Alex de Renzy's "Femmes de Sade" is something of a masterpiece in its own isolated and often neglected category. It's a tough, brutal 1970s pornographic horror film with an interesting plot, decent character design, and quasi-sadistic hardcore material. Rocky DeSade (Ken Turner, a huge, strange character whose last name in the film is, of course, a fabulous homage to the legendary and infamous marquis) is released from prison and invites himself over to a fellow inmate's house to barbarically rape his girlfriend (an infuriatingly beautiful Abigail Clayton). He then immerses himself in the big-city nightlife, seeking prostitutes to satisfy his sexual hunger and suppressed appetite for violence.
The creator of the "Pretty Peaches" trilogy, Alex de Renzy, makes a graphic and conceptually disturbing film here that, without the lure of explicit sex, could be considered a horror thriller. Plot and production value are things you don't see in adult films anymore (not even erotic films), and that's partly why productions from the golden age of "porn chic" constituted a huge cultural industry that, over time, has become globally recognized.