HumanoidOfFlesh "The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea" by Lewis Carlino deals with the romance between lonely widow and a merchant marine officer.Her son is a troubled teenager who spends his free time with a group of sadistic boys.The kids sentence a cat to death for being old and fat;they drug it and dissect it alive.Somber drama with gorgeous photography of British coast and some graphic scenes of sex and sadism.Frank Perry made similar film in 1969 titled "Last Summer",a grim story where bored wealthy kids at a seaside island abuse first a total stranger and then rape one of their own.If you liked "Last Summer" you can't miss "The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea".It's well-acted and unforgettable drama with seriously dark streak.8 sailors out of 10.

ptb-8 A spooky 'erotic' romantic thriller, with undertones and imagery of both THE INNOCENTS and LORD OF THE FLIES and even RYANS DAUGHTER this film had a bit of a notorious reputation in the late 70s because of the peephole sex scenes and the all too graphic mutilation of the family cat. Plenty of seniors went stampeding from the cinemas gasping especially after the cat got the chop, hissing and howling. The sight of Sarah Miles masturbating gave a us all a kooky preview to WHITE MISCHIEF made ten years later. There has been plenty of criticism about the translation of this Japanese novel into the foggy coast of Dover, but really it does not matter because the almost MOONSPINNERS-like spooky seaside look adds to what is genuinely an usual and compelling romantic drama with deeply strange and uneasy subplot about the wrath of destructive misguided young boys. Kris Kristofferson was every woman's preferred seaman in the 70s! Then Babs snared him in her horrible remake of A STAR IS BORN. SAILOR was a big hit in its day and deserves another look. It is eerie and romantic and quite dangerous. You almost expect Sarah Miles to narrate (all REBECCA-like) "last night I dreamed I went to masturbate...." I saw it on a double with CABARET. Those were the days!

lazarillo This is a very chilling movie based on an even more chilling novel. It does seem to be a cross between "Oedipus Rex" and "Lord of the Flies" as some reviewers have astutely pointed out, but it is actually based on an obscure Japanese novella. The original story had a Japanes protagonist and was set in a Japanese fishing village. The filmmakers don't entirely succeed in transplanting the action to rural England and casting a Kris Kristoferson in the lead role, but an international film never could have gotten made at the time with a Japanese lead, and once they cast Kristoferson, setting the movie in a Japanese fishing village would have drawn the inevitable charges of racism from the perpetually outraged idiots in the "PC" crowd.Besides the awkwardness of the adaptation is redeemed by some great acting. This is probably Kristoferson's second best role after "Pat Garret and Billy the Kid". Sarah Miles is also very good as the lonely widow. Her sex scenes with Kristoferson are very erotic if very perverse (you see them only through a peephole as her disturbed son watches). The British child actors are also very good for a change, particularly the very disturbed but nevertheless sympathetic son and the truly psychopathic leader of the gang of schoolboys he runs with (who make the "Children of the Damned" look cute and cuddly by comparison). The scene where the gang eviscerates a live cat is almost unbearable to watch. And the final scene on a hill overlooking the sea is chilling, tragic, fatalistic, beautiful, and mythic all at once. This is and haunting and unforgettable movie.

tparsons131 Every time you make a movie based on a foreign novel something goes terribly wrong. I saw this movie when I was a kid while watching TV on a Saturday afternoon. I have to say that it is by far one of the creepiest movies I have ever seen. If this movie were set in a Japanese fishing village instead of an English one then I wouldn't have been so freaked out. I mean, I expect people from a different culture to behave differently than I do. The interaction between children and adults is different, etc. This movie is most disturbing because no one acts like you would expect them to. They are all bizarre. This movie will definitely make your skin crawl. We got a kid spying on his mom humping, freaky arian friends that like to murder and dissect animals, and then the jaw dropping ending.You could achieve a similar effect if you made a movie about a family in Iraq that doesn't like the fact that a daughter dates someone without permission. So the father and the brothers kill her. In a foreign context like that we might find the story disturbing but not totally creepy.Now make it a white American family living in the suburbs. Throw in a lot of neighbors who all think the same way and condone the ritual murder. Talk about creepy. You finally just scratch your head and say, where are these people from, mars?