Reviewed by

Christopher Armstead

When we first meet Dr. Anna Fugazzi, played by this films producer, writer, director and star October Kingsley, she’s having a psycho analytical session with her patient Mr. Carducci the pedophile played by Gary-7. That’s what the man calls himself. Initially it would seem that Dr. Fugazzi was dressed maybe just a bit inappropriately with her high heels, fishnets and low slung blouse but we’ll let that pass because my girl is just keeping it real. But not all is exactly as it seems in ‘The Seduction of Dr. Fugazzi’ as presented to us from those loons over there at Troma Films.

Like her patients, the good doctor seems to be having some issues. While at lunch with her mentor Professor Elam (Steve Larkin) the site of his shiny new cane sends the poor girl into a crazy migraine induced fit, complete with all kinds of disturbing imagery. How could a simple cane do all of that? Stability in the life of Dr. Fugazzi is provided by her live in boyfriend Maynard (Jeff Van Atta) because these two really seem to like each other. A lot. These two probably had as much faked sex as any couple ever in a movie. Sex in the kitchen, sex in the bed, sex in the pool, sex on the couch, sex with a broom, sex with whips, sex with handcuffs, sex with chains… though I gotta say, cute as she may be, Dr. Fugazzi has one time to hit me with a whip before we have words.

So in between having sex with her boyfriend Dr. Fugazzi does manage to squeeze in a patient or two such as Leonard the klepto or Madame Tulare the agoraphobe. But who is treating who here? Dr. Fugazzi’s patients show up at odd places imploring her to see what’s going on around her and to ‘wake up’, and she’s constantly beset by these weird dreams and violent images. Not too mention her boyfriend who likes wearing her purple dress, in addition to enjoying being violated by a broom stick. But what does it all mean? Perhaps the police detective Rowland (Faye Dunaway) and Dr. Fugazzi’s wooden monkey has the answers. Beats the hell out of me.

Right off the bat let me tell you that I didn’t care for ‘The Seduction of Dr. Fugazzi’ all that much, however, I did admire it. You see Ms. Kingsley has gone and created something that is, without a doubt, truly different and original. We complain all the time about how things are rehashed and remade and sequelized, but not this. And since October Kingsley was the writer, director, producer and star we must assume that this was all her vision. The movie is colorful, imaginative, vivid and we also admire the fact that Ms. Kingsley apparently didn’t ask her willing cast to do anything that she wasn’t willing to do herself. We admire the hell out of this movie.

But alas my admiration did not translate into me actually enjoying my time spent with Dr. Fugazzi. Sure it was different but sometimes it just felt like it was attempting to be different just for difference sake as opposed to the weirdness actually supporting the story. The story itself had a good basis to it but in the fractured way it was told it was difficult to find a rhythm with this movie, and it was so broadly foreshadowed that it wasn’t too difficult to figure out what was going with Dr. Fugazzi with the only mystery remaining being the gory details behind the obvious.

But the number one problem with the movie, the thing that holds ‘The Seduction of Dr. Fugazzi’ back the most, is the fact that acting was pretty damned suspect. Kingsley’s crew, while plenty game, felt like they were doing an acting workshop class. This was uniformly some of the worst acting that I have seen in a movie ever. This problem only becomes more pronounced when Faye Dunaway shows up on the scene. Before Ms. Dunaway shows up, sure the acting was bad, but it was consistently bad and you actually begin to adjust to it. Then you toss in this Academy Award winning long time veteran in the mix… It’s has the same effect of playing a pick up basketball game with your boys and then having Kobe Bryant show up. Now everybody can see how bad you suck. Then after the big ‘reveal’ the movie went on for like another half hour of just pure crazy nonsense. Wrap it up and shut it down baby.

So there is a lot to admire about ‘The Seduction of Dr. Fugazzi’ if not the actual movie itself. But where I stand October Kingsley has put herself on the map and I will be curious to see what the woman dreams up next.