Naked for Satan A scientist invented a serum, thanks to which he manages to revive the head of an innocently killed dog. But the great joy of the professor on this occasion is overshadowed by his sudden death from heart failure, and the doctor's assistant, not long wistful, decides to revive the head of his boss and continue his experiments, which, however, will slightly go beyond the already narrow framework of reasonable and decent.
German director and screenwriter Victor Trivas was never actually German. Having emigrated during the October Revolution from the blazing red lights of St. Petersburg, Victor Trivas, who has, in addition to Russian, Jewish, Portuguese and Spanish roots, wandered for a long time in Europe in search of the most convenient refuge, until he finally stopped in Germany, soon began to work as a screenwriter and as a director. During his long film career, which lasted very successfully during the Second World War (he was not seen in connections and obvious sympathies for the Nazis), Trivas managed to fruitfully work with Georg Wilhelm Pabst on his film “Jeanne’s Love” (1927), and with another Russian-German director Fyodor Ozebo, and with Orson Welles himself (the film “Aliener” in 1946, for which Trivas as the author of the screenplay was awarded an Oscar) and Otminger nomination. And yet Trivas was subject to a sense of nostalgia for his homeland, he felt like a foreigner, thrown away from his homeland, despite all his cinematic successes. Therefore, in the names of many films, in the creation of which Trivas took a direct part, it is not by chance that the dream of returning to Russia slides and longing for it: these are the paintings “Comrade”, “Song of Russia”, and “Three Russian girls”.
One of the last lifetime paintings of Victor Trivas was released in 1959 sci-fi horror film “Naked and Satan”, which also has the second name “Head”, which is now somehow undeservedly forgotten, although this black and white tape in many respects became the first in the history of horror painting subgenre nunsploitation. Formally present in the film a fantastic plot with the story of a doctor engaged in the revival of dead matter, refers to a variety of classic horror films and Victor Trivas does not hide the clear and visible on the surface of the relationship “Naked and Satan” with the outstanding creation of Robert Wien “the Cabinet of Dr. Caligari”, but a serious example of such horror films tape Victor Trivas is not in any way. Without hiding obvious ironic and satirical intonations, Victor Trivas deftly breaks the templates of most of the stories about sinister doctors-reanimators in the best traditions of Roger Corman and turns all further events in the film into a deliberate revelry and apotheosis of grotesque and sophisticated black humor, supported for greater persuasiveness and operational eroticism of the image of an evil sexy nun and the film is of exceptional interest only for connoisseurs of any rare and forgotten cinema.
Actually, the film “Nude and Satan” for the genre of nunsploitation means a lot, because the influence of this thoroughly forgotten German comedy fantastic horror on this exploitative subgenre is extremely. The influence of Naked and Satan extends to such notable paintings in this unusual subgenre of horrors as Jacques Rivette’s The Nun, Juan López Moctezuma’s Alucard, Mingozzi’s Flavia, a Muslim nun, Franco’s Love Letters of a Portuguese nun, etc., all the way down to the most hopeless thrash samples with a clear touch of expressive pornography and blasphemy. In any case, “Naked and Satan” was actually the first film in the horror genre, in which the image of a nun appeared in the context of intimidation and suspense, although, of course, it is difficult to call a terrible film by Viktor Trivas from the point of view of the modern viewer.
However, the story told in the film about the talking dead professor’s head (almost “Professor Dowell’s Head”), his strange assistant with distinct fetishistic deviations and the phenomenon of pre-interesting charismatic images of unkind Catholic nuns is still impressive and memorable in a good way, which is much facilitated by high-quality directing, albeit in the framework of low-budget cinema, atmospheric and sometimes stylistically original camera work by Georg Krause and good acting work by Horst Frank, Helmutt Schmullert and Paller.
The film, of course, far from the canons of masterpiece (however, this picture from the very beginning does not strive to be something big and outstanding), all sorts of genre cliches and cliches in the film are, albeit in a very small number. Sometimes it seems that, creating this picture, Victor Trivas just tried to relax and relax and at the end of his career to create something fresh and non-trivial. Did he succeed? Relatively yes, because “Naked and Satan” gave a strong impetus to the development of the theme of nunsploitation in Eurohorror, but unlike the subsequent paintings of this subgenre, the Trivas tape remained completely undeservedly in the shadows. An interesting, extraordinary and unusual film that defied stereotypes, which completely faces the black and white format and inside out motifs of surrealism and avant-garde.