Black Moon

Black Moon is a 1975 experimental fantasy horror film directed by Louis Malle and starring Cathryn Harrison, Joe Dallesandro, Therese Giehse and Alexandra Stewart. It was shown at the 1975 New York Film Festival and was distributed in the United States by 20th Century Fox. Though the film was created in France, its dialogue is in English. The film is dedicated to Giehse, who died shortly after shooting had completed. Plot Lily is attempting to seek refuge amidst an apparent gender-based civil war in which men and women are systematically killing one another. On a rural road, she encounters men executing women by firing squad, and flees with her car into the woods, following an overgrown road. There, she encounters a flock of sheep gathered around their shepherd, who has hanged himself from a tree. She later comes across a group of women donning military gear and torturing a young man. She abandons her car, fleeing on foot, and falls asleep in a meadow, where she hears the flowers beneath her crying in pain. Moments later, she witnesses a brown unicorn pass by, followed by a woman on a horse, and a number of naked children who begin herding a pig. Lily trails the man to an apparently abandoned château located beyond overgrowth on a hill. While exploring the house, she finds it fully furnished, but inhabited by numerous animals. Upstairs, she finds an elderly bedridden woman chastising her pet rat, Humphrey. The woman proceeds to attack Lily before contacting an unknown person on a transistor radio, making cruel observations of Lily's appearance and revealing details of how Lily arrived there that she should have no way of knowing. A number of alarm clocks inexplicably go off, and the old woman tries to strangle Lily. When Lily slaps her, the woman dies. Outside, Lily's attention is diverted by a man singing in the garden. Via telepathy, he communicates to her that his name is also Lily. His sister, also named Lily whom Lily had mistaken for a man earlier, arrives on horseback. Lily attempts to explain to Brother and Sister Lily that their mother is dead, but they are impervious and refuse to speak to her. When she follows them upstairs, she witnesses the old woman return to life before Sister Lily breastfeeds her.