girl, can't you?" before peeling off her PVC catsuit and going for a bath with her pants on. The film deteriorates into what appears to be an advert for lemon and cucumber soap, with him joining her in the shower. As she moans: "Come on, baby, eat me up!" (A reference to the fact that she smells of lemon and cucumber, and not what you were thinking, you dirty sod) they wash each other looking slightly embarrassed (but both keeping their pants on), before a quick chaste fumble in bed (still with both pairs of pants in place). This does lead to some very interesting ideas of what to do with a telephone receiver, before a vague "twist" at the end. Although what the planes flying VERY LOUDLY overhead have to do with anything, I don't know.

Story 4
We're now in slightly pathetic sex film territory, with the introduction of Lindy Leigh, Special Agent 28. Lindy, of course, can't complete a mission without her clothes falling off, although there is the introduction of the weirdest "film within a film within a film" your ever likely to see.

Story 5
This one begins with a huge close-up of a man putting in his contact lenses (urgh). He phones for a call girl: "When do I want her? Right now!"
And when she arrives, she's a big lass. Murmuring "It's very fashionable, and it's very, very in today!" he shows her something, and she screams. "You're out of your mind… no-one with any sense would go anywhere near that thing!"
I'll leave it to you to find out what it is…

Story 6
This one is possibly the nearest to a bona fide horror anthology segment you're going to get, concerning as it does a woman who keeps flowers in a greenhouse. She's ruminating about her years in Monte Carlo to her new butler…
"I ruined 17 men at those tables… and not one of them knew…. At least, not until it was too late. And now I've got them exactly where I want them!"
(In the flowers, presumably)
The new butler isn't impressed: "You filthy alien garbage heap!" he rather improbably interjects. "Misappropriation of men's souls is a very serious crime!"

And that's about it, apart from a big orgy at the end featuring the men and women from the beginning of the film. Or, as Dyall puts it: "And the battle goes on…"
The climax involves a huge fireworks display, leading me to wonder whether they spent more on that than the rest of the film put together (probably).
I have no idea what Bizarre is trying to say, but whatever it is, it probably involves girls with big knockers. Luckily, these frankly odd goings-on are presented in an amusing way, and you certainly never get bored. How it ended up being such a successful film in the cinemas is anyone's guess…