Through the Looking Glass (1976)

7/10

Falconeer24 October 2014

As another reviewer said, "Through the Looking Glass" perhaps should not have been filmed as a hardcore feature. However, considering the outrageous subject matter, this is a film that would have a hard time avoiding the X rating..even without penetration scenes.

As far as 'porn films' go, to date i have only seen one other such film that is as good, and that would be Radley Metzger's porn masterpiece "The Image." "Through the Looking Glass," stars the classic beauty, Catharine Burgess, former Vogue model. Sumptuosly filmed in and around a beautiful mansion, Catherine is haunted by something from her past. She insists that there is some malevolent evil living in the house. of course her husband dismisses the idea. She has a beautiful young daughter who, for some reason, she seems to resent. And hidden in a dark attic, is a strange, ornate mirror, that Catherine is drawn to. Sexually frigid with her husband, the icy Catherine saves all her sexual energy for the mirror, which she enjoys masturbating in front of.

As this disturbing tale unfolds we learn the bizarre secrets of the mirror; a mirror that had hung in her bedroom as a young girl, that bared witness to a shocking secret concerning her own father. Adult film regular Jamie Gillis turns in an incredibly sinister performance as the evil, corrupt father. In fact the character that he creates might be the most corrupt, evil character in film history. The father, like this film, is totally amoral, and both might very well make more sensitive viewers feel somewhat sick.

This movie is a definite product of the 70's, and it most likely could not have been made before, or after that decade. "Through the Looking Glass" is obsessed with the subject of incest, and it is displayed here in the most graphic detail. This Gothic horror film culminates with a trip through the mirror, that takes Catherine to Hell, here portrayed as some nightmare of sexual violence and corruption. An early scene at a "mad tea party" had me thinking the whole thing might degenerate into cheap porn territory, but the film gathers momentum, and gets darker, and more disturbing as it reaches it's halfway point. It also gets more artistic, and more beautiful as well. Some might find this a depressing experience, and it definitely is NOT for the casual viewer. But for those with a taste for the surreal, the bizarre, or who just want to see something very different, might want to hunt down this gem. I've seen a lot of stuff from this genre, and nothing comes close to this outrageous piece of art house smut!

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6/10

The Mirror has two Faces and one giant Pe

Coventry23 February 2007

This psychedelic 70's porn movie is stylish and oddly compelling, but still I can't bring myself to be as enthusiast as my fellow reviewers around here. Maybe I just anticipated a little more horror-elements or maybe I got a too upset because director Jonas Middleton presents a beautiful package but can't really hide the fact that there's very little in it. "Through the Looking Glass" is definitely the most ambitious porno movie of the overall rancid 70's offer, as it introduces a high social class family of three, living in a secluded mansion with a house staff. It seems like Catherine has it all made, including youthful beauty and wealth, but sexually speaking she's an extremely frustrated and unsatisfied woman. During her long and lonely days (and nights) alone in the house, Catherine goes to the attic to masturbate in front of the ancient mirror that reminds her of the childhood years with her father. Whether imaginary or supernaturally, the mirror 'sucks' Catherine into a dreamy dimension where she encounters the weirdest and most perverted sexual situations. There aren't any taboos on the other side of the possessed mirror, as Catherine descents in a world of lesbian sex, outrageous Roman-like orgies and even incestuous reunions with her horny father. As the title implies, this film is indeed an adult variation on the world famous story "Alice in Wonderland", but not nearly as demented or extreme as I had hoped. Sure Middleton hints at all the controversial themes, but there are never any genuinely shocking images on screen. The film does, however, feature some dared camera-work and several ingenious shots, like for example extreme close ups of female genitalia and even a journey into the lower body of the main starlet. Although elegantly photographed, the hardcore scenes quickly get tedious and, sadly enough, Catherine Burgess is the ONLY lady attractive enough to sexually arouse the male viewers. The other women look very random and their emotionless performances are a huge turn-off. The music is fantastic alas underused.

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7/10

Looking-Glass Vagina; or Alice Through the Mirror's Male Gaze

Cineanalyst29 August 2020

The 1970s "porno chic" must've truly been a "Golden Age of Porn;" 1976 alone witnessed two such features partially inspired by Lewis Carroll's Alice books, and they're both preferable to some of the smut that passed for mainstream adaptations of the children's literature during the same period. Sure, there's no pornographic sex in the books, but neither are there bubbly characters breaking into mostly dull song and dance numbers every few minutes. The other Alice porno of 1976, "Alice in Wonderland: An X-Rated Musical" contains both and, thus, is something of a perverse Disney-esque production. "Through the Looking Glass," on the other hand, is actually rather intelligent--so is even some of the hardcore sex. Although it takes its title from the second Alice book, this film isn't an explicit Carrollian adaptation, with themes of incest, a Dantean Inferno, and old-dark-house tropes that have nothing to do with Alice. Yet, all of this is engaged through the mirror, along with other hints of references to Carroll's texts, and manages to interpret the books in one of the usual more competent ways, as a parable for growing up.

In this case, initiation to adulthood is mixed up with fatherly molestation and rape, but other than that it's not an inept interpretation of the text. Plus, this patriarchal system is congruent with the picture's aestheticizing of the male gaze (as theoreticized by the likes of Laura Mulvey). It reminds me of another Alice-adjacent film from the same period, Claude Chabrol's "Alice or the Last Escapade" (1977), which also features a female protagonist who thoroughly internalizes the male gaze, goes through glass (in Chabrol's case, a broken car window) and occupies a haunted house with a locked door to the supernatural in what is, overall, an exploitative, if not misogynist, exercise in filmmaking. The door and key business here, along with the mirror, recalls the Alice books. And, to underscore, the importance of the architecture in this one, the husband is an architect, and the protagonist Catherine is haunted from growing up in the house--retreating to the attic behind the door to relive those memories beside the mirror and other objects of her upbringing.

Besides the door and key, as well as a clock motif, another possible subtle callback to the first book, "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland," takes place at the beginning, where Catharine's chauffeur informs her that she's running late--in this case, for her and hubby's dinner date with another couple. On their way home, too, we see her daughter, Jennifer, running beside the car. Wearing blue-and-white dresses throughout most of the proceedings, Jennifer here is the new dream-child, the Alice. Catherine even mentions that Jennifer is starring in a school play in the same role she once occupied--perhaps, it's the role of Alice in a staging of Carroll's books.

As for the male gaze, it's arguably even more the traditional foundation of pornography than it is mainstream or Hollywood cinema, with a camera's gaze based on the presumed male spectator for looking upon the female body. Here, we get the mirror, which is already strongly associative with movies, of reflecting ghosts upon a surface. This mirror that Catherine masturbates in front of--or, "looking-glass vagina," to borrow Nina Auerbach's phrasing (as cited in "Alice in Pornoland: Hardcore Encounters with the Victorian Gothic" by Laura Helen Marks)--is not associated with her narcissism so much as it is with her dead father's gaze. Speaking of a "phallic camera," one of the most apt coitus encounters here begins with a focus on the father's penis, including in the form of a tracking shot, as he exits the mirror to attack his daughter. Aside from the graphic nudity and sex, with the monster threatening the heroine and a storm outside blowing through the attic's open window, it's the kind of filmmaking one would expect from classical cinema.

Not everything works, though. The incestuously complementary subplot of the brother-and-sister servants isn't developed any further than needed to establish another fellatio scene. The fantasy sequence resembling a pornographic mad tea party (although, it's really more of a banquet or picnic serving as an excuse for an orgy), while it includes a doppelgänger, is otherwise weighed down by the orgic excess. One shot that looks to be from a colonoscopy-like medical camera is arguably too obscene of a double entendre of Alice and the "rabbit hole" even for a porno. But, then, there are scenes such as the adroit combination of sex scene and old-dark-house, stormy-night imagery aforementioned; or some decent cutting for Catherine's conversation with herself, internalizing her father's gaze in front of the looking-glass; and, to top it off, that Dantean finale that is as good a horror-film nightmare as can be found in much of cinema in general.

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Screeches from the Inferno

tedg5 May 2006

You know, 70s porn films are sometimes the most interesting things. This was an era when the film world was just on an edge, when it nearly happened that explicit sex almost became a folded, natural part of mainstream movies. Almost happened, and the residue is that some porn movies have very clever, very cinematic and intelligent ideas compared to ordinary filmdom.

I don't understand exactly what happened to prevent this; what societal forces were at work. Its too easy to blame the usual suspects. But in any case, what we have now is an odd mix of conventions: unduly exaggerated importance given to exposed breasts (mostly stage props, artificially "enhanced"), a larger emphasis on watching women as the core of sex, very strange accidents of strategically placed sheets that remind us that there is a camera in the room and that what we see is carefully staged.

And because the simulated sex is implied, it gets exaggerated so the actors are forced into extreme, dramatic postures and motions that in non-sex acting would even embarrass Booth.

Oh well, back to this. It is unavailable by mainstream means so I will have to describe it, which means the spoiler indicator.

A lovely, young woman is extremely wealthy, having inherited her father's fortune. She is married to a stern architect. We learn early that she was repeatedly molested by her father and now is obsessed with his attentions, so much so she is deranged. What we see could be her own hallucinations, but they are presented as a horrible reality.

The key to this "other world" is a large mirror that was in her bedroom during the episodes with her father. A witness of sorts. Now it is in the attic, where she repairs to masturbate. She does so one day and the mirror comes alive. The man in the mirror is half demon and half her father. The same actor plays the aggressive demon-rapist and the father in flashbacks.

Our first encounter is him coming out of the mirror in a point of view shot that approaches our heroine's crotch and literally enters her a half a foot or so. Must have been a medical camera. The reaching hands in this scene were reminiscent of "Repulsion," with much the same tone.

She then enters the mirrorworld three times. The first is for a lesbian encounter with a childhood friend. This part was confusing. This "friend" might have been the woman who is now her maid. Hard to tell. At the end, that partner is pulled away.

The second visit is to an Alice in Wonderland tableau where among a teaparty orgy is a woman literally on her hands and knees on a platter on the table, ready to be consumed from behind. Many stupid porn motions here, ending with our visiting heroine looking into the face of this sacrificial lamb and seeing her own face. She returns to reality.

Somewhere in here, about now I think is the only segment that follows the normal porn convention: sex between the maid and the chauffeur, inserted for no story-driven reason. We discover they are siblings and both lust after the beleaguered girl.

Now, finally, she enters the mirror for the last time, drawn by her father-demon's seductions. Each time she goes unwillingly. This time, she discovers that she is trapped in a purgatory with sexual tortures.

I watched this with the 1911 "L'Inferno," from which images are clearly drawn. Its similarly amateurish, the effects and the intended horrific effect in both films. Another influence is "Flaming Creatures."

The thing ends with our woman going mad realizing she never will return to the real world and must endure an eternity of sexual torture. Meanwhile, we see her own daughter in front of the mirror beginning the same cycle.

The odd thing is that it is a truly effective horror film. It gives me the willies just thinking about it. Odd how such poor production values don't get in the way if other ones in important locations are good enough. Though Catherine Breillat's film's are similarly motivated, and can be equally what we call "explicit" and of course are better produced, this seemed more terrifying, as if it were a screeching street poem from a bag lady on her way down for the final count.

Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.

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6/10

Repulsive!

filmbuff197410 February 2007

Warning: Spoilers

I purchased this film on DVD because I thought it was another Jamie Gillis feature I saw years ago. I was wrong big time.I happen to think Jamie Gillis is one of the most talented actors in the adult industry and I don't just mean his sexual performance but his acting ability.He was actually good in this film as the demon masquerading as the father of a bored aristocratic woman who finds herself becoming seduced into going some alternate reality dimension whose mirror acts as a portal.

I would suggest not viewing this film as erotica unless you find the most repulsive sequences out of the writings of Marquis DeSade and paintings of Hirmonious Bosch in any way arousing.This film is more like a horror film with "erotic" overtones than anything else.The sexual high jinks of the prisoners of the other dimension on the other side of the looking glass are just too bizarre and repulsive to entertain any definition erotica in my opinion.It would be a dis-service for me not to warn you away from this absolute freak show!

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10/10

too good for porn

DavidAndBeecher30 May 2002

The so called Golden Age of porn is loaded with badly written, badly acted duds that do not live up to the maker's artistic pretensions. This one film is a notable exception. A brilliant, spooky ghost story that deals with extreme emotional/sexual repression, the film should never have been shot as a hardcore. The sex scenes take up about 30% of screen time, and, for once, actually get in the way of a great story. Some of the acting is a bit spotty. The film is cast with both porn and mainstream actors, and a number of the porn stars just can't act. Also, the film's climactic Hell sequence is much too graphic(did we really need to see a woman bathing in urine and feces? I think not) But overall, "Through the Looking Glass" is a damn good movie. The Looking Glass scenes are creepy! Whatever happened to director Jonas Middleton? Shoulda been a contender!!!

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6/10

Flawed but effective hardcore horror nightmare

Bloodwank6 November 2011

It seems like Through The Looking Glass has reached the level of anointed classic with the majority of reviewers on this site, so I'm a little sad that it didn't fully live up to expectations, but its still pretty gnarly stuff for all its flaws. The biggest trouble I think is that for all its ambition it doesn't really get a handle on what it wants to say. Different parts pull in different directions and though I'm generally a fan of ambiguity there isn't enough psychological depth in the writing or performances to make it really work. Overall its a tale of a rich but troubled socialite and her dalliances in a macabre and erotic world of the imagination, but the details are muddled. The film begins with an image of our heroine clad in stark white face mask in a salon, which soon gives way to her figure dashing through woods in some wild pursuit. Then the face mask is peeled away and we see her cold, expressionless face, no sign of what lies within. Its good as symbolic openings go, her psyche in three layers, decadent beautifying mask as her social exterior, emotionless face her personal mask and untamed depths within, but instead of pursuing this vein the film goes on to abandon any examination of layers in favor of situating the gateway to the inner world in the external world, a mirror in an attic. More or less all that follows is underpinned by tension between internal desire and external temptation, and later between free will and heredity, its interesting stuff but goes largely unresolved. For a film lauded as one of the most searching and ambitious of adult cinema this is rather disappointing, but fortunately the visceral goods on show keep things entertaining and the pacing is pretty solid. As far as the goods go there's demonic fingering (with exploratory vagina cam), food inserted into and eaten from places it probably shouldn't be and plentiful couplings as well as a few grim highlights I won't go into here. Most of the sexual shenanigans take place in or around the mirror world and are invested with an effectively disturbing quality by the often unhinged and chaotic score from Harry Manfredini, there's a sense of dangerous luring sin that really compels. Also of note is the way that the first couple of imaginary adventures mirror what has gone before in the passionless real world, it produces an interesting feel of madness feeding on and warping reality, yet somehow still an enticing escape. Not that this is really developed enough, sadly. A good deal of blame can be laid at the feet of Catherine Burgess as the lead, nice looking but she just can't act very well. Nor indeed can anyone else (Terri Hall is largely wasted and looks sorta zombified in overdone eye make up) except a standout turn from Jamie Gillis, fair oozing with creepy erotic menace. His scenes are great and really raise the film above its limitations, and he leads the film very nicely into its terrific, harrowing climax. The extended and unwholesome final scenes are creepiest of all, ranking among my favorite cappers and they leave just the right bad taste in the mouth as the credits roll, almost making up for all the other shortcomings. They don't really, but this is still a worthy viewing for anyone interested in the intersections of horror and pornography even if I wasn't hugely impressed. Strong 6/10 or so.

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5/10

One Man Show

ElijahCSkuggs2 December 2007

The praise for this movie really got me pumped up to see it. Unfortunately all the praise for this has now made me realize a lot of people get way too excited over nothing. Through The Looking Glass was half crappy made-for-TV stuff with sex thrown in, half fairly well-done dark fantasy. I found the first half very tedious, with sex scenes that do nothing, from a fantasy story point of view or an erotic view. The lead actress who plays Catherine is one actress I hope I never come across again. With her slow delivery and breathy voice mixed with her daytime soap acting abilities, it gave me a damn headache. Only when Jaime Gillis appears during the "Papa" scene does the movie switch gears into something more interesting. I'm really stunned that so many people enjoy this flick so much. If Gillis isn't on screen, this movie is average to below average stuff. Just because it's one of the most well-made pornos out there doesn't make it a good or entertaining flick. Let me repeat myself again when I say if Gillis ain't on screen, you will be bored. A classic of sorts, but nothing truly special.

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10/10

A breakthrough grindhouse, er, art-house hallucination

melvelvit-117 February 2008

In the freewheeling 70s, pornography very nearly went mainstream after DEEP THROAT and THE DEVIL IN MISS JONES played to packed houses across the country and a number of "porno chic" films made around this time had decent budgets, actual plot lines, and attractive stars. THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS is a classic grind house-cum-art house example from this era but it also stands alone as one of the eeriest sex films ever made. Beautiful "Vogue" model Catharine Burgess (once described as "a $2.98 Catherine Deneuve") stars as Catherine, a detached beauty with an accommodating architect husband, a young daughter, a father fixation and a dark secret. Catherine gets no sexual satisfaction from her husband because she spends most of her time in the attic, pleasuring herself before an antique mirror she's had since childhood and there's a demon in the reflection that shows the lady a world of unbridled lust on the other side of the glass. In a nod to ALICE IN WONDERLAND, Catherine sees a Mad Hatter's party that degenerates into an orgy with herself as centerpiece and the masturbatory and incestuous fantasies in the mirror are reflected in her husband and the household staff. Catherine has lived in the isolated mansion all her life and rarely leaves it but when her husband plans a trip to Paris for them, the insatiable satyr offers her an eternity of ecstasy at a terrible price...

The film has a strange, dream-like quality where sex & horror blend as if in a nightmare and Catharine Burgess' air of detachment only adds to the aura. The sex scenes, integral to the story, are few and far between so it's hard to see the "trenchcoat crowd" enjoying this one even though there's a memorable sequence where the viewer gets to go deep inside the heroine. Academy Award-winner Aron Obler & Harry Manfredini (FRIDAY THE 13th) contribute an evocative, moody score and the surreal, Fellini-esque ending segues into a denouement that is truly disturbing and not easily forgotten. Recommended, but not for the squeamish. Produced and directed by Jonas Middleton and released in hard and soft-core versions.

"A landmark movie" -Bruce Williamson, PLAYBOY

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8/10

Sumptuous, bracingly erotic porn flick that defies expectations

fertilecelluloid13 December 2005

Harry Manfredini, the man who became famous for his basic musical contribution to "Friday The 13th", also scored this sumptuous, highly original porn flick, a clear inspiration for Greg Dark's "Devil in Miss Jones Parts 3 & 4". Although an X-rated version was released, the film's high quality allowed it to break out and enjoy some mainstream exposure. Although some of the acting (by porn vets) is unconvincing, some of the acting (by porn vets such as Jaime Gillis) is superb. Catherine Burgess is sultry and ultra-sexy as the bored socialite housewife, Catherine, who enters an incredible, deSade-like sexual inferno through the mirror in her bedroom. The sex scenes are bracingly erotic and beautifully shot, and the production design has a thematic consistency rarely found in porn films. "Nightdreams" and "Cafe Flesh", and Dark's "Devil in Miss Jones 3/4" and "New Wave Hookers" all owe a debt to this amazing curio, a porn film that joins the ranks of adult classics such as "The Opening of Misty Beethoven", "Odyssey", "3AM", "Caligula", "Night Dreams" and "Body Love".

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9/10

Go Ask Jonas

jaibo23 December 2008

Warning: Spoilers

Jonas Middleton's Through the Looking Glass is a major achievement by an Independent filmmaker, and would be a credit to anyone working in whatever genre. That the genre in question is considered to be hardcore pornography has resulted in the the film being much less well known than it deserves to be. Middleton's film deserves to be as well-considered as David Lynch's Eraserhead.

The film begins in a beauty salon. The female protagonist is mud-masked for a complete facial and her cute male hairdresser coos "I'm going to give you something entirely new and unique." Thus the film speaks its own promise. At the same time, the film inter-cuts a memory/fantasy in which the woman runs through a forest, shouting out "Papa" at man who is receding into the distance. Around the woman, other ladies are gossipping. We discover that our protagonist is Catherine, a society heiress who has become aloof and uninviting. She is thought of as polite, but in such a way that her manners are seen as false, doll-like. At home, she is stuck with a dull if financially successful husband and a teenage daughter. We learn that she has been showing signs of mental illness since her father died a few years ago. We soon see how far the "illness" has gone...

Catherine holes herself away in a room upstairs and masturbates before a mirror. She speaks to herself in intimate tones, and the voice turns into a man's; the man soon appears on the other side of the mirror - he is her dead father, and it is clear that he has an erotic hold over his daughter. She begins a series of hallucinatory experiences in which the ghost fingers her, then finds herself at a mad hatter's tea party together with her society friends and her hairdresser. The party soon descends into obscenities and orgy. A faceless woman on a table is analyzed and sexually molested; when Catherine comes close to the woman, she sees it is herself.

Next day, Catherine finds herself wandering alone in her mansion again. She sees a flashback, which might be a true or false memory, in which her father initiates her into sex. This turns her on, and her father's ghost gives her the deal: she is to come to the mirror at 1am and pass through the mirror, as she is special and not one of the mediocrities which inhabits the everyday world. She is also to allow her daughter, who she has hitherto neurotically protected from doing to, to visit the mirror whenever she likes. Catherine struggles against this, begs her husband to take her away, but succumbs in the end to the ghost's wishes. At 1am, she passes through the looking glass...

Through there is a world of insane degradation. A stretch of sand dunes reminiscent of a landscape from Fellini or Pasolini is peopled with lost souls abusing themselves and others in obscene routines. The figures here recall the tortured souls in hell of Bosch's medieval paintings, derived from the visions of Dante's Inferno. Foul mouthed and irrational, this is a bunch which have entirely thrown off personal progress and socialisation to wallow in the grossest desires of their fevered imaginations. Catherine's father is revealed to be one of them, and he fruitlessly humps the shifting sand as the man from the mirror is revealed to be a tempting demon who had taken the form of the Dad but who has an agenda and a rule of his own. Back in the real world, Catherine's daughter begins to study her own reflection in the mirror.

What fascinates about Through the Looking Glass is that it abnegates all responsibility for being a sexually stimulating film. The graphic nudity, non-simulated sex and meat shots here are as likely to repulse as titillate, or perhaps they mean to do both at the same time. Combined with the transgressive story, intense acting, moody cinematography and weird music, they add to the film's feeling of sticky horror, a repellent aspect tinged with seductive allure. Through the Looking Glass is that kind of genuine work of art which doesn't tell you what to think of it, but asks you what you think of yourself, given the ambiguity and intensity of what is portrayed on screen. It points to a cinema which is beyond good and evil, where entertainment, deep analysis and pornography meet. It's literary equivalent is something like Bataille's The Story of the Eye or Genet's Funeral Games - a socially unforgivable text which nevertheless should not go without acknowledgement as a work of the highest artistic value.

The film is simply obsessed with incest - not only does Catherine remember and/or fantasise about sex with her father, but her simple-minded handyman Abel is kept in his class place by blow-jobs from his sister, the maid. The film is a tearing of the fabric of society, which shows a seething mass of unacceptable desire brimming beneath the surface of social and familial relationships. The film is both like other erotica of its era in its obsession with the dirty deeds of the wealthy and feckless (a trend exemplified by Emmanuelle) but deviates in pushing the sexual excesses of its characters to their extremes; like Nora in Ibsen's A Doll's House, Catherine's rejection of her sham marriage puts her outside of civilisation, but the film doesn't share Ibsen's progressive belief that its transcendence of the norm and development of the self is something positive. Middleton's vision of the world rather echoes that of his 16th century namesake Thomas - a nightmarish vision turned on both by sin and its punishments. Through the Looking Glass is a crazy one-off but it still leads us to suspect that, if the right circumstances occurred, cinema could lead us to places which we dreamt but never believed we'd actually see.

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10/10

Excellent and genuinely nightmarish porno horror.

HumanoidOfFlesh16 March 2006

"Through the Looking Glass" tells the story of a very rich lady named Catherine who has it all:a beautiful villa,a nice husband,a cute little daughter,but sexually she is unfulfilled.As she spends another evening naked in front of her mirror,she discovers its a gateway to another dimension. In this new world she gets to live all her sexual desires but ends up in a kind of hell she can't get back out of."Through the Looking Glass" is a classic piece of hard core porn.It's superbly acted,lovingly decadent and features plenty of hot porno sequences.The blow job scene between Catherine's Maid and chauffeur is especially notable as is the first encounter between demon and Catherine.Catherine's hallucination of her younger self and her Father is a taboo-breaking but wonderfully erotic sequence where she slowly undresses for her Father,before the same ornate mirror,while he teachers her to masturbate before finally ejaculating into her mouth.The perverse climax,which takes place in desert Hell,truly has to be seen to be believed.Overall,"Through the Looking Class" is a treat for fans of surreal and bizarre cinema.It's also one of the most powerful porno films I have ever seen.10 out of 10.I can't praise it enough.

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9/10

Possibly The Most Ambitious Porn Film Ever...

EVOL66619 October 2006

Warning: Spoilers

Those looking to THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS for spank-material are probably going to be disappointed. Don't get me wrong, there's definitely some hardcore sex-scenes in the film, but they really aren't the focus, and the film could have probably stood on it's own without them. Surprisingly well-made and well-acted, this one is for sleaze fans that might appreciate a little "art" mixed in with their smut...

A young lady is distraught after the death of her father. To cope with the loss, she diddles herself in front of a mirror in her attic. During one such session, her father (played quite well by Jamie Gillis, who incidentally will always be most applauded by me for his role as Burt, the Enema Bandit in WATER POWER...) appears in the mirror, but then turns into a demon and fondles his daughter in some extreme close-up fashion. Several encounters with the mirror show that it is some sort of portal to other realities, and during one such masturbatory dimension-travel, the poor heroine gets stuck in a hell of sexual perversion, never to escape again. The last scene finds her young daughter discovering the mirror - an allusion to the fact that she will be doomed to walk her mother's same footsteps...

Not much that I can really say negatively about THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS. The production value is pretty high for a smut film, the acting and storyline are strong for this sort of thing. Gillis is stand out as usual, and so is the female lead. The score really enhances the atmosphere of the film and there is a genuine creepiness about the production that I found quite commendable. Again, I feel that this one could have stood out as a pretty effective low-budget 70s horror film if the porn sequences were removed. About the porn: A few hardcore scenes including what must have been one of the first internal gyno-cam style shots to be used in porn, a brother/sister blowjob, an interesting ALICE IN WONDERLAND-style sexual feast, and the ending Hell scene featuring a number of strange fetishes are a few of the things to keep an eye out for. Overall, a very solid and unique film that will be of interest to fans of other such "thinking-man's filth" such as THE DEVIL IN MISS JONES...9/10

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10/10

This a porn MOVIE not the straight to DVD crud made today.

spitlube29 March 2007

Warning: Spoilers

This movie's dialog is very different from the standard, "yeah baby, do me, do me hard" style of scripting. The scenes with Catherine Burgess are almost to painful to watch. Both the solo masturbation scenes and the fantasy incest scenes with Jaime Gillis as the ghost of her father are filled with the guttural grunts and groans of a woman in torment both mentally and physically. The "fun" sex scenes between the chauffeur and the maid servants are mean as a comic counterpart to the hard sex scenes. Here is the spoiler part. When Burgess' character goes through the mirror into hell she finds her father again played by Gillis but instead of the adored father of her fantasy/memory she finds him humping the sand with a crazed stare and spit drooling from his mouth all of which I take to mean is his punishment for his life as a sex fanatic. And finally, although a couple of reviewers have touched on the point this movie features a 12-year-old girl.no she never gets naked, she never has sex, her purpose is to appear at the end of the movie and stand in front of the mirror and intimate that the cycle is going to start over again..but come on this is A HARD CORE PORN MOVIE WITH A 12-YEAR-OLD CO-STAR.

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9/10

Mirror, Mirror on the Wall...

Nodriesrespect31 December 2007

Warning: Spoilers

Much has already been written about this adult oddity, often by people with little affection for (and therefore, understandably, a lack of affinity with) porn. There's a tendency to reclaim this work as part of the horror genre, where it admittedly seems quite at home, rather than leave it to the perceived limitations of hardcore erotica. Truth of the matter is, THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS (and, yes, there is a particularly depraved "Alice in Wonderland" inspired fantasy to make good on its title) is that rarity, a movie – hell, an ADULT movie of all things ! – that cannot be classified within one single genre, moving across boundaries with almost uncanny dexterity. Director Jonas Middleton didn't bother to stick around for very long and interviews of the time reveal that he had little interest in conventional carnal cinema, basically shooting the obscure Andrea True showcase ILLUSIONS OF A LADY in order to secure funds for this, his labor of love.

LOOKING GLASS differs from the average dirty movie in just about all aspects. Cinematography by Joao Fernandez (a/k/a Gerard Damiano's right hand man "Harry Flecks") is dark and foreboding, superbly supported by an ominous soundtrack by Harry Manfredini who would go on to score the Friday THE 13TH series. Even the casting seems idiosyncratic, the most familiar face presumably being that of a genuinely frightening Jamie Gillis as the titular mirror's resident demon doubling as the flashback father figure of our strangely lethargic heroine Catharine Burgess. Now Burgess, who also went by a slew of additional pseudonyms and was rather crudely assessed by Times Square historian Bill Landis as "a $1.98 Catherine Deneuve", remains one of exploitation cinema's more intriguing personalities. Rumored to have never been involved in actual hardcore penetration (her scorching scene with Ras Kean in Armand Weston's magnificent EXPOSE ME, LOVELY forever casting doubt on that claim), she supplemented her classy looks with above average acting ability, a combination which serves her far better here than it did in Al Adamson's awesomely inept science fiction sex musical Cinderella 2000 !

Exhuding icy perfection from every pore, Burgess plays a wealthy heiress languidly preparing for a trip to Europe, her efforts thwarted by the lure of an antique mirror in the attic that offers her glimpses of her own suppressed memories of her depraved dad as well as an increasingly bizarre netherworld on the other side. Genre regulars Nancy Dare (Bob Kerman's spiteful spouse from Damiano's ODYSSEY), Kim Pope (Gillis' crippled wife in Shaun Costello's PASSIONS OF CAROL) and Ultramax (from the early Eduardo Cemano not quite all the way classics FONGALULI and THE HEALERS) turn up as her fair weather friends, bad-mouthing her behind her back at the beauty parlor, only to re-appear as hellish harridans during the film's extended and unforgettable climax. Catharine whiles away whole hours lost in her own flawless reflection, her vanity ultimately costing her dear as demons drag her into their warped world. As if there wasn't enough weirdness already, Terri Hall and Al Levitsky (a/k/a "Roger Caine" from Costello's Dan McCord movies) put in appearances as a sister and brother pair of domestics who also happen to be incestuously involved. The avowed highlight comes when Catharine steps into the mirror and finds a place of such surreal sexual overkill that would surely have corrupted even little Alice's dearly held maidenhead. This lengthy, orange-tinted orgy truly has to be seen in order to be believed and even then Eagle-eyed fans may recognize (or not, due to some outlandishly freaky make-up) the likes of late Bobby Astyr and Jeff Hurst, the no good husband from Roberta Findlay's TIFFANY MINX, among the participants along with bulky oddball Grover Griffith who played the Messenger of Death in Howard Ziehm's peculiar SEXTEEN.

For those watching porn primarily for titillation, LOOKING GLASS presents an anomaly almost as surreal as its content. While fornication is frequent and explicit, including an ill-advised camera move INTO Burgess' body double's front entrance, it was also designed as defiantly anti-erotic. On that count, it could be construed as a "failure" then, were it not for its dazzling display of film-making bravura in every other respect. Cult cinema of the highest order, present day relevance undiminished, its group of followers has steadily expanded over the three decades since, and I predict that this one of a kind movie will continue to confuse and delight – in equal measure, sometimes simultaneously – many more in the future.

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8/10

Great fantasy porno!

The_Void19 October 2006

It would seem that there is more to porn flicks than merely sex, as many of the best examples of the genre blend in other themes, and the resulting film is often more erotic. Through the Looking Glass is surely one of the best 'themed' porno movies from the seventies, and this film manages to blend in a strong fantasy undercurrent with hardcore pornography, and while there still isn't a great deal of substance; director Jonas Middleton does well in creating a fantasy atmosphere that holds intrigue while there isn't any sex going on; and not every porn film has that going for it. The main inspiration seems to be 'Alice in Wonderland', and we follow a rich socialite named Catherine as she is shown a world rich with wanton sex. She's devastated after the death of her father, and decides to console herself by masturbating in front of a mirror in the attic. This summons the ghost of her father, who quickly goes awry, and ends up taking her through the mirror. The land beyond the mirror is an alternate reality where sex rules and nobody really cares about anything else...

The main standout of this movie, for me at least, actually wasn't the sex; but rather the beautiful dreamy visuals that Jonas Middleton delights in portraying. The fact that the classic story of Alice in Wonderland was an influence is always evident, as Middleton creates his own 'wonderland', although here there's far more perversion. Naturally, there's a heavy amount of sex and the film doesn't exactly hold back, as we get full on nudity from both genders. The sex is, perhaps, not as dirty as that seen in some other smut films from the same period; but I'm pretty sure that it will satisfy any fan of hardcore porn. You can't expect great acting from a film like this, but the performances here are actually a cut above most porn films. Catherine Burgess suffices both as an actress and a beautiful woman, and makes a good lead for the film for both reasons. She is joined by prolific porn star Jamie Gillis, and they get on well with the rest of the cast. Overall, this is not merely another trashy seventies porn movie. Jonas Middleton's film is a cut above most porn and therefore comes highly recommended!

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10/10

Entering Wonderland.

morrison-dylan-fan22 October 2013

Warning: Spoilers

After having picked up a "straight" Psychological chiller starring Veronica Hart called Deranged on DVD.I decided to ask the seller if he had any other similar "Adult" Horror titles.Taking a look at a selection of titles that had been E-Mailed to me on IMDb,I found myself quickly becoming fascinated by what sounded like an extremely off-beat Adult Horror,which led to me excitingly getting ready to go through the looking glass.

The plot:

Feeling increasingly isolated in the mansion as her husband makes his final business deals shortly before the family are to leave the mansion behind for a house in Europe,Catherine discovers a huge mirror covered in cobwebs located in the attic by a framed photo of her long lost dad. (who mysteriously disappeared into thin air decades ago) Looking deep into the mirror at her own reflexion,Catherine is left speechless,when her reflexion disappears,and her dad appears in the mirror.

Walking out of the mirror,Catherine's "dad" gradually guides Catherhine out of the real world,and into the weird and wild world of the mirror.Finding her dads "mirror world" to have an increasingly strong grip on her life in the real world,Catherine begins to fear that she may be about to pulled from the real world,forever.

View on the film:

Closely working with sound engine Rolf Pardula, (who would decades later become a regular collaborator of Spike Lee!) and composers Harry Manfredini and Arlon Ober,co-writer/(along with Ron Wertheim and David Maryla)director Jonas Middleton builds a strikingly nightmare atmosphere by giving the soundtrack an "echo" effect,which along with placing the viewer in Catherine's confused mind,also reveals the gradual blurring of the real world and the "mirror" world.

Along with the distinctive soundtrack,Middleton and cinematography joao Fernandes, (who would later work on Chuck Norris's Missing In Action!) brilliantly build two dark,opposing worlds,with Caterine's real "mansion" life being covered in Gothic Horror blacks and browns that show how much colour is missing from her life.Bursting on the screen in shining yellows and garnish oranges,Middleton and Fernandes keep Catherine's dour reality as far away from the mirror world as possible,with the bold colour design allowing for Middleton to take the film into an unexpectedly brilliant surreal,dark Fantasy direction.

Playing not one,but two roles,James Gills gives an excellent performance as Catherine's dad,and also as the real creature from the mirror world.With the tremendous screenplay focusing on dark moments in Catherine's childhood allowing Gills to turn Catherine's missing dad into a somber,Charles Dickens Gothic character.Ripping any sense of somber apart with his bare hands,Gills delivers a rip roaring performance as the wonderfully deranged mirror monster,with Gills delivering each of his lines with a real relish.

Entering both sides of the looking glass in the movie,the stunning Catherine Burgess gives a great performance as Catherine,with Burgess gradually peeling away the elegance of Catherine's "real" life to show the wild and untamed side of her personality that is slowly rising to the suffice,as Catherine starts to look deep into the mirror,in the hope of finding the glass door.

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10/10

Horror porn!

jp_9111 December 2019

A great horror film with a fancy cinematography and fine acting. The script is mixed with hardcore sex and creepy scenes like a sexual hell. Really imaginative film!

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10/10

Fear Should Not Be In Your Vocabulary & The Supernatural has NO Meaning

SleepyHollow369 December 2005

I will say this movie is a good way of explaining the unexplainable...This movie grabs your very soul...it touches deep in what i believe many ordinary people worldwide feel everyday in their existence of everyday life trying to repress their inner feelings everyday on how they really feel but simply cannot explain it in anyway....and have to escape to a hidden place where they can live out their fantasies & Dreams....but some feelings are just to hard to explain.....this movie takes you on that journey to show you how strong your thoughts are and how they can control your soul and your everyday life

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