eROTik Review from TetroVideo!

Domiziano Cristopharo is legit one of a kind. I’m not a sycophant, before you wonder, I’ve had my disputes with one or two of his works in the past. For instance certain elements of Xpiation (see review of Xpiation here) but as readers will know, I find a majority of his creations hit the black spot in my sick and twisted heart, so much as many know, I stripped my clothes off, painted crude clown paint and blood all over myself thus became part of the 10^th anniversary edition of House of Flesh Mannequins (see review of House of Flesh Mannequins here).

Domiziano has a world unto himself that only a few whom are counted as legion, can enter and understand. I read how recently a website deemed all his films as “worthless” which is an interesting opinion to have (and probably a bit attention seeking) since his flicks are quite diverse in subject matter. What a lot of people don’t realise is, he is a man who cares about the underground of cinema and he works with and shares with so many other movie makers to push as much as possible in such ways that capture audiences unaware. Well, that’s a bit of a bizarre description because let’s face it, you find a flick with Domiziano’s name attached, you kind of know what is waiting (with the exception of the cool retro zombie short, Reveniens – see review, that was very different).

eROTik opens to our central character masturbating and stuff in front of his mirror eyes rolling, as is a standard scene to be greeted with via Domiziano. Whilst this continues, blood is oozing down his leg. Aye, there you go, he’s using a severed bloody hand to get himself off with. Probably not available in your local adult pleasure store or mail order before you check. He heads back to his bedroom after cleaning up and lays next to a corpse far more putrefied and decomposed than the one Rob and his girl loved in Nekromantik, though the eye is quite similar.

Anyhow, our friend has a little hobby, he keeps a pet, which is basically a nude guy tied up in his living room. To add meat to the bones, he has a shrine in his cupboard for which is revealed like Aleister Crowley and Fuad Ramses, he has a distinct interest in Egyptian culture. After a brief stroll where we hear his narrated thoughts, he decides to kill his captive, using a blade inscribed by Egyptian hieroglyphics. I have a very old book which translates the symbols, but I couldn’t be bothered looking each of them up, so I assume they mean a sacrifice to the Gods. Then comes the lengthy hard process of hacking the cadaver up, followed by a sit in the shower crying.

One day he meets and brings home a young gay chap and they commence rather quiet passionless bumming for a while. Honestly, both look totally bored like they’re just passing the time away. The young guy wanders into the kitchen middle of the night and finds a few severed wrapped in cellophane body parts neatly stacked on the shelves. This naturally puts him off his midnight fridge raid, and even more naturally, he’s bludgeoned with a hammer for his appetite, then a nail driven into his temple. For good measure, our hairy yeti like killer boils up some water and injects a syringe full into the young lad’s brain. Time to chop off a chunk of body! Well not before he’s displayed it on a table and filmed it, then he gets his blade out. Where best to start? Ah yes, the penis. Right tough little bugger to chop off as well. Afterwards he sits before his shrine, praying and rubbing the almost mummified remains of a dead cat he found on his wanderings earlier in the film.

There’s an added depth to him. Sometimes he hears crying and he holds his head in pain. Under his hair he imagines a rather dodgy plastic looking face that is crying. Upon recovery, he begins the process of treating the corpse of his victim, in great detail.

eROTik goes straight for the jugular vein in bringing us another deep, dark, and sensual realm, that has ingredients of necrophilia but is really a quite interesting and researched view on Egyptian practices after death, amongst other things. Adam Western plays his character quietly and like in a sleep walk. That isn’t a bad thing — it makes him a man accepting of his surroundings and what he must do, nothing is out of place, everything is correct and quite natural. He also holds up ninety percent of the running time totally nude. Meanwhile, Simone Avincola has stepped up from being brutalised in Poison Rouge’s, No Please Not in my Mouth (see review of No Please Not in my Mouth here), music video short, to this which consists of bumming, death, and laying on a table. It’s far better than his fate in the previous video.

The music is as quality as you’d expect given the fact Antony Coia and Domiziano are at the helm. Antony’s works have glittered The Obsessed (see review of The Obsessed here), Scarecrowd (see review of Scarecrowd here) and many more. The ominous tone in the sounds richly adds to the morbid and blackened film.

eROTik, I think, had to be Domiziano’s dark masterpiece thus so far back in 2018. Some may disagree but his strengths are always with small casts, the detailed concentration in building the players whether they are a large key role, or a small quick to perish character are fluidly easy in his hands. This is a quiet horror film, and it is a true horror film because the elements of fantasy are throughout which means it cannot be shoved into a box with realism. The tone of the story was sort of continued in 2019’s The Obsessed a.k.a. The Best of Me. The tone is a steady humming of complete nerve jangling tension.

At no point in eROTik is the main un-named protagonist thrown aside by being shown as mad or crazy. As I said, this is his natural place, his beliefs, his needs and lusts for which we are intruders, we are voyeurs. eROTik like so many movies made properly by the ever flourishing underground movement isn’t predictable plus delivers to those with active imaginations – e.g. the true lovers of horror.

Jump over to the TetroVideo website, it’s a Tetromaniac Extreme offshoot.