Directed by Wolfgang Büld
Review by Aaron W. Graham


Released by MTI Home Video
Running Time: 93 minutes
Rating: R
Color format: Color
Audio/Subtitles: Spanish
Region Code: 1
Aspect Ratio: Widescreen (1.85:1)
16:9 Enhanced: No
Special Features: Screener with No Bonus Materials
Trailer Online: Yes

The seemingly inexhaustible English expat director Wolfgang Büld returns with another entry in his ongoing horror film series showcasing the sexy attributes and acting chops of the transfixing beauty Fiona Horsey. PENETRATION ANGST (or ANGST on video store shelves here) saw the director and his muse delve into Cronenberg territory, with Horsey quite literally eating her assortment of lovers with her vagina. TWISTED SISTERS (preceding the actual production of THE CHAMBERMAID, but released before) features Horsey pulling double duty as identical twins, with one being a homicidal maniac intent on pinning several murders on her compassionate sis. These previous collaborations have taken them into vastly different territory, but always within the groundwork of a more traditionally perverse horror film, full of a carefully delineated narrative without too many twists and turns. THE CHAMBERMAID, on the other hand, reinvigorates itself constantly by playing on the psychology of its principal players, with far less unmotivated violence and even fewer gore moments to satiate those that prefer that sort of thing. The building of suspense is handled from less extreme, but certainly more realistic, situations. Büld even changes gears with what he includes on the soundtrack, saving the patented death metal tracks seen in his other movies for a few sparse scenes meant to drum up momentum for our anti-heroine.

Horsey plays Julia Bateman, the chambermaid of the title who, much like director Büld, calls London her home. She’s caught between Istvan, her deadbeat rocker boyfriend (William Rowsey) who’s addicted to cocaine, and Michael, her pervy, neurotic boss (Paul Conway) who displays obvious pathological shades of Norman Bates (he’s a hotelier taking care of his much living, though gravely ill, mother). After being caught defenseless in a spur-of-the-moment lapse into prostitution, Julia faces the termination of her job at the hotel, with little chance of finding another vocation in time to pay the rent. Through sheer luck, Julia stumbles upon her morose boss in a drunken stupor, and thus decides to seal her fate by beginning a series of demented head games (mostly revolving around sex – consensual and otherwise) with her former employee. Playing upon the man’s schoolboy crush, Julia decides to deviously conjure up heretofore unexploited vixen tendencies in order to secure her job and, eventually, fool her boss into believing he’s the father of an unborn child - with sickly consequences resulting.

Horsey’s magnetism is what really draws the viewer in, even if we can’t exactly sympathize with her attempts at keeping her ducks in a row (hooking for a sleazy hotel occupant being the first misstep by the filmmakers, if emphasizing was what they were going for). She’s obviously perfectly comfortable being nude in front of a camera, as her ample time in the buff shows (perhaps even more so than in her two other pictures with Büld). Büld cheekily chastises us, the viewer, by obscuring Horsey’s naughty bits through the use of his “film by” credit in the opening titles; such little moments go a long way in demonstrating that the filmmakers are not asleep behind the wheel.

The DVD cover art makes salacious use of Horsey’s attractiveness to help sell the title and, although fiercely misleading (Horsey wielding a knife, giving the impression of a female slasher film), one cannot fault the production company for banking on her good looks (and in this case, especially since it’s worked twice before with ANGST and TWISTED SISTERS). Shot on digital video, it’s presented in its 1.85 original aspect ration (non-anamorphic), with a Dolby 2.0 track being the only audio option. As I received a screener for review, I can’t comment on the nature of extras, though I can note that the film has been re-titled THE CHAMBERMAID for release on home video in North America (it was shown in UK theaters as LOVESICK).

Büld and Horsey set the bar high for future endeavors with this well-considered persuasive suspense film that thankfully can’t be easily labeled, though it does call to mind such antecedents as Hitchcock’s PSYCHO (the aforementioned hotel manager), Claude Chabrol’s ‘60s work with former wife Stéphane Audran (in Horsey’s ability to convincingly manipulate just about every man and their immediate surroundings through playing up her sexuality), and Umberto Lenzi’s ORGASMO (1969) for the way a certain “arrangement” is worked out towards the finale. Working on a low budget that necessitates shooting on digital doesn’t always hamper creativity, as is shown here. Büld alternates between handheld and otherwise, though there a few conscious “art-house” shots that add a degree of personal style: shooting up from the floor through a pair of a man’s legs, an angle from the disgusting bedpan that the hotelier’s invalid mother uses. Büld, who’s now 55, proves with THE CHAMBERMAID that he’s a voice from the margins of the worldwide indie horror film scene to be reckoned with.