Young lovers Anna and Françoise, freshly graduated from college, find themselves in a mysterious forest, where they fall prey to Morgan le Fay, the fairy queen of Avalon who rules her magic island as a savage, Sapphic nightmare. For a sleazy erotic horror film, it’s much better than it deserves to be–surprisingly atmospheric, with authentic elements of fairy lore, folk horror, and medieval literary tropes amidst the soft-core action.

Starring Dominique Delpierre, Mireille Saunin, Michèle Perello, and Alfred Baillou. Written by Bruno Gantillon and Jacques Chaumelle. Directed by Bruno Gantillon.

This is a preview of our Patreon-only series Hollywood Avalon: An Arthurian Film Podcast. To hear the entire episode, join the Mary Versus the Movies patreon for $3/month to hear this and the entire series Hollywood Avalon: https://www.patreon.com/maryvsmovies.

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Young lovers Anna and Françoise, freshly graduated from college and off on a drive to their new futures as an artist and a writer, stop by a country inn, only to be warned off by the locals—sound familiar, horror fans?—only find themselves lost in a mysterious forest, where they fall prey to Morgana le Fay, the fairy queen of Avalon who rules her magic island as a savage, Sapphic nightmare. Here, as long as you please Morgana, you remain a beautiful, immortal young woman, waited on, able to indulge in art and music and sex. But the moment she tires of you, you’ll become one of the many old women found in the bowels of her castle.

Desperate to get away and save her girlfriend, Françoise schemes with Morgana’s servant, the hunchback dwarf Gurth, to find the magic talismans that will free her from the island before she incurs Morgana’s wrath and is turned from a beautiful young woman into a deathless, wailing crone for eternity.

For a sleazy erotic horror film, it’s much better than it deserves to be—surprisingly atmospheric, with authentic elements of fairy lore, folk horror, and medieval literary tropes amidst the soft-core action. It’s a strange, dreamy kind of film, the heavy-lidded French cousin to The Wicker Man.