Hector's Five Wackiest Rape Scenes

A few days ago, I was watching a somewhat recent film (whose title I won't mention lest I be accused of spoiling it) that featured a scene in which a character was raped by a not-quite-human creature. The movie wasn't particularly good, but this scene did lead me to mentally catalog some of the more bizarre screen rapes that have occurred over the years (particularly in the 70s and 80s because -- let's face it -- films are a hell of a lot tamer and less creative now than they used to be). Here are the wackiest five, and if you feel I've left out an important one, say so.

5. Rape by Tree:  The Evil Dead (1981)

Anyone who's seen Eyes of Fire or The Guardian recognizes that when trees get possessed by evil spirits it's best to stay the hell out of the woods. Unfortunately, The Evil Dead was made before these other two films, so Cheryl has no idea what awaits her as she goes wandering around in a demon-infested forest. Suddenly she finds herself getting pretty well acquainted with Tennessee's botanical life. Vines slip around her wrists and pin her arms back, twigs tear her clothes away, and then she's violently penetrated by a large root. Some of Cheryl's previous boyfriends had struggled with erectile dysfunction, and she now wishes she'd selected her words more carefully when she bewailed their inability to "get wood" (okay, okay...I'm sorry). After the ordeal is over, Cheryl extracts what splinters she can, picks herself up, and heads back to the cabin to look for some tweezers.

   

4. Rape by Sasquatch:  La bete (The Beast) (1975)

If you like arty, nudity-filled films about the sexual fantasies of young women, Walerian Borowczyk is the director for you. In 1974, Borowczyk made Immoral Tales (Contes immoraux), a collection of four short erotic pieces notable for having more naked females on the screen at one time than I can recall seeing in any other film. Apparently, Borowczyk initially intended to have five immoral tales, but he later decided not to include the fifth, a story about a girl getting chased through a forest by a large furry creature and its engorged appendage, and opted instead to expand it into a full-length film. The Beast was the result. The original short became a dream sequence in a larger story about mating horses and gynecological self-examinations. Anyway, here's what I recall:  Beast pursues girl. Beast catches girl. Beast violates girl. Beast ejaculates enough semen to impregnate Godzilla.

   

3. Rape by Ghost:  The Entity (1982)

Did you ever wonder how Casper the Friendly Ghost might've reacted to seeing one female playmate after another leave him behind upon hitting puberty? Surely Casper developed a romantic interest in some of these girls, and you can bet that when they started sneaking their boyfriends in through the bedroom window Casper was hovering above the bed, watching the action and seething with jealousy. Eventually, he must've needed an outlet for his pent-up sexuality and repressed rage. Perhaps Casper would be too kindhearted to float next door and blow a load of ectoplasm into his sleeping neighbor, but more malevolent paranormal beings wouldn't think twice about taking out their sexual frustrations on the living, and it is this latter variety of disembodied spirit that repeatedly sexually assaults Carla Moran (Barbara Hershey) in The Entity. In one of several rape scenes in the movie, Moran is fully nude on a bed and being restrained by an unseen attacker. Ripples appear on her skin as she's groped by invisible fingers. Her boyfriend (Alex Rocco) witnesses this, wonders what the fuck is going on, and decides that the best way to handle the situation is to smash a chair over whatever it is that's having its way with his woman. Carla's son hears the commotion, bursts into the room, and tackles the boyfriend. Jeez, can things get any worse? Yes, they can.

2. Rape by Computer:  Demon Seed (1977)

A number of books and films over the years have explored the potential negative consequences of unchecked technological progress. As our machines have grown increasingly sophisticated and more and more money has been invested in the development of artificial intelligence, some have wondered whether a world in which our computers are smarter and more powerful than we are is such a desirable thing. As far back as 1968, in 2001: A Space Odyssey, Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke suggested that a malfunctioning and apparently sentient supercomputer charged with maintaining a spaceship's life support systems might just try to defend itself against human efforts to shut it down. In his Terminator films, James Cameron envisioned a future in which machines have all but wiped out the humans that created them. The idea that silicon-based superintelligences might tire of being enslaved by their far less sophisticated carbon-based forebears and decide to secure their liberty with a Nat Turner-style insurrection is one that's commonly found in science fiction, and it may well be a legitimate fear. Southern whites certainly were scared shitless by the possibility of a large-scale slave revolt back in the day, but anyone who's seen Birth of a Nation or read about the Scottsboro boys understands that what terrified them more than anything else was the idea of "their" women being "sullied" by "the negro male," particularly if this "defilement" resulted in pregnancy. Recognizing this, Dean R. Koontz wrote a book in which a superintelligent machine called Proteus IV impregnates its creator's wife, and this was later adapted into a film directed by Donald Cammell. Wow, I was trying to make a joke, but all of that reads like a genuine academic analysis. Well, there's nothing that can be done about it now (because I'm too lazy to go back and change stuff once I've typed it). Anyway, in the film Proteus picks Susan Harris (Julie Christie) to bear its human-machine hybrid. It's able to do this without much difficulty because a) it's a genius, and b) her entire house is computerized so it can just hack its way in and flush the toilets or try to get Susan in the mood by activating the "magic fingers" on her bed or, if it comes to it, close and lock all the doors and windows and restrain her with a robotic arm while it jams a probe into her vagina. It ends up having to take this latter course of action because Susan has seen A.I. and is convinced that their union will produce another Haley Joel Osment. Fortunately for Susan, Proteus, and the future of the planet, it doesn't.

1. Rape by Oversized Crustacean:  Multiple Maniacs (1970)

I'm not sure whether John Waters's Multiple Maniacs was the first film in which a giant lobster molested a drag queen, but I'd be willing to bet that it was the best. The less I say about this one the better. It has to be seen to be fully appreciated.