The Howl (1970)

The Howl is the kind of movie that feels less like a story you follow and more like a fever-dream you ride—an exuberant, anything-goes carnival where Tinto Brass turns 60s pop culture, politics, and libido into pure cinematic mischief. It’s packed with audacious, psychedelic imagery and absurd encounters that keep topping themselves, the tone bouncing between slapstick adventure and provocative art-film provocation with a grin on its face. If you’re curious about early, experimental Brass—or you just want a surreal comedy-fantasy that plays like a punk precursor before punk had a name—this is a boldly original trip. Fair warning: the sexual candor and aggressive weirdness are the point, so if you need tidy plotting or subtle symbolism, you may find it more exhausting than enchanting.

The Howl is clearly trying to be a freewheeling, anti-establishment psychedelic odyssey—part sex farce, part political satire, part surreal art collage—using a runaway bride’s journey as an excuse to throw one bizarre set piece after another at you. The problem is it’s edited and paced like a fever dream on purpose, which means “meaning” often gets buried under noisy, chaotic transitions and scenes that feel more like sketches than a story. If you need coherent plotting, consistent tone, or even a basic sense of where it’s all going, this will likely feel exhausting and borderline incomprehensible rather than adventurous. But if you’re game for provocative 60s counterculture weirdness, striking imagery, and unapologetically odd humor (with moderate nudity), there’s a messy, occasionally inspired curiosity here worth sampling—just don’t expect it to play fair.