SHOCK dives into the sleaziest release of THE SINFUL DWARF to date!
Every single vile thing you’ve heard about the notorious 1973 Danish exploitation film THE SINFUL DWARF is true. In fact, if you’ve never seen it and have only heard these things, or read some astonishing report from someone who has, chances are they undersold just how depraved this deranged piece of trash is.
But of course, we love THE SINFUL DWARF. And with this brand-spanking new release from horror-heroes Severin FIlms, we dig it even more. We’re sorry…
Diminutive actor Torben Billle stars as Olaf, a drooling, cane-wielding Jack Black looking fellow who lures young girls to his even more unsavory mother’s boarding house, usually with the promise of yapping, battery-operated toy dogs(!). Once the trusting (and incredibly stupid) ladies stroll inside, Olaf proceeds to bash them on the head and chain them up in his attic, keeping them hooked and high on forcibly injected heroin. And when the gals are good and gibbled, Olaf and his mad matriarch (who has a wild fake scar on her face) lease out their bodies to local johns looking for a bit of covert no-tell nookie.
One night, a newlywed couple (Anne Sparrow and the Christian Bale clone Tony Eades) looking for a warm bed for the evening, wander into the duo’s lair, check-in and, after some sweaty sex and shenanigans, become ensnared in Olaf’s creepy plight in more ways then one.
THE SINFUL DWARF is as horrifying as it is ludicrous and, if you watch it alone, it’s actually rather unsettling. It looks cheap and is talentlessly directed by Vidal Raski, shot on authentically squalid sets designed by Bille himself (dig that makeshift filthy toilet behind the broken door), with the camera almost always at eye-level and it comes armed with an eerie, distorted sound design. It’s like a low-rent 1970’s stag loop, but one choked with fetishized absurdity and otherworldly eccentricity. Watch out for the maniacal scene where Olaf tickles the battered ivories while his shit-faced mom dresses up like Carmen Miranda and starts singing “Chu-Chu-Bamba” while gyrating for her even more pickled geriatric friend. That bit of lively insanity is then followed by a scene of a scumbag raping a toy-clutching girl on a fetid mattress…and then she begins to enjoy it. All the while the other captive women, bombed-out in the attic prison, stare at the action and seemingly get off on it.
Yikes.
The music, by Ole Orsted, is a key component in the film’s unsavory effect. It’s a dissonant flute, clickety-clack percussion and industrial noise-filled soundscape that tunelessly spurts all over the audio track and leaves your ears oozing.
But really, THE SINFUL DWARF is Bille’s show all the way. A former Danish children’s TV star and prolific “Danesploitation” actor, he limps his way through the film, grinning and giggling, his misshapen and sharp yellow teeth jutting forth from his wet lips. He takes just as much interest in “interfering” with his victims as he does in playing with his clattering, mechanized toys. He’s always hideously happy, chortling and snorting malevolently in his pursuits and yet he manages to elicit a dash of sympathy. His Olaf is indeed the product of child abuse, his monstrous mother bearing the weight of her son’s state. Olaf’s really just a lad who wants to do right by his parent, like all abused children do, and has in turn has become her accomplice, her partner and a kind of non-sexual, auxiliary lover.
It’s all so wonderfully sick and unhealthy and, of course, in a way, it’s a kind of drugged out, jerk-off booth version of Hitchcock’s PSYCHO.
Or maybe it’s just a piece of shit. Who knows. Who cares? It’s awesome!
Severin has released THE SINFUL DWARF before in the Harry Novak-distributed unrated cut titled THE ABDUCTED BRIDE. That version is indeed present on this release but what makes this edition extra special is the inclusion of the rare XXX full Danish cut of the film, called simply THE DWARF, that includes tons of grainy, leering hardcore sequences. There’s plenty of real-deal penetrative pounding and close ups on genitals here, which makes the fabricated sexual abuse that much er, harder to, um, swallow. These inter-spliced scenes are faded and often accompanied by a mental-case fuzz-guitar solo that just adds to the sleazy effect.
You’ve been warned…
Also in the “XXX world” section of the disc is a full-length porno from the makers of THE SINFUL DWARF called THE BLUE BALLOON and a berserk hardcore clip from the dwarf-porn film THE HOTTEST SHOW IN TOWN (in which Bille appears) that has to be seen to (dis) believed.
There’s also a funny mockumentary ported over from the previous Severin release, about the disastrous effect of THE SINFUL DWARF on a pair of video store-haunting dorks in Virgina that just gets more uproarious as it goes on and an entertaining doc that explores the life and times of shyster supreme Novak, with producer Elijah Drenner (AMERICAN GRINDHOUSE) onscreen, casually relating anecdotes, cut with cool clips.
Along with Severin’s recent release of the Novak titles AXE and KIDNAPPED COED, THE SINFUL DWARF is another essential bit of serious exploitation film education hiding in the guise of yet another catalog Blu-ray re-packaging, packed as it is with ample insight and deep-down, dirty thrills. But unlike those Fred Friedel flicks, which promise sleaze and instead offer almost Godard-esque New Wave arthouse pleasures, THE SINFUL DWARF backs up the dump truck and drowns you in refuse, with the XXX cut like something beamed in from some sort of beaded-curtained, sticky-floored dimension.
I’m astonished. And very, very pleased.
Pick this thing up. Buy 2 copies and do your part to hide it from the rest of humanity.
