Tuesday, November 14, 2017

THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS (1976) **


Catharine Burgess stars as a bored, frigid housewife who becomes obsessed with an old mirror in her attic.  One night, she masturbates in front of the mirror and a man comes out of it and fingers her.  Jamie Gillis is the “demon” in the mirror that takes the form of her late father and beckons her to join him on the other side of the mirror. 

Through the Looking Glass is a XXX movie that tries to serve a dual purpose.  It wants to be a psychological drama and a porno flick all rolled in one.  None of the elements really click.  There’s some Alice in Wonderland imagery here, although probably not as much as the title would lead you to think.  Burgess has a lesbian scene with a woman who runs off and says, “I’m late” and there’s a Mad Hatter tea party when the guests fuck a woman with a carrot.  That’s about it though. 

The non-porno scenes are kind of dull and it takes a good twenty minutes to get to the first explicit sex scene.  Even though the scenes revolve around kinky fetishes such as incest and pissing, none of them are particularly hot.  There is also an enema scene, but it’s nowhere near as graphic as the ones found in Water Power, which also featured Gillis.   

Much of the problem lies with Burgess.  She just never really engages the audience.  I did like the scene where the camera actually goes inside of Burgess’ pussy though.  The movie fitfully comes alive when Gillis is on screen.  He has a demented charisma that everyone in the cast lacks.   

Through the Looking Glass’ artistic aspirations are muddled at best, and its turn into horror territory in the third act is even less successful.  If you can get past the sluggish pacing, you’ll be rewarded with a handful of memorable moments.  Overall, it’s just too uneven to be completely successful as either art or porn. 

The effective score was by none other than Harry Manfredini of Friday the 13th fame.

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