Lilith Likes to Watch - Money March Part 3

Welcome back to Money March! Today we continue with something that was meant to be so much more than what it is...


Title: Obsessed  (AKA Anna Obsessed)
Year: 1977
Starring: Constance Money, Annette Haven, John Leslie
Director: Martin & Martin
Synopsis: A psycho stalks and violates women at gunpoint. One woman is determined to stop him. - Via IMDB
Lilith's Notes: It's notorious for being hacked to bits.

"Hello, beautiful."

This is going to be a tough review because what I was presented was not the full film.

Legend tells of an 82 minute cut of the movie Obsessed, where Constance Money is violated with a pistol, and scenes of her trauma are cut between moments of lovemaking. This movie has been cut and recut, re-released so many different times that now it's an abused, emaciated corpse of what it was meant to be.

What the common plebeians, like I, are left with is a cut that is 75 minutes long. A near-incoherent hack-job of a narrative interspersed with hot sex and a story that ends way too abruptly.

Constance Money plays Anna, who's in a sexually unsatisfying marriage with David. He doesn't like to eat pussy and she just can't get off. David is also having an affair with his secretary, who gobbles down his cock like it was the best corn-dog.

Anna meets Maggie, played by Annette Haven and the two start a very close, sexual relationship.

Meanwhile, a psycho is raping and murdering women and girls. One dark night, Anna becomes a victim.

The best part of this film, by far, is the sex. Particularly between Money and Haven. It's tender, gentle, loving and Money squirms around like a coquettish kitten while Haven ravishes her. The male/female/female orgy was nice too, and everyone seemed to be having a good time.

But, I also have to give a special nod to a masturbation scene. The secretary is fantasizing at her desk, of being violently taken by a man. The scene is just her and him, all in stark shadows, and the office phone rings. We flash for a second back to reality, for just a few frames, then back to the fantasy. On the second phone ring, the secretary returns to the real world and gets back to work, answering the phone. There's an idea there. I wish such cleverness was carried through the rest of the film.

The performances are good, even Constance Money, whom people seem to think cannot act. There's a scene near the start of the film where they discuss their marital woes and Money pulls off ice queen pretty well. After the argument she chirps sweetly "Have a nice day, honey!" so, she has bitch down pat.

Unfortunately I can't review what was meant to be, only what I have been presented with. Everything  this movie uses to sell itself in this day and age is wrong: The plot synopsis, the editing, even the title! Scissored hands have taken what could have been an effective psycho-sexual thriller that could have been a prelude to well known films like Basic Instinct, and made an incoherent mess.

LILITH'S SCORE: 2.5/5

NEXT TIME: A Constance Money Double Feature, as well as the return of Annette Haven with Maracheno Cherry and Barbara Broadcast.



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