Outer Order Video’s “Maniac May” hits hard with this pairing, like a dirty martini spiked with absinthe and trauma. These aren’t just films—they’re fever dreams dressed in high heels and soaked in noir blood. Let’s talk.
Singapore Sling (1990)
Imagine Sunset Boulevard directed by a necrophiliac Greek surrealist. This is a film that starts in a gutter and somehow sinks deeper, clawing at the walls of genre until noir, horror, and exploitation collapse into a single word: depravity. Nikolaidis’ vision is one of dripping decadence and disintegrating identity, where language breaks down, incest is ritualized, and even vomiting feels performative. Shot in luscious black and white, it’s both gorgeous and grotesque—like watching Rebecca while slowly losing oxygen.
The detective is barely alive. The women—one mother, one daughter—are sirens, tormentors, mythic shades of something Freudian. There’s sex, there’s death, and there’s the undeniable sense that they’re interchangeable here. It’s not just sleazy; it’s haunted sleaze. Trauma as a language.
This is not a film. It’s an exorcism.
Viva (2007)
Anna Biller’s Viva looks like a candy-colored sexploitation flick from the 1970s—Russ Meyer meets The Stepford Wives—but underneath the kitsch is razor-sharp satire. Biller takes the aesthetics of Playboy-era liberation and surgically dissects the patriarchal dream underneath. Every frame is meticulously crafted, every pastel dress a costume of control.
Where Singapore Sling is madness in monochrome, Viva is hysteria in high saturation. It’s cheeky and campy, sure, but never dumb. Biller weaponizes artifice. She plays the lead herself, and her performance is a tightrope act between sincerity and send-up. It’s a film about sex, agency, and performance—all done in wigs, bubbles, and Technicolor tragedy.
And while Singapore Sling dives into depravity, Viva floats above it with a smile, the horror concealed in a giggle.
The Pairing
This double feature isn’t about comfort—it’s about contrast. Singapore Sling is the trauma you repress; Viva is the illusion you pretend to enjoy. Both dissect gender, performance, and fantasy. One with a scalpel, the other with a glitter bomb.
Together, they ask: who’s really the maniac here?
Outer Order Video knew what they were doing. This isn’t just a double feature—it’s a dark ritual with a twisted sense of humor. Bring a flask, maybe some therapy, and don’t expect to sleep easy.
Final Verdict:
9/10 – A dreamy descent into sleaze, satire, and the surreal.
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