You know who doesn't get enough cult movie love but should?
The really rather wonderful Monika Zanchi.
I first encountered her when, as a shy retiring 12 year old, I accidentally came across a copy of Joe D'Amato's
Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals whilst looking for a Marathon bar in the back of a cupboard, obviously I had to see what it was about because the title didn't give it away obviously and, after what seemed like days of D'Amato's trademark ugly people having sex mixed with hard core gore shtick and just as I was starting to feel a wee bit ill she appeared - all strawberry blonde locks, freckles and wide eyed innocence and looking for all the
world like a cutesy librarian dropped naked into a cesspool of cannibal
kinkiness.
And from that moment I was smitten in a way only a 12 year old could be.
Damn you D'Amato springing Zanchi onto me as an innocent, horror loving teen.
I mean between her and Nastassja Kinski in Cat People is it any wonder
it took me nearly so long to find a girlfriend who lived up to such
perfection?*
*As an aside I should point out that apart from being absolutely
beautiful and a damn fine actress to boot Zanchi also performs the
second best masturbation scene ever committed to celluloid in this very
movie.**
**The best being Harvey Keitel's car window Nat West in The Bad Lieutenant obviously.
