The Washing Machine aka Vortice mortale (1993) Twisted Sisters Hungarian Noir Giallo

"A Blue Danube Erotic      

      Noir Nightmare"

Directed by Ruggero Deodato (assistant director for peplums, and Spaghetti Westerns notably Django, The Hellbenders and director of Cannibal Holocaust). Written by Luigi Spagnol. Music by Claudio Simonetti. The excellent stylistic, blue tinted, Noir Cinematography was by Sergio D'Offizi (Cannibal Holocaust).

The film Stars Philippe Caroit (Mostly TV known for R.I.S. Police scientifique (2006), Perfect Murders (2017), Internal Affairs (1995)) as Inspector Alexander Stacev, Ilaria Borrelli (A Girl from the Brothel) as Maria 'Sissy' Kolba, Katarzyna Figura (The Revenge) as Vida Kolba, Barbara Ricci (Bocce Balls, TV series Il ricatto) as Ludmilla Kolba, Claudia Pozzi as Irina, the four women in his life. 

Philippe Caroit as Inspector Alexander Stacev

Katarzyna Figura as Vida Kolba

Ilaria Borrelli as Maria 'Sissy' Kolba

Barbara Ricci as Ludmilla Kolba

Claudia Pozzi as Irina

With Laurence Regnier as Nikolai, László Borbély as Music Teacher, Claudia Pozzi as Irina, Yorgo Voyagis as Yuri Petkov, Vilmos Kolba as Blind School Instructor, Károly Medriczky as German Tourist #1, Sándor Boros as German Tourist #2, Tamás Pintér as Male Orchestra Singer, Ágnes Dávid as Female Orchestra Singer.

The Story

Budapest. Hungary. A dreary evening. 

Párizsi udvar?

We are under the glass dome of the courtyard of what looks like the neo gothic - neo moorish Párizsi udvar.  An old hotel I believe, that after 1949  was "renovated" into dingy apartments. 

Metaphorically, we are under the cover of a dish, what kind of a dish, a "Sixty-cent special. Cheap, flashy. Strictly poison under the gravy." It's a Noir Nightmare, and as Eddie Muller puts it "nightmares don't make sense." As we used to say, go with the flow, it's not Columbo.

Two headlights pull up at an entrance. A car door opens, black fishnet stockinged legs, from under a short skirt, step out. 

Yorgo Voyagis as Yuri Petkov

A hooker, Vida Kolba, is being dropped off by her mobster / pimp boyfriend Yuri Petkov. Vida is pissded off because she found a bracelet engraved "Sissy," the nickname of  Vida's sister Maria. WTF is up with that right? Maria Kolba is the musician sister.

Vida Kolba in a wig

Ludmilla peeping

Yuri bullshits his way out of it and decides that he better tap that thang now tonight, to prove his devotion. This is all watched from an apartment window by Vida's third sister Ludmilla the functioning alcoholic. Vida gives in and Yuri accompanies Vida into the apartment house. 

Vida takes off her wig and then we get a sequence in the apartments kitchen lit mainly by an open refrigerator door, where Yuri and Vida are getting it on.

Yuri has Vida hoisted up with her arms supported by the refrigerator and it's open door. While they are going at it, peeping on this from a stairway, and obviously getting excited is Ludmilla.

We also get a reaction shot, a glimpse of Vida smiling when she sees Ludmilla watching on the stair. 

Later that night Ludmilla hears the washing machine running and comes into the laundry room. It looks like something leaking from the door. 

Ludmilla gets closer it looks like blood. Upon opening the loading door Ludmilla see's a dismembered Yuri looking out at her. In a panic Ludmilla runs out of the laundry room hitting her head and knocking herself out.

Did this all really happen? There's a dreamlike quality to this film. The police are called, but when Inspector Alexander Stacev and his partner arrive to investigate there is no body nor traces of blood by the washing machine.  

Stacev tells the sisters that it's probably just one of Ludmilla's alcoholic hallucinations. Apparently, Stacev's presence has "impressed" the sisters enough hormonally, that they are now all in an anything goes three way "seducing" competition with each other for Stacev, lucky dog.

Later that night Stacev gets a call at his apartment while he's in bed with his gal pal Irina a lawyer. Its Ludmilla who tells Alex that she has important information about the case and to come and see her right away.

Irina is of course a bit ticked off about the case intruding into their love life. But she tells him to go, Alex drops Irina off outside of her apartment, and drives to Yuri's apartment for his meeting with Ludmilla. 

However after parking his car he's ambushed outside on the sidewalk by Vida, who is popping out of a gravity defying red bustier. She tries to work her charms in a sequence that's right out of the old Spicey Detective and Dime Detective magazine covers, but Stacev's not buying. 

Vida and Alex in some Pulp Cover Noir

By the time Stacev finally gets to Yuri's where he's supposed to meet Ludmilla she is not there. 

The rest of the film slowly spirals into Noirsville with the sisters increasingly messing psychologically and sexually with Stacev and the case he's trying to solve. These sequences alternate between gritty and sleazy or elaborate and elegant, with an occasional "giallo shock shot," or whatever they're called,  thrown in, lol.. 

Noirsville

 

Ruggero Deodato directed a true  nightmare of an Erotic, Noir, Giallo, that delivers all three in spades. Budapest washed with the blue filter is decadent, bleak, and beautiful.  It is quite the Noir City. This film's color pallet is reminiscent of what I think is called Mel Gibson's "Blue Version" cut of Payback (1999)

Philippe Caroit is quite believable as the Police Inspector while Ilaria Borrelli, Katarzyna Figura, and Barbara Ricci shine as our twisted sisters. It's just an Erotic Noir "entertainment" as Hitchcock would say. 7/10