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If you're a regular here, you've seen the pics over the past several weeks, and you read Esso's glowing review of Red Feline's latest offering, Fantom. This film is a real departure from the normal RFPIX features, in that for the first time, they used no fake blood or special effects of any kind. So did the experiment work? Well, here's my take.
This one doesn't waste any time getting right into the action. The beautiful star of the film, Jane von Detlefson, is awakened from her sleep by a man wearing a white mask (played by Jan Jac, also known as JJ, the film's director). The man is, of course, the mysterious and virtually silent Fantom. Before the opening credits are through flashing on the screen, Jane is knocked out and finds herself hogtied on the floor, still wearing her night clothes and now blindfolded.
 
The Fantom whips out his knife and proceeds to cut and tear Jane's clothing to shreds, stuffing her panties in her mouth (yes!) and tying the remainder of her top around her head to thoroughly gag her. But, unfortunately, he doesn't take off Jane's blindfold so this almost completely covers up her face. And for over the next half hour or so, we're unable to see Jane's expressive eyes, a major mistake. I have a real problem with blindfolds anyway. It's really important to be able to see the victim's face, particularly her eyes. The sensory deprivation Jane experienced during the blindfolded sequences probably added to her personal feelings of helplessness, but it didn't translate well to film in my mind.
 
The Fantom works Jane over with a riding crop, smacking the soles of her feet several times and continuing all over her body. Then he introduces a rope to her hogtie, hoisting her bound wrists and ankles toward the ceiling so that her hogtie is now even tighter and more painful. And she is left in that position for several minutes as the camera records the action from several angles. Then she is ungagged and given a bowl of water to drink, which is followed by even more smacks of the riding crop. Even though Jane does some fine emoting here, all of this action is muted because we still can't see her eyes. At this point, I start shouting at the screen for JJ to take off her damn blindfold already.
 
Finally, nearly 36 minutes into the movie, Jane finally has her blindfold removed and is tied squatting with her hands tied behind her and raised in a strappado position. The Fantom forces her to pee into a bucket that is placed between her legs. And it's now that the movie begins to come alive, now that we can finally see the expressions of its lovely star.
 
The Fantom raises Jane into an extremely uncomfortable position, forcing her to stand on her tiptoes with her arms raised up behind her. The Fantom first works her over with some smacks from his whip, then does what any red-blooded Fantom would do, which is violate her while she's tied up. The rape scene is filmed so that there's no actual penile insertion shown, but I saw glimpses of dick and it did look to me like he was really penetrating her. Only Jane can say for sure whether it was real or simulated. It's a very good rape scene, and the highlight of the movie for me. And there some lovely red marks shown on her bare ass from the whipping after he finishes using her.
 
The next scene is one that should have been killer, but turns out to be merely okay. The Fantom suspends Jane by her wrists, with her ankles still tied together, and goes after her with his whip. So what doesn't work? Well, JJ's whipping appears to be rather mechanical and pedestrian. I kept waiting for him to cut loose and hit her harder, but he never really did. This was surprising, because whipping scenes are usually one of the strengths in past Red Feline productions. Maybe it was the lack of fake blood and whip marks that made this scene less effective here. It could be that maybe because JJ was so dependent on getting impressive results with the fake blood in the past that he felt he didn't need to really tear into her like he should. Still, Jane looks fantastic and really sells the scene with her reactions to every blow.
 
Jane passes out from the whipping, and we're shown several minutes of her first hanging unconscious by her wrists, then being groped by the Fantom once she's been taken down. I don't blame the guy, since I would do the same thing, but sleepy girl fondling is boring. If she's not moving, I'm not interested.
The Fantom next wakes up Jane by hoisting her off the ground again, this time with both her wrists and ankles suspended in the air, leaving her vulnerable to whatever he can dish out. What follows is more whipping, again a very long scene, but mostly lackluster on JJ's part. Jane sells her part with gusto, but the lack of enthusiasm from the villain definitely cuts down on the intensity of the action.
 
A few times during the whipping scene, the Fantom takes a break from whipping Jane to rape her instead, although the penetration scenes definitely look simulated this time. So the sequence goes something like this: whip, whip, whip, rape, rape, whip, whip, whip, rape, rape. Hey, you have to have some variety in life if you're a Fantom!
 
Jane passes out again (was it from the whipping or the raping?) which allows the Fantom easy access to her body for the final bondage sequence. Over the next 10 minutes, Jane is unconscious while he takes her down and drags her naked body across the floor before binding her legs apart with a spreader bar, and tying her arms off to the sides of a horizontal wooden beam, which I've learned is called a patibulum.
 
She awakens to find herself being lifted onto a standing position as the Fantom ties a rope from the patibulum onto the ceiling, forcing Jane again onto her tiptoes. And then it's more whip torture as she is continually flogged all over her body. I'm not sure if the whipping is more intense here, but the Fantom does smack her pussy a few times and even appears to penetrate her with the phallic end of the whip at one point. In this precarious position, Jane must teeter on the ends of her toes to avoid the blows of the whip. Her suffering does appear to be real.
 
But with this being an Red Feline production, you just know Jane has to die. And the Fantom takes care of her by twisting a rope around her neck and pulling until she is no longer breathing, a generally well-done sequence for those of you who like death fantasies portrayed on screen. Her limp body hangs in silence as the credits roll.
 
This was a definite mixed bag for me. As was the case with Agent X (a much better film), one of the problems with Fantom is that the scenes often seem padded and run on too long. There's maybe 75 minutes of good material, but unfortunately the running time is nearly 2 hours long. As an editor, the temptation is often there to use every scrap of footage that is shot, but sometimes less is more. When you notice the scene is starting to drag, it's time to trim it short. I wish they had done that here.
The other problem, unfortunately, was JJ's performance as the villain. He was virtually silent throughout the film (the only time I heard him speak it was so mumbled I couldn't even understand him), which really lessened any kind of emotional impact of the story, such as it was. I seldom ever care for mute villains anyway. For most movies like this to work, you have to have both victim and bad guy giving a performance. In this case, I felt like half the equation was missing.
The best part of the movie, no surprise, is the outstanding performance of Jane von Detlefson as the victim. During the film's feature-length running time, it's her acting that holds the movie together from start to finish, even in the first quarter when we can't see her face. This was clearly a physically demanding role and she gives it her all. But then I consider her to be an extraordinary bondage actress in the first place.
If you're a fan of Jane (and who around here isn't?) and want to see her endure nearly 2 hours of strict bondage and real torture, this is one to get. It's not perfect by any means, but worth checking out.
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