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Released by: Vinegar Syndrome
Released on: February 14th, 2023.
Director: Damián Acosta Esparza, José Medina
Cast: Noé Murayama, Princesa Lea, Ana Luisa Peluffo, Marisol Cervantes, Manuel 'Flaco' Ibáñez
Year: 1988
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Infernal Rapist – Movie Review:
Co-directed by Damián Acosta Esparza and José Medina and released in 1988, Infernal Rapist opens in a prison where an inmate on death row named Carlos (Noé Murayama) but dubbed “El Gato” is escorted to the execution chamber and put to death in the electric chair. After the deed is done, the officials in charge leave and Carlos’ corpse is resurrected by Satan herself when she blasts his dead body with lasers from her eyes. She then tells him that he can have a life of pleasure and enjoy all the riches and drugs that he wants so long as he rapes people and carves 666 on their bodies before killing them, as this will, in turn, give her the pleasure she craves. No fool, this Carlos, he agrees and we’re off.
The first stop is the apartment of a young gay man (Arturo Mason) who is clearly enamored with Carlos, who insists that before they have sex, they do heroin together. This young man reluctantly agrees to this and before you know it, Carlos, who has a very identifiable 666 tattoo on his chest, slits his throat, carves 666 on the top of his ass and then proceeds to rape his corpse. His lover comes home and finds the man’s body, and the police are called, but as it is a crime affecting a gay man, rather than try to solve it, they chastise the man for his lifestyle.
From here, Carlos hits up a salon that is also running a prostitution ring. Some of the women who work there (one of whom is played by Princesa Lea from Intrépidos punks) fool around together, but this subplot goes nowhere and is only there to show one lady rubbing another lady’s boobs. And that’s ok. Anyway, Carlos gets a massage and promises the masseuse that if she goes out with him, he’ll give her all the weed she wants. They do a few bumps and then later that night, get together for some sex and some spliffs. He rapes her and kills her. Then he rapes and kills another woman affiliated with the salon, but not before taking her to some sort of strange clandestine location where he’s able to order two vodka tonics and a plate of cold cuts before hopping into the back seat with his latest soon to be victim. The cycle continues a few more times and word gets out that there’s a serial killer/rapist on the loose. The cops, led by a rough and tumble commander played by led by Manuel 'Flaco' Ibáñez, finally start to take all of this seriously, and the movie leads up to an absolutely bonkers conclusion involving levitation, fire, lots of laughing and even more eye lasers.
Infernal Rapist (or El violador infernal in Spanish, which is way more fun to say!) is an unrepentant piece of cinematic sleaze with no redeeming social value whatsoever. Ridiculously light on plot and way too heavy on bad eye makeup, the movie has no real pretensions about it and doesn’t try to pass itself off as anything but gratuitous exploitation. It’s tough to dig deeper to try and find meaning in a movie like this, it wasn’t made to have any real depth to it, so just sit back and appreciate this salacious piece of cinematic trash for what it is. The rape scenes are, admittedly, pretty savage and unpleasant to watch but in between scenes of forced copulation, there are some pretty wacky elements at play, culminating in that over the top finale previously mentioned and a really great dummy death. That counts for something.
Noé Murayama is always intense in the lead role. He laughs a lot in the most sinister way that he seems to be able to and he cuts people up and slaps them around pretty effectively. Carlos’ various victims are all pretty convincing when the assaults begin, portraying legitimate terror pretty believably and going a long way towards making these scenes as nasty as they are. The fact that none of the scenes are short can make them a bit of an endurance test – but then we’re bombarded with super-bad optical eye lasers and everything is right with the world again.
Infernal Rapist – Blu-ray Review:
Vinegar Syndrome brings Infernal Rapist to Blu-ray framed at 1.85.1 widescreen and in AVC encoded 1080p high definition with the feature using up 22.6GBs of space on the region free 25GB disc. Taken from a new 4k scan of the original 35mm negative, the picture quality is pretty strong. There are a few vertical scratches that pop up here and there but most of the film is quite clean looking. Grain is pretty obvious at times, serving as a reminder that this was obviously shot on film, but we get nice depth and texture throughout. Colors look quite nice and we get good skin tones and black levels as well.
The sole audio option for this release is a 24-bit Spanish language DTS-HD 2.0 Mono track, with optional subtitles provided in English. There’s noticeable sibilance evident throughout most of the movie but that issue aside, the track is otherwise fine. It’s balanced well enough and the score and effects sound pretty decent. The subtitles are clean, clear and easy to read and they seem to be timed properly.
There are a few extras included on the disc, starting with a new video interview with actor Juan Moro who plays one of the cops in the movie. He spends four minutes talking about working with Acosta and what he took away from that, his career in and outside of the film industry and getting along with the other cast members.
A second interview talks to actor Fidel Abrego for five minutes about how he got into character, spending forty-five years in the film industry, getting along with Acosta, how everyone was very professional on set and how he's grateful to still be alive!
Actor Arturo Mason also shows up on camera to talk for six minutes about what the atmosphere was like on set, working on this film after doing Intrépidos punks), how he had reservations about his role, how strange things happened on set while they were shooting his scenes, working with Noé Murayama and getting along with the other cast members and how the film gave him a different experience as an actor than his other roles.
Lastly, we get an audio essay by author and critic Alexandra Heller-Nicholas that runs just over eighteen minutes. She talks about the tendency to justify exploitation films in progressive circles and how that's very tough to do with this particular film and appreciating it as nothing more than a trash film (though not as garbage). From there, she talks about the film's unpretentious manner, its inherent nastiness, what makes the movie interesting aside from the sex and violence that is so prominent in it, some of the quirky background details in the movie, why the film starts with a male rape and how it portrays the cops as homophobes, the decision to portray Satan as a woman in the movie and how Carlos is, in fact, submissive to that female character in the movie. Some interesting food for thought in this piece.
This release also comes with some reversible cover sleeve artwork and, if purchased directly from the Vinegar Syndrome website, a limited edition embossed slipcover limited to
Infernal Rapist - The Final Word:
Vinegar Syndrome’s Blu-ray release of Infernal Rapist brings a ridiculous piece of infamous trash film exploitation history to Blu-ray in an almost inappropriately nice presentation and with some decent extras as well. The movie itself is about as sleazy as they get, but some of the more over the top elements make it tough to take seriously. That isn’t a bad thing, per se, as the more over the top moments tend to be the best parts of the movie!
Click on the images below, or right click and open in a new window, for full sized Infernal Rapist Blu-ray screen caps!
