The Sinful Dwarf (1973)
Review by Willy Greer
A movie like The Sinful Dwarf is pretty much critic-proof. You know who you are if a film like this is your idea of a good time, and certainly you’re not going to hesitate at the video store, thinking, “I’m in the mood for a Danish ’70s exploitation flick about a perverted little person who keeps women as strung-out sex slaves with the help of his mother, but I wonder how the acting and cinematography are? I’d better go home and look it up on Rotten Tomatoes first.”
The first girl that the dwarf abducts onscreen is nearly six feet tall and in her mid-twenties, wearing pigtails and playing hopscotch. Is this symbolic, tying in with the theme of arrested development, as embodied by the toy-and-stuffed-animal-obsessed man-child antagonist? Or is it merely a case of a twenty-something porn starlet playing a little girl because no one in their right mind would let their fifteen-year-old appear in a micro budget softcore flick? It’s not my place to say.
Are the mother’s musical numbers an ironic counterpoint to the depraved goings-on in the dungeon, or merely a lame attempt to pad out the running time? Again, I’m afraid I can’t help you.
Because the only consideration anybody has regarding this film is, “Is the dwarf in this movie really sinful?” At the end of the day, that’s the only question I can answer for you as a critic.
And to answer that question, yes, he is.
This is the kind of film in which you can see the actors’ spirits breaking a little more with every line they utter, as they realize that the movie is not, in fact, going to be shut down by the police, or bankrupted; that they are actually going to have to finish making it, and that it might even be released one day. As such, it’s the kind of film that can break the spirit of a weaker viewer. I wouldn’t imagine that anyone reading this review would be at any risk, but maybe you have a little brother or freshman fraternity pledge to whom you can subject it.
Severin Films’ packaging of Dwarf is positively cheeky: the accompanying press release states that their print of the film, like many of the prints for their other films, was recently discovered locked away in some arcane location. The DVD also features a faux interview with a couple of film geeks who were “traumatized” by the Sinful Dwarf experience. Severin’s marketing antics are in fact becoming as entertaining as their films.
As you had surely decided whether or not you were going to check this film out before you read this review, you don’t need my recommendation. You’re probably on your way out to the video store right now. Go get ‘em, Tiger, and remember: feel good about yourself.
Visit Severin Films’ Official Site!
Watch the trailer:
Popularity: 5% [?]
[ ‹‹ Wicked Business (2009) DownloadHorror.com Launches This Friday the 13th! ›› ]
