Flesh + Blood ★★★

BAT SHIT crazy is one way to describe Paul Verhoeven’s 1985 adventure film Flesh + Blood.

I’m not sure what the Dutch enfant terrible of international cinema had in mind, but it’s a bizarrely messy and violent medieval tale set in 1501 that includes Australia’s Jack Thompson and Tom Burlinson in key roles along with a wonderful and typically batty lead performance from Rutger Hauer.

The story behind the film is possibly even more interesting than the final product, with Verhoeven coming off a constant battle with government film backers in his homeland before telling them all to get stuffed, making Flesh + Blood in Italy and then settling in the United States where he gave us a string of eclectic gems over the next decade including Starship Troopers, Robocop, Total Recall and Basic Instinct.

Flesh + Blood also seems to have been the film that ended his burgeoning collaboration with Hauer who appeared in five Verhoeven films but none of them since.

Anyway,  the plague is making the rounds during the period in which Flesh+Blood is set and we see plenty of it. We’re introduced to Burlinson’s character with a close-up next to a hanging corpse’s rotting genitalia, there’s a sex scene underneath said body and Thomson’s character uses a catapult to fling chunks of diseased dog over the ramparts of a castle to cause an outbreak amongst the group of mercenaries led by Hauer’s character Martin.

As you can tell this film is pure Verhoeven style of pushing buttons with the audience, particularly back in the ‘80s in a film that was billed as a sweeping romantic adventure.

There really isn’t much romance in the rape of Jennifer Jason Leigh’s character who is basically forced into a relationship with martin in order to survive.

And look out for classic B-grade actress Susan Tyrell’s performance as a bug-eyed drunken prostitute.

Even though it’s an obvious take on some of the aesthetics of Ken Russell’s much better film The Devils, Flesh+Blood remains an enjoyable oddity.

Watched on DVD.