The Vixens
The Vixens

The Vixens

1969Movie82 minEnglish

In this modern sexual morality thriller, a pair of modern country couples lounge around, eyeing each other with heavy-lidded salaciousness, then pairing off illicitly, while one of the wives recounts to a detective how she accidentally toppled her husband over the rim of Croton Reservoir upstate New York. Or was it an accident?

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Insights

Director: Kenneth AngerGenres: Short Film, Experimental

Plot Summary

Kenneth Anger's "The Vixens" is a highly stylized, allegorical short film exploring themes of occultism, Hollywood decadence, and male desire through a series of surreal and often violent vignettes. It features a cast of characters that include occultists, occult animals, and figures representing dark forces and feminine power, all set against a backdrop of occult rituals and symbolic imagery. The film eschews a conventional narrative for a dreamlike, associative structure, creating a potent and provocative visual experience.

Critical Reception

As an avant-garde experimental film, "The Vixens" was not subject to traditional critical reviews in the way mainstream cinema is. Its reception was largely confined to underground film circles and scholarly analyses of Kenneth Anger's work. It is recognized as a significant, albeit challenging, piece within his filmography, praised for its audacious visual style and unflinching exploration of taboo subjects, while also noted for its deliberate obscurity and confrontational nature.

What Reviewers Say

  • Visually striking and highly symbolic.
  • A challenging and controversial exploration of occult themes.
  • Represents a key, albeit obscure, work in Anger's experimental oeuvre.

Google audience: Information on Google user reviews for this experimental short film is not readily available, as it typically circulates within niche film communities rather than mainstream platforms.

Fun Fact

Kenneth Anger financed "The Vixens" himself by selling small sculptures he created, some of which were reportedly inspired by occult symbols.

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