I know that Halloween is long gone, but I love the holiday so much that I always feel like I'm in a Hallo-hangover for several days afterward. As a result, I want to highlight one last hippie-era horror movie: the 1972 adaptation of The Possession of Joel Delaney.
As I said, this 1972 film is an adaptation of a Ramona Stewart novel that she released in 1968. She was known primarily for writing pulp novels and horror. In fact, her work was also known to have homosexual sex in it. I only provide that background to let you know what type of novel/movie this is: smutty, pulpy, and filled with gore.
The plot follows a woman who is an upper-class Manhattan socialite and recent divorcee. She starts to wonder if her own brother is possessed. He's not possessed by any old common demon. He's possessed by the spirit of a serial killer! Why does she think that? A woman was recently beheaded in Spanish Harlem and she thinks her brother may have been connected.
Obviously, she doesn't think that her brother is a run-of-the-mill serial killer. She can't believe that he himself would simply do these things, so she becomes convinced that he is possessed. The film stars Shirley MacLaine, Perry King, and Barbara Trentham.
Watch Barbara Trentham have a rough sex scene with a beautiful view in the background. You can check out this blonde bombshell's breasts as she lays on her back for 30 seconds.
Barbara Trentham stars in the film and she is really wonderful in it. This was her film debut! She went on to star in Rollerball which did not have any nudity in it. That being said, the 2002 remake did and it featured Rebecca Romijn with her breasts out! The 70s version may be a cult classic, but the 2002 film features plenty of topless chicks in a locker room scene.
Back to The Possession of Joel Delaney! Barbara also starred in the 70s horror flick Death Moon, but she never actually showed her moon again. She is the only person who goes nude in this movie and she goes nude twice - once in the sex scene and another time when her bare body is discovered ass-up.
While she does not go nude in this movie, Shirley MacLaine did star in the 1971 film Desperate Characters which has a similar feeling of fright. The 70s were a scary time! Serial killers, cults, broken homes, drugs, and the death of the ideals of the flower children.
This makes a great transition into why this movie can be considered a hippie film, beyond just the time period that it was made in. The Possession of Joel Delaney deals with a lot of the aftermath of the hippie movement in which fears of serial killers were o the rise after the brutal Manson murders. I think it's interesting to see the transition of material in the hippie era.
The mid-to-late 60s deals with sexual freedom, self-discovery through drugs and music, and trippy visuals. The latter era explodes with horror and essentially gives us the first slasher films! Coincidence? I don't think so! Thank goodness these movies carried some free love nudity with them even into horror.
