Created during that strange period in exploitation films where the nudie, the roughie, and the art film all smashed together with bizarre results, Mondo Keyhole manages to hit all three of those at once. The film was the first official feature film for director Jack Hill, who cut his teeth on Roger Corman films including shooting extra scenes for Dementia-13 and Blood Bath, which would in turn lead to Spider Baby the following year and cult favorites like Foxy Brown and Coffy. Here he was working with producer, distributor and sometime director John Lamb (who also shot sequences for this film), a curious footnote in weird movie history thanks to two films he made before this, The Mermaids of Tiburon and the groundbreaking full-frontal nudist camp film The Raw Ones. Released in 1966 by Lamb's short-lived "Art Films International," the film was augmented during its theatrical appearances with varying degrees of nightmare footage and narration for reasons never really made clear. After that it was mentioned frequently in cult movie magazines and books but was difficult to see for years until it turned up from Something Weird on VHS in 1994 as the 29th installment in "Frank Henenlotter's Sexy Shockers from the Vaults." However, Lamb took exception to the release and ordered it to be halted, making it one of the company's rarest tapes. Eventually the Lamb catalog went over to Kit Parker Films around the time of his death in 2006, with the major title turning up as double features on DVD from VCI under the "Psychotronica" heading. In this case it was paired up with The Raw Ones, with VCI eventually revisiting it for a standalone Blu-ray release in 2025.

As the gimmicky opening narration informs us over footage of metamorphosing and combustible skulls, the film takes place at the border between "pure fantasy" and "cold reality" with the viewer left to decide which portions fall on either side. From there we follow a loose collection of sequences involving highly dysfunctional Howard (Moriarty), a serial rapist prowling the streets of L.A., and his strung-out wife, Vicky (Common Law Cabin's Rein), who lives in a state of constant sexual arousal. Over the course of one evening their private lives start to intersect when they end up going to the same masked party where everyone gets down to their underwear, plays around with food a lot, splashes around in the pool, and indulges in some moderate S&M. Along the way you also get to see a grubby sex film production in action (courtesy of Howard's day job) along with whatever random strangeness the filmmakers happened to capture, but it's really the climactic, protracted party scene (complete with Lamb shooting underwater in a swimming pool) that will leave you reeling.

Hill himself doesn't seem too enthused about his work on this film in the audio commentary he provided for the DVD release chatting with Elijah Drenner, though he also points out more than enough bits of interest to make it notable for any exploitation fans. His attempts to inject some artiness into the proceedings definitely set it apart from the usual monochrome roughie, and unlike some of its peers, the film has the sense to make its unsavory main character really pay in the end. Despite the title, this has nothing to do with mondo movies in any way, nor does voyeurism really play much of a role either; it just looked like a cool name for the poster. That VCI DVD was okay for the time, presenting a different edit from what was on the SWV tape and presented flat letterboxed at 1.85:1 with newly added digital copyright info for the title card. The commentary is a big selling point with the duo covering a lot of ground including enthusiasm for the participation of Cathy Crowfoot, Hill's own role in the soundtrack and as a sex client in the film, and tons more.

The Blu-ray is taken from the exact same master as the DVD, albeit here presented in anamorphic widescreen so it at least fills up your screen. Otherwise it's business as usual with the same video-generated credits and even a nasty baked-in digital static glitch at the 63m3s mark. The LPCM 2.0 English mono track is the same as well and sounds okay for what it is, with optional English SDH yellow subtitles included. The previous commentary is ported over here, and a "Psychotronica" gallery features A Clockwork Orange, Phase IV, The Mermaids of Tiburon, The Holy Mountain, and Eraserhead; you can figure that one out. A new audio commentary is also included here with film historian Rob Kelly, and it's quite a fun one as he chats about the multiple running times and amounts of nudity, Hill's background, the implications of the "mondo" branding, and the more amusing curiosities to be found within; you also get some delightful moments where he gets completely flummoxed by touches like "records with the sounds of people getting whipped."

VCI (Blu-ray)

VCI (DVD)

Reviewed on July 19, 2025