In short: Scarab (1983)

Politicians and scientists around the world are committing suicide after getting stung (or something) by dead scarabs somebody hides in their clothing. The responsible party is a guy calling himself Khepera (Rip Torn) who likes to rant and rave in a dark chamber, dressed in excellently stupid “Egyptian” garb. He may or may not be a former Nazi scientist; now, he believes he is the reincarnated high priest/lover (or something) of another god (or something) he’s trying to resurrect. When he’s not shouting angry nonsense, he is surrounded by a bunch of half-naked high priest/god/whatever groupies who apparently enjoy being groped by an ugly older guy. There’s also some business about Khepera getting cockblocked by his sex partner’s lower half turning into that of a pig. Who knows what that’s about?

Womanizing sleazy reporter Murphy (Robert Ginty) somehow stumbles upon some of the vague and impenetrable facts of the matter. Mostly because he realizes a woman we will learn to be called Elenea (Cristina Sánchez Pascual) who sometimes dresses up as a nurse appears at several of the more public suicides. And because he’s a sleaze and she’s a reasonably attractive woman, he starts following her around.

Turns out Elenea is something like a white witch working against Khepera for reasons. She’s also, as it happens, the ideal body Khepera needs for his reincarnation business. Eventually, everyone ends up wherever the villain is shacked up, where low budget Aztecs and Egyptians become one single group of horrible costuming, and a bizarre climax ensues.

If this description of Steven-Charles Jaffe’s weird adventure/horror movie Scarab sounds a bit confused and somewhat woozy, then that’s because watching the film has the quality of walking through somebody’s half remembered dream – and not just because of the whole thing’s worn-out VHS source.

There’s a meandering quality to proceedings I usually connect more with Italian genre cinema. The plot doesn’t follow any kind of sensible narrative structure, instead scenes of Torn shouting mad mastermind nonsense, Ginty being an aw shucks sleazoid, exposition that explains very little indeed, adventure movie tropes on the cheap, and random utter weirdness like that thing with Torn and the suddenly pig-bodied lady just happen whenever and however the movie seems to feel like it. Later, we also get an evil witch for Elenea to psychically/magically (the film doesn’t tell or explain, of course) duel, a horde of henchmen in sackcloth and lucha ski masks for Ginty to fight, much of it shot from peculiar angles and drenched in what’s either print damage or dry ice.

Very little here connects, makes sense, or has any depth, but as a waking dream, Scarab is a rather fantastic experience; most certainly, it’s never even the tiniest bit boring.