CHICAGO — After successful screenings in Toronto, Edmonton, Vancouver, Ottawa and Paris, France, the v1974 hardcore sexploitation film, “Sexcula,” is making it's U.S. debut at the Music Box Theatre in Chicago on July 11.
The screening (conveniently) coincides with the Exxxotica Expo taking place that weekend.
Sponsoring the event is the iconic Chicago porn institution, the Bijou Theater, and their subsidiary, Bijou World Video. Bijou staff will be in attendance with a selection of rare and vintage adult films for sale.
“Sexcula,” reportedly the only hardcore sex movie made in Canada during the entire Porno Chic era, 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 —$80,000 — 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 at Vancouver’s former Paramount Studios before it resurfaced last year.
The 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.
All told, it features a madcap mashup of vampires, Frankenstein-type monsters, mad scientists, fembots, burlesque dancers, hunchbacks, lumberjacks and even a Gorilla dubbed "Rape Ape".
Opened in 1929, the Music Box Theatre retains its original architecture and design. With a dark blue ceiling that features “twinkling stars” and moving cloud formations evoking a night sky, and walls and towers suggesting an Italian courtyard, patrons are made to feel as if they are watching a film in an open-air Tuscan palazzo.
Established by "porn archaeologist" Dimitrios Otis in 2001, Real Boogie Nights produces “Return to Porno Chic!” screenings of golden age adult films in a party atmosphere.
“Join us July 11 for big-time porno, 50-feet high on the big screen — where it belongs,” a Real Boogie Nights rep said.
