Our gal pal Jessica (Blanca Marsillach) spends her days getting’ her bean flicked courtesy of her saxophone player boyfriend Johnny’s (Stefano Madia) horny horn playing within the walls of his recording studio, as is the way.
Meanwhile, hot-shit surgeon Dr. Wendell Simpson (Return of the Fly’s Brett Halsey) is stuck in a right shit of a marriage with his wife, Carol (Corinne Cléry, Yor: The Hunter from the Future, Moonraker)… a marriage that sees the dashing doc getting’ it on with prostitutes a-plenty, which shockingly drives Carol away.
How do these incidents intertwine you may (or may not) ask?
Well, after Johnny dies on Simpson’s operating table after a motorcycle accident near the Doc’s domicile, Jessica decides to take a stroll down Revenge Road and begins harassing Simpson like it’s her fuckin’ job… and soon she has the doctor chained up in her deceased beau’s majestic mansion!
Will vigilante justice be sexually served, or does lust have other plans for our heroine?!!
Brought to us by legendary Italian horror director Lucio Fulci (The House by the Cemetery, The Beyond), The Devil’s Honey is a sexed-up, visually slick (that ‘80s music video shooting and cutting courtesy of Cinematographer Alejandro Ulloa and editor Vincenzo Tomassi is pretty damn fun when it crops up) erotic thriller that is both well paced, and completely, un-apologetically horny as hell… when it isn’t busy being downright strange!
Among the vagina-centric sax solos, and high speed handjobs (it reads different than it appears in the film), we also get horror adjacent elements such as the blood-smeared cunnilingus as well as the absolutely most kinky application of nail polish you’re likely to ever see in a movie created for the general public… well, the general public located on 42nd Street specifically… all of which presents a fever dream version of a soft-core skin flick that is titillating, terrifying and all points in-between… and that’s before someone gets leashed naked and fed dog food…
All isn’t completely surreal however (just most of it), as the film is underscored by a real sense of melancholy as our two lead characters experience and react to the loss of a partner which gives both depth and sadness to Simpson and Jessica that results in an unexpected dramatic bump among the outlandish proceedings.
And yes, as is usual Fulci does indeed make an appearance…
Speaking of which, his ass will be easy to spot thanks to the transfer Severin have utilized for this 4K release; a new scan from the original negative no less, that keeps the image crisp whether we are seeing things as normal as this film allows itself to be, or through a dreamy haze (which is a Fulci trademark), and there’s plenty of splashes of eye-popping color as well… usually red.
Special features appear on both discs present in the release, but the 4K disc contains only the film’s trailer.
Hopping on over to Disc Two, we get a Blu-ray edition of the film, along with that trailer from Disc One as well as interviews with Marsillach (new to this edition!), Fulci (an archival audio affair), and archival chats with Halsey, Cléry, Producer Vincenzo Saliani, and Composer Claudio Natili.
Also included are an analysis of the film from Author Stephen Thrower, and an audio essay courtesy of Author Troy Howarth covering Fulci’s career (with an emphasis on the sexier side of things), and an alternate opening under the generic as balls title Dangerous Obsession… I mean couldn’t they have gone with something like Saxual Healing?
Perverse, delightfully ridiculous, and filled with a multitude of sexy & shocking set-pieces; The Devil’s Honey is a rare one among Fulci flicks for it’s main sexed-up subject matter, but offers plenty of freaky action through and through!
