SM101 A Realistic Introduction by Jay Wiseman

This book, which has quickly become a classic for the BDSM community, was first published in 1992 but has gone through many re-prints and is now in a revised and updated version. When Wiseman first wrote it, little over a decade ago, the scene was very much underground, there were not nearly enough books on the subject and he agonised over the decision to publish under his own name. We've come a long way since those days, baby! Fetishism now influences fashion and the arts and you could easily collect a whole library of both fiction and non-fiction BDSM works. Yet "SM101" will still be on many a kinkster's bookshelf.

As the title implies, this book is aimed at beginners to the scene. Wiseman (formerly an ambulance crewman and medical student) stresses safety in all aspects of play, which is very welcome. If you are a dominant, you want to lovingly hurt your partner, but you don't want to cause them harm! You can learn here how to inflict the most exquisite torture on your dearest friends without endangering their health or lives in any way. If you are a submissive, this book will help you to recognise whether your dominant knows what he/she is doing or if they are likely to put you at risk. He also reminds readers that everyone - whether dominant or submissive - needs to be wary when getting involved with people they don't know. Following the advice in this book could save your life, either from well-meant but risky play or from someone who doesn't belong on the scene and is in fact a dangerous person.

However, it's not all warnings - there is lots of information about ways to have fun. From initial negotiations - finding out exactly what a new partner expects to give and receive - to chapters with titles like "Giving and Receiving Erotic Pain", "Flagellation", "Clamps", "Erotic 'Torture'", the beginner will be led through pastures new and even the old hand may learn a new technique.

Some readers find this book rather repetitive. I didn't - I don't mind how many times he repeats his safety warnings. Others may feel that, although the book aims to avoid being gender or orientation specific, Wiseman's own viewpoint, as a straight male dominant, skews the book in that direction. I was a little uneasy about his attitude to feminism. Although he claims that most of the women he knows on the BDSM scene are feminists, which is probably true, and it's understandable that he disagrees with some feminists' view that BDSM and women's rights are incompatible (tell that to a domina!), he does seem to be hostile to feminism in general. However, this is one blemish in an otherwise very useful "how-to" manual for the aspiring pervert....

The Wicker Man

First released in 1973, this is a B-movie film which, over the years, has turned into a cult classic. Being a very old wolf, despite my sprightly appearance, I remember watching "The Wicker Man" as a supporting feature for "Don't Look Now" and, to be honest, it didn't strike me as particularly brilliant - except the ending, which was shocking and harrowing. Having seen it several times since then, on TV and DVD, I've grown quite fond of it.

Christopher Lee is quoted as saying that his role as Lord Summerisle in "The Wicker Man" was the strongest in his career (possibly up to his excellent portrayal of Saruman in "The Lord of the Rings.") Certainly it offered him more scope for characterisation than his repeated outings as Dracula. Lord Summerisle is urbane, charming and very possibly quite mad. As a counterpart to his strangeness stands Sargeant Howie (played by Edward Woodward, in another career-defining performance) who ventures into the Lord's domain - a remote Scottish island - in search of a missing child. Howie is prim, pious and perplexed. Ostensibly he is the hero but, of course, we're all on Lord Summerisle's side, even at the terrible climax to his plans. And who could forget how otherworldly Lee appears when dressed as the Teaser, a cross-dressing character in the island's May Day parade, skipping around in his dress and long black wig, tapping a tambourine? Genuinely odd and rather creepy.

In case there is anyone who doesn't know the details of the plot, I won't ruin it for you. I'll just comment that it is enigmatic, bizarre and, in some places, completely illogical, but none the less enjoyable in its twists and turns.

Some people dislike the folky singing which is an integral part of the film, but it fixes the story in time and place. I've never met a gentleman who didn't enjoy Britt Ekland's naked dancing as she casts a spell to lure the virignal policeman (but that's not Britt's bum, chaps - it was a body double.) Neither Britt nor Ingrid Pitt are wholly convincing as Scots lassies but it hardly matters, as every character on Summerisle behaves as if they are slightly demented.

Often refered to as "a study of ancient pagan beliefs", the storyline sticks to the idea that pagans are utterly obsessed with sex and death (well, who isn't?) Yet, despite the fact that it cheerfully slanders the Old Religion, "The Wicker Man" is a favourite film for many pagans. Maybe, secretly, we want to get back at the Christians for all that witch-burning....No, no, we'd never think anything like that. Honestly.

The director's cut, which includes an explanatory first scene which helps to set up the story, is recommended.

Gothika

Okay, how many people saw this movie/rented the video because of the title? And how many were disappointed? Yes, you can put your hands down now. Fools, you are, fools. Weren't you warned by the presence of Halle Berry, the perky-chopped queen of sob-fests? Admittedly Robert Downey Jr has always looked as if he has the potential for an act of real off-the-wall gothic insanity but this isn't it.

Berry plays a brilliant criminal psychologist (Yeah, about as believable as Julia Robert's turn as a brilliant lawyer.), who finds herself on the wrong side of the bars, accused of butchering her wise and loving husband who was also her boss. Our old friend amnesia plays a starring role here, as Berry has no real memory of the crime, just flashes of helpful images such as a naked, battered woman standing in the road in flames. As she struggles to recall the traumatic events, and to convince her former colleagues she's neither insane nor a killer, she is plagued by supernatural assaults which, being invisible, appear to the staff as acts of self-harm. Eventually she gets the message that a ghostly entity is goading her into solving a horrific puzzle which will provide the answers to her own predicament.

Berry runs around a great deal, looking wide-eyed and frightened, and Downey walks through a role so slight you wonder why he, or the writer, bothered. He can at least act, so they might have given him something to get his teeth into. The answer to the mystery, when it finally arrives, is one of those "Well, duh" moments, as the creators of Gothika overlooked one of the golden rules of suspense - when you've got a crime to solve, have more than a couple of suspects!

The only real star of the film is the prison (secure psychiatric hospital, if you prefer). Dark, menacing, huge and brooding - now that's what I call gothic.

Good title, mediocre plot, very average level of acting. It's a sad day when the highlight of a movie is Fred Durst's version of "Behind Blue Eyes."

Dracula A.D 1972

Always a mistake to put a contemporary date in the title. "1984" and "2001: A Space Odyssey" would be much more marketable if Orwell and Kubrick had had the sense to pick a date a couple of millennia away. In "Dracula 1972", Hammer hoped to market their unique brand of horror to the fab, cool groovers in the era of swinging London and, in doing so, created a little gem fossilised forever in the amber of the early '70s.

Masters of the so-bad-it's-good horror genre, Hammer excelled itself in "Dracula 1972". All the magical ingredients are here - cheesy effects, ludicrous dialogue, acting which would stand out as noticeably bad at your local church hall amateur dramatics, a plot that makes almost no sense - magnified by the 1972 setting which adds its own dreadful touch.

A group of wild and trendy kids, complete with flares, ponchos, kaftans and caps, are mesmerised by Johnny Alucard (gosh, what a fiendishly clever way of disguising the family name), a young descendant of a vampiric minion. Alucard's intention is, of course, to resurrect Dracula through a not very noticeably demonic rite in an abandoned church, and his evil intentions are focused on Jessica Van Helsing, a descendant of Dracula's nemesis but unaware of her heritage. Jessica is played by Stephanie Beacham, a nubile and giddy young teenager who looks thirty-five if she's a day.

Christopher Lee's role as Dracula is quite brief here, and no doubt he could have played it in his sleep. Peter Cushing, as Van Helsing, turns in his usual competent performance, with his fixed expression of anxious irritability. The acting of the "teenagers" is uniformly dire though, to be fair, they don't have much to work with. The vampire-raising ritual has some exquisitely risible dialogue - "Dig the music, man" cries Alucard as his entranced followers groove to a fairly dull tape of 70s rock whilst he attempts to draw them into a hypnotic trance in which he will invoke Dracula from the grave. Really, it's quite a relief when the Count actually starts killing a few of the chirpy "youngsters" and you wish he had managed to start with Beacham.

If you have the good taste to appreciate the wonderful badness of Hammer, you'll find this a particularly delicious confection.