Diary of a Schizo

Starring Rene Bond as Sarah Bennett, another dissatisfied California housewife on the verge of succumbing to ~~ furor uterimus~~. The film begins with a fantasy sequence in which Sarah and her neighbor (played again by Susan Fause, this time with dirty feet) double-saddle a mysterious, supine stud. Back in reality - sort of - we are introduced to Sarah and her husband Dexter by a white-coated narrator who suddenly appears in their dining room, his horn-rimmed glasses reeking with clinical authority. "Schizophrenia is one of the oldest and most perplexing maladies," he informs us, and although she does not realize it, Sarah is about to submit to the evil urgings of an "alter ego." Later that night, grabbing her head and wincing like an embolism just lodged in her brain, Sarah experiences her first "attack." Sitting at her dressing table, she smears her cheeks with lipstick and then proceeds to diddle herself on the bed with a vibrator. That night after dinner, a second attack cause Sarah to accost her hubby in a revealing body stocking and suck his dick with gusto. He casts her to the floor in disgust, however, insisting that she will pay for her sins. After more fantasizing in which Sarah is seen fornicating to an eerie 12-tone music score and the baleful wailing of the damned, the psycho sexpot appears in a low-cut dress and staggers out into the street. As luck would have it, a hippy wino is sitting on the curbstone and obligingly invites her into a nearby garage. The longhaired lush's attentions, however, are still not enough to satisfy Sarah's nymphomaniac hunger. She takes a final swig of the rummy's ripple then strokes herself to orgasm with the empty bottle. Back to our medical update (it never hurts to work a little "redeeming social value" into your fuck-film) the white-coated narrator informs us that Sarah's malady has now reached a point of no return. "Soon, there will no longer be a quiet, withdrawn, inhibited Sarah Bennett." Her marriage on the rocks, she experiences another cerebral episode; this time, she lures a neighbor into her kitchen for a top-ride on the linoleum. The willing victim spouts a stream of dirty talk while Sarah sucks him to orgasm. The tryst is interrupted, however, when the man's wife - Sarah's girlfriend - happens upon the unsightly scene in dismay. Deranged with lust, Sarah laughs at her. Sunken to the depths of degradation, Sarah is finally found sometime later strung out in a cheap flophouse, the filthy sink cluttered with empty bottles and dead roaches. A man enters the room and she services him mechanically, once again to the strains of dissonant pan-tonal music. After combing his hair in the mirror for what appears an eternity (a shot with strong resonances of Warhol's ~~My Hustler ~~), the guy castigates Sarah's laziness and order her back onto the streets to earn "some heavy bread." Dissipated beyond recovery, however, Sarah, remains on her back, muttering over and over "goodbye, goodbye..." The shrink finally reappears to let us know that Sarah's illness - and her tale - has reached its terminal point. ~~Diary of a Schizo~~ currently remains authorless, although its makers needn't demure for fear of undue criticism. The film features a strangely progressive (although certainly canned) soundtrack and bears a few flourishes worthy of attention. The "Raggedy Ann" blush job that Sarah applies during her attacks adds a surreal edge to her sexual persona, while pointless but evocative inserts of a Van Gogh print in Sarah's living room (one of them gradually rotating upside down) remind the viewer of Doris Wishman's infamous "cut-away" editing style. In the end, of course, it is Rene Bond - bobble-headed and perky as usual - who accounts for much of the film's entertainment index. In spite of several ill-chosen angles revealing her breast implant scars, Bond maintains a nubile alacrity atypical of porn doyennes and still appealing 30 years later. While accurate release information for the film is not available, a calendar in one scene dated April 1972 reasonably documents its production date.