The Playboy Millionaire from the Ninth Circle of Hell
If Perversion were just about a sleazy, small-town millionaire with too much money and not enough soul, it might have been an unremarkable Brazilian soap opera. But director José Mojica Marins, moonlighting from his Coffin Joe persona, decided to give us Vittorio Palestrina—a man who rapes, maims, and collects body parts like a particularly nasty stamp collector. His favorite souvenir? A woman’s nipple, which he proudly keeps in a glass case like a psychotic sommelier with a wine cork.
Justice is Dead, the Crowd is Applauding
When Palestrina’s crimes become public knowledge, the village responds not with outrage but admiration, because apparently this is a town where moral compasses are sold pre-broken. His victim, Silvia, is shamed and ostracized while Palestrina is acquitted due to “insufficient evidence,” which in this courtroom seems to mean “the defendant showed up wearing a nice suit.” He even celebrates the verdict with a party, parading the severed nipple around like it’s a conversation piece from Pottery Barn’s Worst Collection.
Love, Lust, and Surgery
Enter Veronica, a beautiful medical student who doesn’t swoon at his smarmy advances. She plays the long game, demanding love and marriage before sleeping with him. When he finally caves, she rewards him with an extended lovemaking session and then, in the most memorable post-coital pivot in exploitation cinema, pulls out a surgical knife and castrates him. Subtle, no. Satisfying, yes.
The Twist with Extra Red Sauce
Turns out Veronica is Silvia’s sister, avenging her honor in the most direct way possible. The film ends with her naked, blood-covered, and lovingly bandaging Palestrina’s wounds while daydreaming about future bliss with her sister. Because nothing says “healing from trauma” like a little incest-adjacent fantasy over your victim’s groin injury.
Why It Fails (and Succeeds in the Worst Way)
Perversion is pure exploitation sludge—its only real craftsmanship is in how far it’s willing to push the audience’s gag reflex. The performances are pitched somewhere between telenovela and fever dream, and the story’s moral universe is so warped it makes A Clockwork Orange look like Sesame Street. The nipple trophy might be the film’s most restrained choice.
Final Word: Not for the Faint of Anything
It’s lurid, tasteless, and morally bankrupt, but it knows it. Perversion wants to shock you, disgust you, and make you feel like you need to boil your eyes after watching. In that sense, it succeeds—but only in the way food poisoning technically “succeeds” at making you lose weight.
