Review "Besessen"/Obsessions 1969 Martin Scorsese goes Eurosleazecrime .... wow!

 Now what is this?

Going down the Dieter Geissler rabbit hole that opened up in the ground after having watched “Hexen morden Mitternachts” (here), this one came up.

“Bessessen” was a co-production between German lead Dieter Geissler and Pim and Wim, the Dutch founders of “Scorpio Productions,” that concentrates once more on voyeurism, sex, and living together with one’s neighbors.

This time, we are firmly in Hitchcock's Rear Window-land with less budget but far more nudity and sleaziness. A feast of a film.

Co-written by Martin Scorsese, the story revolves around a student of medicine who accidentely discovers a hole in his living-room wall that gives him a good look at his neighbor’s bed. And a lot of things go on there.

Intrigued, he is able to get a key to the flat and begins investigating the strange sex scenes that obviously are about girls being drugged and forced to have sex. Or are they??

Meanwhile, his girlfriend investigates the murder of an American drug trafficker for her newspaper, and somehow both narratives lead to one conclusion at the party of a playboy who is involved in both crimes.

There is A LOT OF peeping through holes, nudity, bondage and even gore in this movie which feels downright depraved but manages to hold its head above the smutline due to the sheer skill of the camera work and direction. Acting is subpar, but the assortment of really beautiful young women in this movie won’t let you mind that too much.

The lack of funding is clear from the get-go, but with reduced sets and the few actors here, the movie is able to hold your interest long enough for the bloody conclusion.

Geissler stated that the movie was one of the top-grossing movies in Italy in 1969, which would make him a contender for the Giallo throne in competition with Argento’s “Bird,” but figures on that are unobtainable.

The 1969 style of clothing and cars and drinking and smoking is all in here, and our heroine is made of the stuff that boys would dream of. The score is by Bernhard Hermann - of course. It is good, but not as memorable as some stuff he did for the Meister himself.

Geissler would use his success in Italy to produce more lurid tales of sexual depravity down there, and Wim and Pim would go on to produce the even more vicious “Blue Movie” in the living factories of the newly erected Dutch suburbs.

The Blu-Ray by Koch-Media (a 2K scan that is used in all other Blu-Ray editions worldwide) ist pretty disappointing by Koch(Plaidon)-standards. This is obviously the best they could come up with but the colors are very faded and furthermore the movie was shot in autumn so basically you go from orange to red to brown and back. As this movie was shot in autumn, however, it's not so bad. There is some print damage but most of the time the restauration worked well. It has the German dub and the original english dub by the actors.

Told you: Lots of beautiful people

A very good movie. But not for all tastes.

1969 what a good year for eurocrime movies. Just imagine a triple feature of this one here with "Bird with a crystal Plumage" and "7 Tage Frist".

This scores high both on the Krimimeter and the Gialloscore, but still more of a Krimi because a) The women actually don't get killed (but everything else is being done to them) and b) this still works as a traditional investigation.

As with all Geissler films, there is not a lot of stuff to be found in the netofyours....