Love Me Deadly  | 1972 | USA | Jacques Lacerte

A rare early piece about the contentious theme of necrophilia, Jacques Lacerte’s macabre melodrama focuses less on graphic horror, but still elicits some toe-curlingly grisly sequences. Lindsay Finch hides a dark secret, frequently dressing in mourning attire and attending the funerals of random men, stealing a passionate kiss with the corpse when left alone. Her ghastly paraphilia is only further emboldened when she encounters Fred, the leader of an entire group of necrophiles who organise corpses to be furnished for group sex. A chance encounter however with the charming Alex leads to marriage and a potential future, but her urges and the psychotic Fred unite calamitously with her new life. The Hokushin VHS was uncut and the film was not listed as a video nasty, which made it all the more disturbing when the film was seized multiple times in 1983 and successfully prosecuted under Section 3 seizure, ending up incinerated after destruction was approved.