VANCOUVER — The vintage, hardcore sexploitation film “Sexcula” is getting its first screening in over 40 years at the Vancity Theatre in Vancouver tomorrow.
The 1974 erotic horror flick frames 18th century sexual shenanigans as a flashback, set off when an old manuscript is found in an abandoned house. Most of the hardcore action is contained in a 20 minute film-within-a-film digression.
"There’s a girl who does an interpretive dance with a gorilla," self-described “porn archeologist” Dimitrios Otis told The Courier. "It’s got someone in a gorilla costume, so that tells you a lot right there.”
The film has received media attention for its strange origin as a tax write-off under a now-defunct Canadian Tax Credit System. By manipulating the system, the filmmakers were able to use tax payers’ money to fund the production of the film, but not its distribution. In fact, it could not be legally screened in Canada at the time and only graced the silver screen once since its advent, at Vancouver’s former Paramount Studios.
Other bizarre rumors concerning the film have been circulating — including the suggestion that sound and camera crew, who also made “The Littlest Hobo,” worked naked while creating the film (reportedly backed up by photos taken on set).
While its director John Holbrook is openly iffy about the film’s quality, saying it was “a salvage job,” Otis finds it to be a worthwhile watch. "It's entertaining. It's titillating," he said. "So I think it's a successful movie and they should be proud of it. There's not a lot of what we call 'artsy filler.' It kind of delivers the goods."
According to the theatre, the original cast and crew will be in attendance for film’s screening tomorrow.
