Comeuppance Reviews Johnny (Madia) is an up-and-coming saxophone player (this was the 80's, after all) who lets his sax do the talking. And if the scene in the recording studio is any indication, if I may paraphrase Color Me Badd, he really wants to "sax you up". 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. He's a surgeon, and he uses the hospital as his excuse to be away from Carol. 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. But Simpson is so distracted by his wife's carping, he fumbles the operation. 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? Find out today? Did you know AIP released a Lucio Fulci film? Neither did we, until we came across Dangerous Obsession during our, well, obsessive AIP research. 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. In fact, the music by Claudio Natili is not only enjoyable and noteworthy, but actually important to the plot and it drives it along. 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.

trashgang 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. This here doesn't fit in one of those categories.There isn't any blood to see in a gory fashion but it do gives the viewer a lot of nudity. Weird for being made in the late eighties that armpits are still hairy and bushes aren't trimmed. Nevertheless, for me this is a pure sleazefest. We do see some kind of masturbation done by a saxophone and we do have a close up of a pussy being satisfied with lipstick. If that isn't sleazy enough one guy is being wanked off by his girlfriend while riding a motorbike. Corinne Cléry is almost naked the whole flick and it is as gratuitous as it can get. It also contains the Stockholm Syndrome. 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. Most copies that are being sold on DVD do contain Dutch subs. 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

gridoon2018 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. They are known for their gore (almost completely absent here), and their directorial flair (some of which is present here). 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? **1/2 out of 4.

unbrokenmetal 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. She phones him, threatens him, then abducts him, tortures him and says she will finally kill him. 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).