The Shadowed Mind

Stephanie (Adrienne Pearce), a young girl with an overwhelming desire to bare her breasts arrives as a patient at a private clinic for those suffering from sexual dysfunction, run by Dr Hildesheimer (Towje Kleiner) and Nurse Helen (Trish Downing). Other patients include the inhibited Paul (Rufus Swart), the sinister Kurt (Ewan J.Klisser), the neurotic Julia (Hayley Dorsky), the teddy-bear fixated Matthew (Simon Poland) and the radically deluded General (Simon Sabela). Stephanie and Paul begin a tentative affair while a killer stalks the institution, knifing the blonde sex-addict (Deborah Kay), Kurt and Julia, before the shocking conclusion where sexual appetite and necrophilia merge.

Banned for several years in South Africa, this intriguing confection of sex and horror takes place in a private clinic for the sexually disturbed where the staff are more disturbed than anybody else. Composed with the stateliest of camera movements by director Sundstrom (Suffer Little Children, Saxman) who turns on the screws as the killings and sexual couplings proliferate. With a climax reminiscent of Oshima's In the Realm of the Senses and a scenario that is clearly inspired by the Citizen Kane of South African films, Jans Rautenbach's Jannie Totsiens, this is a very strange film indeed.