Vinegar Syndrome, always scouring the depths of genre cinema, is set to debut the first release in its new Sexploitation Signature Series, Red Roses of Passion in a LIMITED EDITION DVD/Blu-ray combo pack this week. The new sub-imprint looks to highlight this genre by giving VS a chance to release films that wouldn’t traditionally fall into either the exploitation or hard-core genres they tend to be more well known for. The first spine (Yes collectors, they are numbered!) goes to Joe Sarno’s Red Roses of Passion, which almost sounds like a bad soap opera, but is a pulpy East Coast melodramatic romp with a supernatural twist.
Red Roses of Passion focuses on Carla (Patricia McNair), a “bad girl” who is tired of her prudish aunt and cousin telling her she that needs to find a “decent guy” and to stop sneaking men into their home at night. Enter Enid (Carol Holleck), Carla’s coworker who just also happens to belong to a Pan worshipping sex cult run by an incestuous brother and sister duo who offer Carla a reprieve in the hopes of ensnaring the young woman. After slipping her aunt and cousin the “Wine of Delphi” given to her by the high priestess in their nightly tea, once triggered by a rose delivered from the “Garden of Pan” this puts the women in a sexual frenzy. Instead of simply “Taking them down a peg”, Carla’s aunt and cousin are then turned into insatiable sex fiends stalking the streets at night and the only way to save them is if Carla joins the cult.
Red Roses of Passion is a lurid, monochromatic slice of New York Sexploitation sleaze produced in 1966 before hard-core became the 42nd street standard. Directed by the prolific Joseph W. Sarno with lush cinematography and surprisingly competent acting, the film uses the fantastic to tell a cautionary tale about what happened when “one of those girls” got involved with the occult. I love that, of course, it starts innocuously enough with a Tarot Card reading. Bombshell Patricia McNair (The Love Merchant) is right in her element here as Carla, the naïve troublemaker who falls in with the cult that spends the majority of the film hanging out in sheer night gowns and sending each other into a sexual frenzy by touching each other with roses; hence the title of the film. While par for the course for the genre, Roses sets itself apart with its stark imagery and its unhinged eroticism.
The film is scanned and restored and from the recently discovered camera negative and is leaps and bounds better than the previous SWV scans currently floating around and is on par with some of Syndrome’s better transfers. It has a good contrast which only helps highlight the black and white cinematography by Anthony Lover — yes that’s his real name. The film is paired with a no frills yet restored DTS-HD MA English mono audio track, that completes the presentationH, which is sure to pleasantly surprise Sarno fans. Interestingly enough the only extra is an interview with Sarno biographer Michael Bowen, who does his best to give some background on the production of Roses and discuss how it fits into Sarno’s overall filmography.
Red Roses of Passion is a strong start to this new imprint that fans of Garagehouse Pictures’ The Satanist will definitely dig. The film still stands as one of Joe Sarno’s strongest efforts in its take on one woman’s descent into the flesh. While a bit tame in comparison to some of Vinegar Syndrome’s ohter releases there is still a lot of lurid subtext for those that can look just beneath the surface of this snapshot of the seedier side of cinema. It’s great that Vinegar Syndrome continues to not only release and preserve these films, but also give them the attention and respect they deserve highlighting these forgotten gems.