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The Kiss of Her Flesh (1968)

Dir: Michael Findlay

The final and by far most twisted part of 'The Flesh Trilogy' sees everyone's favourite grungy, one-eyed psycho, Richard Jennings (Mike Findlay under his 'Robert West' pseudonym) back to his murderous ways.
Having killed his wife in #1 ("Touch of Her Flesh") and her lover in #2 ("Curse of her Flesh") Jennings is now on the prowl for all Women in general. "I do service to mankind with each Jezebel I kill"!

Things get off to a twisted start as poor Cleo is bonked on the head by Jennings and strung up in her underwear. "We'll cut away these underpants to more easily get at the source" he rants and soon we are shown just how much things have changed in the short time between "Curse" and "Kiss". For we now have full frontal nudity, something that the other two films very carefully avoided.
Cleo is then tortured with a lobster claw (no really) and a set of tongs that Jennings stabs into her breasts and legs, before connecting her earrings to the electric supply and making her do a bit of gratuitous boob wobbling.
This scene, not only in the nudity but also in the violence, is the most sadistic and explicit in all the series.

Our Heroine is Maria, and when her Sister, Dora, phones to break the news of her friend Cleo's death, she uses her Nancy Drew brain cells and concludes this must be the work of that Jennings dude.
Going over to Dora's, we learn that the Sisters share a 'special' kind of love for each other and, in a totally unexpected turn of events, proceed to have hot and sweaty sex!

Jennings meanwhile has been pretending to be a Doctor (the Worlds most slimy, obnoxious Doctor I might add) and is going around doing his own kind of lethal examinations. With that unexplained glass eye firmly in place as he is now sans eye-patch.
Victim of one such dubious bit of medical advice is Dora, who, after giving the good Doc a spot of oral relief (cue much careful sucking on a carrot type object as Jennings shows he is just an old romantic at heart by telling her "Open my pants and get down there! I don't want to make love to you, just satisfy me"!) is suddenly gripped by stomach pains.
As she writhes on the floor old Rich utters the immortal line "My poison semen should take care of you well enough! So long sucker"!!

On hearing of her Sisters death, Maria plans a diabolical revenge……

What can you say? This is without doubt one of the most deranged films you could ever come across. And the upping of the explicit content, both violent and sexual, turns this into a real rough, Grindhouse gem.

As the 60's came to an end and the salacious 70's were about to dawn, the market had changed. There is only one year between the almost coy attitude to full nudity in "Curse of Her Flesh" and "Kiss", and yet the change is a real eye opener.
Not only is a lot of pubic hair on show now, but close up shots of vaginas and even brief glimpses of a penis. Somehow, this is how the "Flesh Trilogy" should have always been, and it is obvious that both Mike (as Director) and Roberta Findlay (camera and editing) are having fun taking advantage of the sudden change in climate.
This final chapter also features (in what must have been a bit of ego stroking by Mike Findlay) the highest number of 'swinging' Women, who are willing to shed all and get down to it with Jennings without the slightest hesitation.

It's not only the nudity that has got more explicit, the sex has too. One outrageous scene has Maria shove a string of love beads up her boyfriends' arse! As she yanks them out, to much satisfied yowling, the boyfriend, Don, asks her where she learnt that. "From a mad Monk" she answers! Of course! It's obvious really, he must have felt a fool for asking.

Another sex highlight is a wildly overwrought bit of masturbation as naughty Dora spies on Doc 'the sleaze' Jennings goosing one of her part time lovers, resulting in more bucking hips than the Rodeo World Championships. In fact the whole film plays more like a 'sex' film than a film with sex in it. Where #1 and #2 got most of their nudity and sex content from undressing scenes/stage acts and topless Go-Go Dancing, here all the sex is a 'natural' event. Shocking as it may be, there is not a topless dancer in sight!

Another change is the attention given the murders. Whereas "Touch" and especially "Curse" almost treated the murders as distractions between the bumping and grinding, in "Kiss" they are given more screen time and care in their execution. And are more violent as well, involving an acid douche and a blowtorch.

But despite all this added explicitness the same ingredient of high camp that has ran through the entire trilogy is on show in spades here.
Not only in the wonderfully manic performance by Findlay, but also in the ever present jazz/funk soundtrack that bounces along with as much vigour as the numerous breasts on show, the hilarious 'stunts' (watch as the worlds slowest moving car supposedly speeds away with Jennings hanging on the back waving a huge machete) and the amazingly politically incorrect but vastly entertaining dialogue. In addition to the aforementioned examples enjoy this bit of psychotic ranting as Jennings chases another victim; "I'll slice you in two like a piece of cheese"!

And if all that wasn't enough, then just watch the bizarre credit sequence! Those strategically placed bits of paper, placed on the naked body of a woman, with the credits written on them are back from "Touch of Her Flesh" (in "Curse" they were scrawled on the walls of a scummy toilet), only here they are carefully cut into lip shapes and are placed near an area where "Curse" never got close to!

To sum up this deranged treat is not difficult. It's sick, twisted, mad, camp, offensive to all the people it should be offensive to and provides some real guilty entertainment.
It's Grindhouse Cinema and wears that badge with a sadistic but ever so cheeky grin.