When the genre Exploitation film is mentioned, the first thing that comes to mind is a sexual, gruesome, B-movie. These types of films are often cheaply made, with themes usually about nudity, violence, and drug use, among others. It also exploits current trends. Exploitation films like to believe that they caution their audiences of the consequences of these issues, but their methods usually exploit the issues anyway despite warning their audience. In this analysis, I will compare and contrast the exploitation films Scorpio Nights (1985) and Twilight Dancers (2006).
Although the two films are both exploitation films, they do not have a similar plot. Scorpio Nights, regarded as a Filipino film classic, is an erotic thriller story about a peeping tom who falls in love with the wife of a security guard. Danny, the protagonist of the story, gets the apartment to himself for a while and watches the couple downstairs have sex every night. One night, he chances upon the wife, who is usually asleep, and starts doing the same thing that the husband usually does. The wife does not budge and pretends to not notice. Eventually, the two would develop feeling for each other after having sex every time the husband is on his graveyard shift. One day, the husband catches them on the act so he shoots them both, has sex with the wife’s body, and kills himself. The second film, Twilight Dancers is an LGBT drama directed by Mel Chionglo and written by Ricky Lee as part of his trilogy about macho dancers. Ricky Lee took inspiration from Lino Brocka’s Macho Dancer. The story is about the life of three macho dancers or male strippers, performing at a bar and doing sex work just to make ends meet. The film shows the social realities of that time, through the story of their lives. Dwight, a young male stripper at the peak of his career, meets Madame Loca, a corrupt businesswoman and does sexual favors for her. He dreams of moving out of the country to start a new life, but he needs a huge amount of money to do so. Dwight asks Madame Loca for money, and she tells him that she can help if he does her a favor. He decides that he will do it, but his close friend and male stripper past his prime, Alfred, begged him to let him tag along as he needs the money to support his family. As Madame Loca’s driver and ex-male stripper, Bert, drives them to a location in Cavite, she puts a gun to his head and orders him to step out of the car. Madame Loca accuses Bert of being a traitor. Alfred starts attacking Bert and eventually gets shot. Bert gets ahold of Madame Loca, so she shouts for Dwight to kill Bert and he shoots him twice. Trembling with fear, Dwight worries for Alfred and what might happen, but Madame Loca reassures him that he will not be sent to jail. In the end, Alfred is shown behind bars while Dwight is free.
Scorpio Nights reflected the last few years of Marcos’ regime; an era where the economy was chaotic and Ninoy Aquino’s assassination was the talk of the town. Danny is a Bacolod-native sharing a tiny apartment in Binondo with three other boys. Meanwhile, Twilight Dancers’ Dwight is an orphan living on his own, after being discharged from the orphanage. In both stories, the protagonists live in poverty. The antagonist in Scorpio nights, the security guard who lives beneath Danny’s apartment, can be assumed to be living in poverty too. However, in Twilight Dancers, the film’s antagonist is a gun-obsessed rich businesswoman who has strong connections with politicians and other powerful people. At one point, Dwight asks about the mayor of their town and she boasts about his reputation of being a seemingly good leader, saying “Kaya alam mo, sa bayan niya, wala kang makikitang isang kriminal, siya lang.”
Both films feature many explicit scenes, however, since Twilight Dancers is about macho dancers in a gay bar, gay explicit scenes are to be expected. It is quite noticeable that gay bed scenes are much more conservative. In the film, only kissing and caressing was shown during bed scenes between two men, while the act itself (minus the genitals) was shown during bed scenes between straight people. How could this be? Perhaps Philippine media is still close-minded when it comes to things like this. Scorpio Nights did not seem to have any problem displaying very explicit content, it even features fetishes such as foot fetishism, cuckolding, and exhibitionism. The two films explore sexuality quite brilliantly, not shy at all from going all out. Twilight Dancers’ male strippers dancing the night away on stage, feeling the vibrations on their bodies can be compared to the two lustful neighbors, feeling nothing but each other’s energies all through the night. Both Scorpio Nights and Twilight Dancers have a death scene towards the end, however, only Scorpio Nights feature a suicide. The security guard kills himself after having sex with his wife’s dead body. The necrophilia was quite bothersome and disturbing, him shooting himself afterwards is the cherry on top. The death scene for this film was more shocking than the other, as the movie did a great job building tension towards that final scene. The husband finding out his wife’s infidelity was inevitable; the film hinted in many instances that the husband was already having suspicions. If the death scene in Scorpio Nights was intense, the death scene in Twilight Dancers was underwhelming because of the way the tension in the scene was built. In the end, Dwight gave in to evil, just as Danny gave in to lust.
Scorpio Nights and Twilight Dancers are Filipino exploitation films that have striking similarities and themes, despite coming from different eras. They both feature a heavy amount of nudity, sex, and violence, towards the end. These films attempt to mirror realities in our society, and they’ve succeeded in doing it.
Michaela Oconer 