Beautiful Emanuelle is
unhappily married to Viktor, a sadistic bastard who forces her to take part
in sick S&M games. Not surprisingly, she finds solace in the arms of Mario,
an Italian she also hires to kill her husband. Viktor perishes in a mysterious
plane crash, leaving Emanuelle to run his fruit business and care for her
stepdaughter Livia. But Emanuelle also has plans to track down her husband’s
partners who contributed to her sexual abuse and avenge herself completely.
However, she becomes sidetracked when she begins to fall in love with an old
friend of Viktor’s, who promises her happiness and a better life. But
Mario reappears and threatens to make trouble for Emanuelle’s attempts
at starting over.
Released by Media Blasters around the same time as her other Greek-lensed
film, LOVE CAMP, EMANUELLE: QUEEN OF SADOS is one of sex siren Laura Gemser’s
least-appreciated films. Such a pity, as it’s one of her more interesting
roles and though she only has two sex scenes and infrequent nude scenes (including
riding a horse topless in the ocean), she gives a pretty strong performance
as well. But despite this refreshing departure from her usual fare, she is
just about the only positive here. Without Gemser, QUEEN OF SADOS would be
completely forgettable. When she isn’t on-screen, Greek sex film regular
Haris Tryfonas, as Emanuelle’s lover Mario, indulges in a number of
random sex scenes with any woman he runs into, slowing down the running time
and grinding the already thin story to a halt. One of these scenes finds him
dunking the head of a girl into a toilet bowl, forcing her to confess details
of a plot to expose Emanuelle’s secret, then the two kiss and begin
screwing on a bed!!
Director
Elia Milonakos directed many more Greek sex films, including a bunch with
another exotic Italian exploitation film regular, Ajita Wilson, and all of
them are pretty terrible. This film is no exception; the pacing is all wrong,
and what starts as a good revenge story bogs into a soap opera melodrama quickly.
It’s great to see Gemser in such a different kind of film, allowed to
stretch beyond the nympho antics of D’Amato’s EMANUELLE films,
but the script is a mess, resulting in outrageous plot twists which go nowhere
and an abrupt misfire of an ending which makes not one lick of sense. QUEEN
OF SADOS rises above the lower rungs of this genre thanks to its star, the
unparalleled Gemser. Also making the film somewhat unique is Livia Russo,
the barely-legal-looking actress playing Livia, the teenage stepdaughter.
She has an eye-opening shower scene, a cheesy disco dancing scene, and a pretty
uncomfortable semi-sex scene with another underage-looking boy. Worst of all,
she is raped in a pool of muddy water! Gemser’s husband Gabriele Tinti
also co-stars as Viktor’s friend Tommy, and yet again is lucky enough
to have a love scene with his stunning wife. Watch for a completely unauthorized
clip from the Village Peoples’ “YMCA” music video in a disco,
too!
Previously issued on a budget-priced Greek disc that seemed to use a blurry
video master, QUEEN OF SADOS looks simply stunning on this Media Blasters
disc! Though it says on the cover it is in widescreen (anamorphic widescreen
at 1.33:1 is the actual quote), the film is presented in fullscreen, and it
honestly seems to be the correct aspect ratio. The colorful lighting in a
disco scene reveals how lovely the disc looks. Skintones are brilliant, grain
is practically nonexistent, and the image is exceptionally bright and clean.
It’s too bad the film isn’t better, though. The English mono audio
is strong, a tad muffled during some dubbed dialogue scenes, but gets the
job done.
Gemser
remains retired and living happily in Rome, but prefers not to give interviews
at this time, so the extras will of course be limited. However, a nice 5-minute
collection of outtakes, presented with no audio, features more great Gemser
footage of her in a bikini on the beach, her final confrontation with Mario,
dialogue scenes, telling Livia’s fortune, and other snippets of non-Gemser
footage, including lots of clapboard takes. One great outtake of Gemser faking
a smack across a man’s face finds her smiling in-between takes, showing
she is having a great time making this movie. Two trailers (one with text,
one without) for the film highlight all the nitty gritty people expect from
a Laura Gemser film, and a photo gallery includes international artwork and
video sleeves, newspaper clippings, and promotional stills with lots of sex
shots. There are some great posters from Asian countries, a flyer from Private
Screenings announcing the U.S. video release, and a Greek newspaper ad mat!
Exploitation Digital trailers for DIVINE EMANUELLE (LOVE CAMP), PORNO HOLOCAUST,
SS EXPERIMENT LOVE CAMP, and YELLOW EMANUELLE round out the package. (Casey
Scott)