Il miele del diavolo

Plot synopsis:
Johnny (Stefano Madia) and Jessica (Blanca Marsillach) are young lovers embroiled in the throes of wild passion. Johnny, a musician, is obsessed with sex, and carries the protesting, but breathless, Jessica along with his erotic charm. The film opens at a recording studio where Johnny, after taking a break playing his saxophone, calls Jessica into the booth and sexually fondles her before other techs arrive and Jessica is forced to leave.Meanwhile, Dr. Wendell Simpson (Brett Halsey), is a surgeon with marital problems. He never makes love to his unhappy wife Carol (Corinne Clery), and is obsessed with his work at the hospital more than anything else. What's more, Carol has recently discovered that he makes regular visits to prostitutes during and after work. He visits Anna, a call girl at a local hotel where after fondling her and having quick but unsatisfying sex, forces her to leave after paying her.The next day, Johnny continues his torrid affair with Jessica by forcing her to fondle him while riding on his motorcycle. Afterwords at their house, he semi-forces himself upon her and has sex with her anally despite her protests to stop. Next, while Johnny fools around by riding around on his motorcycle he falls and hits his head on a stone plate. At first he appears fine, but later, in the recording studio, he collapses into a coma brought on by an apparent subdural hematoma.That evening, Carol demands a divorce from Dr. Simpson when he is called to the hospital in the operating room to perform emergency brain surgery on an injured musician. Carol follows Simpson right to the O.R. and springs the divorce plans she has for him again. During the operation, Simpsons mind wanders, and Johnny dies on the operating table. Driving away from the hospital, Simpson is chased by the grief-stricken Jessica who swears revenge on her boyfriend's "killer".Jessica starts sending threatening notes and making harassing phone calls to Simpson at his office, always repeating the same line, "why did you let him die?" At a private golf club, Simpson and Carol are playing on the links when they decide to make one final attempt to patch up their marriage. Entreating her husband to "treat me like a whore", Carol entices her husband to bed. Just as things start to happen as Simpson begins having sex with Carol, the telephone rings. After more then a dozen or more rings, Simpson feels compelled to answer despite the urgency of his wife's needs. He rolls off her to pick up the phone, but the phone rings off before he can answer. However, the damage is done. Carol gets up, dresses, and walks out on him for good. Seconds later, the telephone rings again. When Simpson picks it up right away, he hears Jessica's voice again saying, "why did you let him die?"Jessica becomes steadily more deranged with grief, spending hours watching home videos of Johnny. The next day she pulls a gun on Simpson as he gets into his car to go to the hospital. Forcing him to drive to her house, she chloroforms him when they arrive and ties him up in the cellar. Simpson regains consciousness to find an Alsatian dog barking furiously at him, tied up just inches away. Outside, Jessica is smashing his car with an axe. She then informs her captive that she intents to kill him... but only when she's ready. Jessica then sets about humiliating her captive by forcing him to eat dog food, and having him lick her bare abdomen which is smeared with his own blood from a wound she inflicts on him. Simpson finds himself strangely and perversely attracted to his tormentor.Jessica's sadistic games go further when she forces Simpson at gunpoint to down to the beach outside the building. Whilst dragging him on a leash, she says she intends to drown him, and almost does by holding him under the water of the surf. But then she suddenly changes her mind and in a panic pulls Simpson out of the water and revives him.In a series of flashbacks, Jessica's memories are shown of her dead lover, which become more ambivalent as she recalls some of the cruelties and excesses Johnny was capable of. A baby she'd been carrying from her affair with Johnny miscarried at an early stage, and her periods resume. Her pet dog dies as well, and she buries him on the beach. Growing ever more melancholic, she engages in further sex games with the submissive Simpson who listens with compassion to Jessica's ramblings about her life with Johnny, until she re-calls a final recollection which changes her mind about Johnny.Several months earlier, during a vacation getaway to Venice, Italy, Johnny bought an expensive bracelet to symbolize their love for one another. Johnny and Jessica went to a local cinema with one of Johnny's friends, Nicky (Bernard Seray), a camp musical associate. During the movie, the two lovers embraced in a passionate kiss, but Jessica was horrified to discover that Johnny was simultaneously letting Nicky go down on him. The memory of this kinky ménage-a-trios was the last straw.Back in the present, Jessica, finally seeing the self-destructive person Johnny really was, walks to the ocean and throws the "mystical bracelet" Johnny bought for her, into the water. Jessica returns to the house to her prisoner's "kennel", where she unties Simpson and tells him that he is free to go.Jessica goes back upstairs to her bedroom, strips off all her clothes, and lies down on her bed, putting the pistol to her head intending to kill herself. Seconds later, the besotted Simpson walks willingly into her bedroom and prevents her from committing suicide by having sex with her as both of them are now drawn into a torrid passion of their own making. The film ends with Simpson and Jessica laying side by side in bed when Simpson begins to recite a poem to Jessica that he said earlier in the film:"When you have spent your life like a fortune that never seemed to end. A second chance will come like a long lost friend. Great joy will fill you and flush you hot. No more will you ever be cool for she is the Devil's honey pot. And you'll drown in her you fool."

Tags: sadist

Review:
Not usual Fulci-movie.
I've seen overall 30 Lucio Fulci's movies, horror and non-horror, and have to admit that Devil's honey did surprise me.
Many people doesn't like this one, because it's so different than Fulci's better known splatter-movies, but I have to disagree with that.
Even though movie differs very much maestro's earlier works like for example Zombie flesh-eaters, Beyond, City of the living dead or even notorious New York ripper, doesn't make it bad.
Sure there's different kind of elements involved this time, but movie is still worth to watch.Basically Devil's honey, as it is titled in most English language countries, is a story of a love and disappointment, which leads eventually to a kidnapping and a torture.
It's a story of a disappointed young woman, who kidnaps a doctor who failed to save her boyfriend and who tortures the doctor to the limits to get her satisfactional punishment.
There's some sadomasochistic elements involved too, because doctor falls in love with his torturer and starts to enjoy his punishment.
Many people see this as a main thing in this movie, but it isn't.
Although the story behind the torturing is very simple and little twisted (like many other Fulci movies too), sadomasochism isn't playing the leading role here.I'll give Devil's honey 8/10 just because it's nice to see that Fulci can handle this kind of erotic thriller as well as his earlier horror flicks.
Lucio Fulci's name has become synonymous with gore; and that is unfortunate, as there's so much more to the great Italian director than just splatter flicks.
The four pre-Zombi 2 Giallo films that Fulci made prove this, and there's enough other gems dotted throughout the man's filmography that go a long way towards proving it further; The Devil's Honey being one of them.
This is a surprisingly restrained film considering the more famous Fulci flicks, although the lack of gore is somewhat made up for in nudity; as this film is certainly not short on that front.
The first twenty minutes aren't a far cry away from being a porn film, and it's not until the first plot point that we realise Fulci does have actually have a story to tell.
The plot follows a young man who has an accident (which is completely his own fault) and ends up on the operating table of Doctor Simpson, a man tormented by his nagging wife and questionable manhood.
After the young man dies, poor old Doctor Simpson begins receiving irritating phone calls from a woman repeatedly asking why he let the man die.
Before long, he finds himself the captive of the vindictive female.It has to be said that the story plays out well, and while it's not exactly plot heavy; Fulci does a good job of keeping the sexual tension high, and that is highly beneficial since it's the main point of the movie.
The film is bound to appeal to sadists and feminists alike, as much of the movie features the young women exacting her revenge on the man she blames for the death of her lover.
The main intrigue comes from the relationship between the two leads, as although their acquaintance is based on hatred; they soon develop a perverse love for one another.
Perhaps the most surprising thing about this film is the fact that the love doesn't come across as contrived!
Fulci sets up the characters so well that it's easy to see how and why this relationship transpires as it does.
The only real problem with the film is that Fulci spends a little too much time with flashbacks between the girl and her dead lover, and this takes the focus away from the girl and the doctor, which should always be kept at the forefront of the film.
However, The Devil's Honey works well in spite of that and overall this little thriller is well worth seeking out!
I'd also like to give a quick mention to the poem that the movie takes its title from, as like the rest of the film - it's rather good!.
Also known as Dangerous Obsession,this movie was intended to be Lucio Fulci's comeback after more than a year of dealing with hepatitis.
It's a return to the giallo (or at least sexually related drama) that he was creating in the early 70's instead of the gore that he'd become infamous for throughout the 80's, but when you're dealing with Fulci, you know you're going to get something certifiably insane and also something that doesn't fit into any set category.The film opens on Johnny playing that tender, tender saxophone that the ladies love so much.
And no one loves it more than Jessica, his woman, who runs into the booth to lick the spit off his lips rather than let him wipe it himself.
Johnny responds by fondling her in front of the engineers and his band, who are all like, "Brah, you gotta get outta here with that noise." Instead, Johnny kicks everyone out and he takes her right in the middle of the studio, against her protests, telling her that he is her master and that everything he loves is in her.
She argues that he doesn't want her, only a piece of her, and Johnny responds by playing sax music directly into her woman parts.
Honestly, I don't even know if this is physically possible, but it's one of the funniest scenes I've ever seen in a movie.
It's like Fulci was upset he couldn't just cut out someone's eyeball, so he decided to do the most ridiculous sex scene possible.You know how you get jaded and say, "I've seen everything?" Well, I'm here to tell you that you haven't until you watch The Devil's Honey.Unbeknowskt to our lovers, everyone was in the booth watching.
They blame Jessica for distracting Johnny, so she leaves for the bar.We cut to a Dr. Wendell Simpson (Brett Halsey, Return of the Fly, Demonia) being stripped of his scrubs after a successful surgery.
He calls to tell Carol (Corinne Clery, who of course is Kala from Yor, Hunter from the Future), his wife, that he will be late.
The doctor responds by rubbing that red nail polish all over her face before taking her violently and quickly, then he pays her to leave, as she calls him a monster.Honestly, Fulci stages a sex scene like he stages a spider eating off someone's face.Carol catches the doctor leaving the prostitute's apartment, just as we move back to Johnny and Jessica on a roller-coaster.
They lick faces as the coaster goes up and down the hills, which is intercut with Caol lying in bed, unfulfilled as the doctor sleeps.Just when you think Fulci is going to back off on the insanity, we have Johnny and Jessica on a motorcycle, where he forces her to fondle him while he races the bike faster and faster until they nearly hit a car.Ladies — if you're into dudes wearing Cosby sweaters, tight jeans and brown leather, Johnny is the man for you.They head back to their house, where they make love while Dickey from The Beyond barks outside their door.
Seriously, her mood swings seem like a red flag, but I'm 45 and not a famous saxophone player.
Lucio Fulci's films are not known for their great scripts, and indeed the storytelling in "Devil's Honey" is often sloppy and the ending is weak.
Of course this is a rather atypical outing for Fulci (his answer to "9 ½ Weeks", perhaps?), and it works mostly thanks to Blanca Marsillach's surprisingly good performance: she's a beautiful young woman with a perfect body who walks around in the nude a lot, but beyond her looks she gives more depth than you'd expect to her character, making her innocent and curious (and easily aroused!) at first, sadistic and vengeful in the second half (I loved those little smirks that showed how much pleasure she got from her power over her male captive), but always very human underneath.
Although she is 3rd-billed, make no mistake: she is the star of this film (2nd-billed Corinne Clery has a relatively small part, but she DOES get fully nude as well!).
This is why this erotic thriller is so much more "erotic" than "thriller": who wouldn't want to be captured by a woman like Blanca and become her plaything?
Cecilia (Blanca Marsillach) is in love with the sax player Gaetano (Stefano Madia) who has an accident with his motorbike.
Later, Doctor Guido Domenici (Brett Halsey) supervises the operation, but he makes a fatal mistake because he doesn't pay attention.
He has problems with his wife Carole (Corinne Clery) who wants a divorce.
Understandably, Cecilia doesn't care about the doctor's personal problems - she only knows he is responsible for the death of Gaetano and wants revenge.
However, as they spend a lot of time together, a strange relationship begins to form...
(Note: the names of the characters are different in the original Italian version compared to the English version.) Although this may have similarities with "9 1/2 Weeks" on the surface, "Il miele del diavolo" reminds me more of the deeper, obsessive films of Andrzej Zulawski or even Luis Bunuel.
Stylistically, this is quite experimental, as Cecilia sees her dead boyfriend walking around and has flashbacks like visions.
Beyond the obvious bits of exploitation, this is an ambitious and interesting work by Fulci (who briefly appears as a talisman seller)..
Sadomasochism, love, obsession.
This is an atypical Lucio Fulci film in that it focuses on themes which are usually examined by Jess Franco.
Nevertheless, this is still one of my top three favorite Fulci films (behind Lizard in a Woman's Skin and New York Ripper).
It is an interesting examination of an increasingly dangerous sadomasochistic relationship, a relationship tinged with unbridled lust, obsession, torture, and love.Although the first thirty minutes of the film (with the exception of the great saxophone sex scene) are quite silly and cheaply done, the second half of the film completely surprised me with its serious and dark tone.
As the film progresses, we are increasingly drawn into a truly screwed up relationship, until we realize that the only resolution to this relationship is absolute nihilism and destruction.An atypical, yet ultimately satisfying film by the maestro Fulci.
I do know Fulci as a horror buff from his splatter flicks but I even knew him from his sometimes almost porn look-a-like flicks.
it's a weird story full of sex and torture towards the end.
Fulci fans do search this rare to find flick but it's findable on fleamarkets in the Netherlands and Belgium on VHS.
As I said before, not a typical Fulci but not boring at all.Gore 0/5 Nudity 3,5/5 Effects 0/5 Story 2/5 Comedy 0/5.
Blanca Marsillach looks great, everything else just so-so.
Corinne Clery got a top billing, but she played only a minor character in this film.
The real star was Blanca Marsillach, and she was pretty good, inasmuch as I can tell in a film that appeared to be dubbed.
Her sweet, innocent look was a good one for the violent revenge she takes.
(Man, I wish European actresses would shave their armpits, though) Also in the early scenes where "Johnny" was playing the saxophone, it was painfully obvious that he was not.
Devil's Honey, The (1986)** 1/2 (out of 4) Bizarre film for Fulci sees him in more of a Jess Franco type of territory.
In the film, a woman (Blanca Marsillach) loses her mind after the death of her boyfriend.
Even though it was his fault, she blames the doctor (Brett Halsey) who was operating on him when he died.
Soon the woman kidnaps the doctor and plans to torture him both physically and sexually.
This certainly isn't the type of film you'd expect someone like Fulci to make especially during this period in his career.
Throughout this decade we were getting non-stop violence and gore but that's all cut out here and in its place is non-stop nudity and bizarre sex scenes.
The first twenty-minutes of this film features one sex scene after another and it appears they each get more and more bizarre.
Fulci's THE NEW YORK RIPPER was pretty perverse but so is this film and that includes a scene where the boyfriend "satisfies" the woman by putting his trumpet up to her private parts and playing.
The sex scenes never reach the hardcore stage but Fulci handles them pretty well, although he never quite reaches a full erotic mode.
One could compare this film to Franco's SHE KILLED IN ECSTASY but that movie worked a lot better because we understood the woman's need for revenge.
The second reason is because the woman is simply blaming the wrong person for his death.
Halsey, a soon to be Fulci regular, does a pretty good job in his role but there's no question that the film belongs to Marsillach who really digs deep into her character.
The two work quite well together and certainly make the film a lot better than it really has the right to be.
Fans of Fulci will certainly want to check this one out but others probably won't find too much entertainment here..
Fulci and his team bring quality and interest to something that could have been a lot worse in the hands of a lesser director..
Johnny (Madia) is an up-and-coming saxophone player (this was the 80's, after all) who lets his sax do the talking.
Johnny is in an intense, stormy, and tumultuous relationship with Jessica (Marsillach).
Meanwhile, Dr. Wendell Simpson (Halsey) is in a downright failing relationship with his wife Carol (Clery), primarily due to his frequenting of prostitutes and neglecting the needs of his wife.
When Johnny suffers a motorbike accident - again because he's the ultimate 80's coolguy - while proclaiming his undying love for Jessica, he ends up on the operating table of Dr. Simpson.
So Jessica reacts in the way anybody else would - she kidnaps the doctor and subjects him to endless psychological/physical/sexual torture.
What will happen to Jessica and the doctor?
Did you know AIP released a Lucio Fulci film?
No one's a bigger Fulci fan than me, so I was delighted to stumble on to a movie of his I'd never seen before.
Because of his famous horror movies, most people that know his name simply associate it with gore.
But the truth is, the man has worked in just about every film genre there is.
As we all know, the Italian film industry is known for, let's say, jumping on the bandwagon of prevailing cinematic trends, and at this point in time, erotic dramas were, no pun intended, hot.
And while many people have drawn parallels between this movie and 9 1/2 Weeks, it's really like a "Last Tango In Rome" meets Emanuelle's Revenge (1975), which was directed by Joe D'Amato, himself no stranger to the erotic drama, namely Eleven Days, Eleven Nights (1987).
Of course, the whole thing has a very European flavor to it that I personally found appealing.The aforementioned Emanuelle's Revenge is probably the closest parallel you'll find to Dangerous Obsession, because both are Italian psychological-erotic hostage dramas with a structure of flashbacks.
But only Dangerous Obsession opens with live smooth sax.
Probably the best place to turn at this point would be to quote Stephen Thrower, from his must-have monograph on Fulci, Beyond Terror: "Fulci turned in a trashy, often hilarious S&M fantasy with a few dark undertows of melancholia for good measure." So Fulci fans who haven't seen it should check it out, especially those only familiar with his horror output.
For everyone else, those with a taste for this kind of thing most likely won't be disappointed, because Fulci and his team bring quality and interest to something that could have been a lot worse in the hands of a lesser director..
With your host: Lucio Fulci!!.
"The Devil's Honey" is definitely one of the rarest and possibly also the strangest movie Lucio Fulci has on his impressive repertoire.
And even though it must be very appealing to fans of the man, I certainly wouldn't advise to move heaven and earth in order to purchase a copy of this film.
Although not at all bad or boring, this is an extremely atypical Fulci-movie and the complete lack of gore and zombie-action is likely to disappoint people that only know Fulci from films like "City of the Living Dead" and "Zombi 2".
"The Devil's Honey" is more like an erotic melodrama and it seems like Fulci took this opportunity to insert as many bizarre sexual fantasies as humanly possible in one screenplay.
Especially during the first half hour, this film brings forward some of the oddest sex scenes ever, including sex with a saxophone (very creative!), sex with red paint (weird!), sex on the roller-coaster (exciting!), a threesome in the movie-theater (too strange for words) and sex on a motorcycle (don't try this at home!).
We follow a young couple with an extremely healthy sexual appetite as well as a frustrated surgeon who regularly visits prostitutes in order to escape his boring marriage.
All their lives interfere when the young man is involved in a banal accident and the surgeon isn't able to save his life.
The slightly insane girl Jessica personally holds Dr. Simpson responsible for her lover's death and decides to kidnap him.
Her plan is to kill him but, of course, they start a passionate sexual relationship instead.
Like other reviewers pointed out correctly, it's very interesting to see how Lucio Fulci  universally known as the director of gorehound movies  is also capable of bringing an intense, non-graphic thriller.
The music is good & atmospheric and, perhaps the best thing, the chemistry between the girl and the surgeon comes across as very realistic.
Nothing like the average Italian horror film, this movie reminded me most of artistic portraits like Paul Verhoeven's "Turkish Delight", Annaud's "L'Amant" or Catherine Braillat's "Romance X".