Foreign cult movie review of the Week:
Don Pepe sent me...


Very few films have the strength to go all the way. You always hear about films that are supposed to be so audacious, so daring, so over the top that when you see them all you can feel is disappointed. Clockwork Orange (1971) is a film whose reputation to shock precedes it as are Eraserhead (1975), Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), and Crash (1996). While all these films are certainly daring and original, they don’t shock you to the point of thinking just how in the hell did this movie get made?!? You could, undoubtedly, count on one hand the movies that have the power to shock. The only ones I can think of off the top of my head are Aronofsky’s Requiem for a Dream (2000) and Fulci’s New York Ripper (1981). Well, add Alex de la Iglesia’s Perdita Durango (AKA – Dance with the Devil) (1997) to that short list as well.


Based on Barry Gifford’s novel of the same name, Perdita Durango (Rosie Perez) is a femme fatale of the highest order. Dressed in the same outfit Tura Satana wore in Russ Meyer’s 1965 classic Faster Pussycat! KILL! KILL!, she slinks around the Mexico/U.S. border looking for kicks. She finds ‘em in voodoo priest Romeo (Javier Bardem) who takes her back to his ranch in Texas. Romeo and his friend Adolfo (Screamin’ Jay Hawkins) hold voodoo ceremonies that local wealthy people pay to attend in order to see a human sacrifice. He makes a good living preying on the white man’s fears, but gets a job opportunity from Marcello Santos (Don Stroud) that is too good to pass up. For ,000 he and Perdita have to drive a tractor-trailer from Mexico to Las Vegas in three days time. The only catch is, the trailer is filled with human fetuses to be used as ingredients in hand cream. They take the job, but decide to kidnap a young white couple just to make things interesting while on the road. Perdita and Romeo make fiery love any time they can and gradually seduce the couple separately into their web of sex and murder for thrills. As they make their way to Vegas, Federal Agent Dumas (James Gandolfini) is on their trail and vows to put an end to their shenanigans. Will Perdita and Romeo reach Vegas in one piece or will they meet a lethal end by their own doing…or someone else’s?


Sure, the plot’s a little fucked up, but not anything insane, right? The plot isn’t what’s insane…the characters are. Romeo is a lucha libre fan who robs a bank in a Santo mask and won’t leave until he sees one of the teller’s ample breasts. He believes in voodoo, but in Christianity as well. He feels that by killing people he is making them mortal, like Christ. He has feelings for Perdita, but fucks Estelle (Aimee Graham) as well. Perdita is not much better. She is an uber-feminist who uses her steamy sexuality to seduce men in to giving her whatever she wants…even killing for her. She has fantasies of being made love to by a leopard and is disgusted by Romeo’s voodoo practices. She rapes Duane (Harley Cross) and makes him remember an earlier experience that he’d rather forget. While these are not your usual personality traits, it’s the visualizations that de la Iglesia presents as flashbacks that show just what fucked up lives these people lead. Considering that Perdita Durango exists in the same world that Sailor and Lula Ripley do, you know that the characters are going to be a little…deviant. Perdita Durango is the prequel to Gifford’s Wild at Heart (filmed by David Lynch in 1990) and was an important character in that story as well. As we know from that story, Perdita does end up accepting voodoo as her religion of choice and becomes just as much a practitioner as Romeo. But that story is for a different time, this is Perdita’s chance to gain notoriety…and gain it she does.


There’s more gore, sex, swearing, cripples, rape, murder, pedophilia, and lucha libre than any other film I have ever seen. It is a film that is meant to offend, and does it’s job admirably. While I, personally, wasn’t offended by it’s depraved nature, others I know were, so this may just be a case of me being too jaded (I didn’t find Pasolini’s Salo to be shocking, either). If you have an open mind and like to see raw sexuality and violence explode across the screen in all of its natural, visceral glory; then by all means, enjoy. If you’re one of the close-minded types that don’t like films about homosexuals, pedophiles, rapists, murders, and wrestling; then this isn’t going to change your mind. Alex de la Iglesia is a director to be reckoned with who pulls no punches in getting his ideas across on screen. He lets Rosie Perez give the sexiest performance in years and accurately recall Russ Meyer’s aforementioned classic. If Meyer saw this movie, he’d no doubt cast her in his remake of Faster Pussycat! KILL! KILL! in the role of Varla…after a boob job, of course. For a brain shattering, mind numbing, blood soaking, hell raising, and son-of-a-bitching good time, look no further than this Mexican import.

Rating: **** (out of ****)
Available UNRATED on DVD from A-Pix Entertainment.

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