Maggie Corey

After her prostitute mother and her john are beaten to death while they are asleep in bed, teen-aged Ellie Masters is sent to an isolated orphanage run by a mysterious woman and her handyman, both whom she comes to suspect are hiding dark secrets.

For this remarkable experimental film, the provocative avant-garde legend Stephen Dwoskin gathered together a group of strangers and filmed them as they explored their fantasies over a period of five days: a project that now sounds a little like TV's Big Brother. The ceremonial gowns and make-up here not only evoke the eroticism of European horror movies but also highlight the film's interplay between performance and intimacy. Jonas Mekas called it 'theatre of life'.