MARQUIS DE SADE’S JUSTINE: THE MISFORTUNES OF VIRTUE (aka CRUEL PASSION, 1977)

Available on BluRay & DVD from Redemption Films or streaming on Kino Lorber Film Collection or Amazon Prime!
Directed by Chris Boger
Written by Ian Cullen (screenplay), based on the novel by Marquis De Sade

So, this is basically the kind of stuff I would have loved to have caught back in the 80’s and 90’s before the rise of the internet when the only outlet existing for young chaps to experience soft-core porn on Skinemax and Showtime. MARQUIS DE SADE’S JUSTINE: THE MISFORTUNES OF VIRTUE is based on a noted work of fiction (written by Marquis de Sade himself) but in the end, this film serves as just an excuse for ladies in little or no dress to make out with one another and show off their unmentionable bits. Archaic roles of womanhood are explored, but for the most part, Chris Boger uses the themes as a shoddily made backdrop on which to hang one sex scene or scene of women in undress after another.

This film dropped around 1977. The modern Women’s Rights movement was very well underway and women were not only joining men in the work force, but also finding voice in households as well. This film seems to be a somewhat aggressive retaliation against all of that by boiling a woman down to the only thing that matters, i.e. their virginity. It doesn’t take a feminism major to notice the themes at play here as the main interest is the preservation and/or corruption of the virginity of Justine (played with wide-eyed innocence by the nubile Koo Stark). Justine is tempted throughout this entire film: molested by naughty nuns, possessed by the devil’s perversions, bartered for by whorehouse-running madams and leering johns, and ridiculed by more adulterous women. Everyone in this film basically wants to do Justine, and all appear to be out of control when news of her virginal status is brought up, shunning societal pleasantries in favor of clothes-tearing, panting, raving, dry humping, moaning reckless abandon.

If I haven’t made it clear, there’s a lot of soft-core scroggin’ to be had in MARQUIS DE SADE’S JUSTINE: THE MISFORTUNES OF VIRTUE. Though this barely qualifies as horror, the idea that the mere presence of a woman of virtue can bring out the beast in anyone is an interesting topic to see through the lens of terror. Plagued by nightmarish visions of evil nuns and leering townsfolk, Justine’s fever dreams prove to be somewhat frightening, but most of the time, the horrors come from the contorted laughing faces of the people fetishizing Justine’s virtue. The basic theme of Justine’s chastity being a burden to her throughout this story proves as a no-win situation. In the end, when Justine’s virtue is “plucked”, she is tossed into the river like trash–a judgmental metaphor that isn’t too hard to sort out.

I found this film to be pretty tedious for the most part due to its heavy-handed treatment of the subject matter and the over reliance on menacing laughter to symbolize devilish intentions. Had there been effective bits of horror throughout, I’d love to have focused on that more in this review, but since the terror mainly shows up in the form of overpowering women and stealing their virtue, there are not a lot of scares to be had and the topic of the feminine role is the worthiest topic of dissection. Sure, De Sade is a horrific figure, but this subject matter is dealt with in a much more sophisticated manner in QUILLS or even in the Jack Palance starrer simply called JUSTINE. As a symbol of male frustration in a time when women were gaining voice, MARQUIS DE SADE’S JUSTINE: THE MISFORTUNES OF VIRTUE is a worthwhile dissection of male fear, but other than that, it’s just soft-core porn. And with today’s jaded and internet-savvy audiences, I doubt even the naughty bits will incite a raised eyebrow, much less anything else.