LET’S GET PHYSICAL: BLACK COBRA (1976) ***

“E-‘MAY’-NUELLE”

FORMAT:  BLU-RAY 

Laura Gemser stars as Eva, a dancer who goes to Hong Kong to perform a sexy snake dance.  There, she meets a pair of brothers named Jules (Gabriele Tinti) and Judas (Jack Palance) who become smitten with her.  Judas is a rich, eccentric snake collector who’s better with snakes than he is with people.  He soon becomes obsessed with Eva and longs to possess her.  Soon, he makes her his kept woman, but problems arise when she falls in love with another woman. 

Hey, wait a second.  Gemer’s character is named Eva, which is a form of “Eve”.  She has a snake.  Palance’s character is named Judas.  Tinti’s character’s initials are “J.C.”.  So, if you can’t already tell, it’s all very Biblical.  I can’t remember if the part where a guy gets a snake shoved up his ass is in the Bible or not though.  Maybe. 

Black Cobra is another concoction from Joe D’Amato and Bruno Mattei, and it’s a little different than their usual fare.  It’s fast-moving, well-acted, and slightly classier than their typical output (only slightly).  It’s especially fun seeing Palance slumming in something like this.  He gets a great scene where he takes Gemser to his home and frightens her with his snake collection.  I mean, we’ve all been there before.  Right, guys?  We bring a hot date home, and she runs for the hills as soon as you show her your snake. 

D’Amato gives Gemser plenty of opportunities to strip down, dance with her snake, receive full body massages, and take showers.  Even though it’s not part of the “official” Black Emanuelle series (which is already unofficial to begin with), there is a scene set in a lesbian only club that’s just like Porno Nights of the World, and the part where Tinti uses a snake as a marital aid is kind of like Emanuelle Around the World. 

I’m not sure if the presence of a star like Palance put D’Amato on his best behavior or what, but he equips himself nicely when he’s trying to turn out a more “legitimate” product.  Don’t let words like “classy” and “legitimate” fool you.  This is still chockfull of nudity and even some scenes of animal cruelty.  (A mouse is eaten by a snake and a snake is skinned alive and eaten.)  However, the film is more psychological than exploitative,  and is easily one of the best in the “unofficial” Black Emanuelle series. 

AKA:  Black Cobra Woman.  AKA:  Erotic Eva.  AKA:  Hot Pants.  AKA:  Emanuelle and the Deadly Black Cobra.  AKA:  Emanuelle Goes Japanese.  

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: WOMEN’S PRISON MASSACRE (1982) ***

“E-‘MAY’-NUELLE”

FORMAT:  BLU-RAY (REWATCH)

ORIGINAL REVIEW:

(As posted on July 17th, 2007)

This is one of the sickest women in prison movies EVER! It was directed, under a pseudonym by Italian schlockmeister Bruno Mattei and stars Laura Gemser as Emanuelle. (It was released in Italy as an Emanuelle movie.)

During the opening credits, Emanuelle stars in an artsy fartsy prison play and promptly gets a tomato thrown in her face, inciting a riot. The next day at lunch, the main bitchy prisoner, Albina challenges Emanuelle to an arm wrestling match, then later tries to beat her up in the bathroom and Emanuelle rips off Alibina’s wig and beats her with it! Meanwhile a gang of male prisoners led by Crazy Boy (Gemser’s real life husband Gabrielle Tinti) are transferred to the women’s prison. They get loose, take the warden hostage, and hole up in a cell block. The gang revels in torturing, killing and raping the female inmates. One guy, Blade uses a razor to cut the girls up. In one of the most sickest acts of revenge ever witnessed on celluloid, the girl takes his razor, puts it in a cork and sticks it up her coochie with the razor facing outward. Then she seduces Blade and when he rapes her… UGH! You won’t even notice the lackluster prison break finale, cuz you’ll still be cringing from the penis slicing scene.

This was sort of a sequel to Mattei’s Violence in a Women’s Prison. Gemser somehow manages to keep her clothes on for this one, but the sheer amount of sleaze, bad dubbing, and hateful dialogue (“I’ll bite your nipples off! And I’ll do it too”!) more than makes up for it.

AKA: Emanuelle Escapes Hell. AKA: Blade Violent.

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: VIOLENCE IN A WOMEN’S PRISON (1982) ** ½

“E-‘MAY’-NUELLE”

FORMAT:  BLU-RAY (REWATCH)

ORIGINAL REVIEW:

(As posted on July 17th, 2007)

Laura Gemser once again plays Emanuelle, fearless reporter and tireless fornicator. This time, she checks herself into a hellhole prison (is there any other kind?) to expose the corrupt warden who cruelly violates her prisoners and makes them participate in her lewd voyeuristic sex acts. The standout scene is when Emanuelle is sent to solitary confinement and is attacked by an army of mealy ass rats. There’s also a pretty good scene where she throws a bucket of poo on some guards too.

Too bad director Bruno (Night of the Zombies) Mattei doesn’t push the envelope a bit farther. He gives us some lesbian scenes and a dash of sadism, but there are countless other women in prison flicks out there that would gladly give us higher sleaze content for our money. I mean what can you say about a women in prison movie that doesn’t have ONE shower scene? Mattei and Gemser returned the next year with the much better Women’s Prison Massacre.

AKA: Chicks in Chains. AKA: Emanuelle Reports from a Women’s Prison. AKA: Emanuelle in Hell. AKA: Women’s Penitentiary 4.

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: EMANUELLE AND THE WHITE SLAVE TRADE (1978) ***

“E-‘MAY’-NUELLE”

FORMAT:  BLU-RAY (REWATCH)

ORIGINAL REVIEW:

(As posted on February 28th, 2008)

Laura Gemser returns as Emanuelle in the fifth and final installment of the series from Italian sleaze guru Joe D’Amato.  This time out, Emanuelle takes on the white slave trade but BEFORE she does that, she masturbates while she watches her friend fuck a black mechanic, goes on an African safari, has a lesbian tryst in the shower, balls a wealthy prince, smokes a hookah in India, has a threeway, watches a nude photo shoot in New York and makes love in a darkroom.  THEN she decides to do an expose about white slavers.

 

When she tries to escape (with the help of a friendly transvestite) she gets captured and nearly gets lobotomized by the evil doctors at “The Clinic”.  Fortunately, she escapes in a laundry basket, hops aboard a ship home and balls the crew to pay for her voyage. 

 

With Emanuelle and the White Slave Trade, D’Amato delivers a rather tame entry in the durable series.  I’ll admit that watching Emanuelle in America probably jaded me (Who could forget the immortal horse masturbation scene?), but EATWST has a feeling of been-there-done-that (D’Amato even takes to recycling whole scenes from Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals) that knocks things down a notch or two.  Having said that, D’Amato does film THE definite transvestite Kung Fu fight in a bowling alley scene in the history of the cinema, so that’s worth something at least.

 

Although it takes Emanuelle FOREVER to get to the damn slavers, once she does things start to perk up considerably.  (Like my penis.)  Despite the relatively low sleaze quotient in this one, Gemser looks amazing as always and there is plenty of female flesh on display to make any fan of the series happy.  Gemser’s husband and frequent co-star in these movies, Gabriele Tinti has a small role as a slaver.  There’s also a great stream of consciousness theme song called “Run Cheetah Run” that has to be heard to be believed.  Here’s just a sample: 

 

Run cheetah run on the prairie, Shamu rapid cheetah is here.  

 

You feel his breath on your back; your heart is breaking, his clothes lapse.

 

His clothes LAPSE?!?  I’m sure something got lost in the translation there, but “Run Cheetah Run” is a hilarious oddity that will probably stay in your head longer than anything else in the movie. 

 

AKA:  Emanuelle and the Girls of Madame Claude. 

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: SISTER EMANUELLE (1977) ** ½

“E-‘MAY’-NUELLE”

FORMAT:  BLU-RAY (REWATCH)

ORIGINAL REVIEW:

(As posted on September 20th, 2007)

The sex starved Emanuelle (Laura Gemser) is back in the habit literally this time, renouncing her sinful ways and becoming a nun! Say it isn’t so! The story has Emanuelle and a wrinkled up old nun transporting a teenage trollop named Monica (Monica Zanchi) to a remote convent where they hope to instill her with the word of God. Monica will not be so easily converted though, and she quickly starts seducing people left and right, starting with her bookworm roommate. When a wanted criminal (Gabriele Tinti, Gemser’s real life husband and frequent co-star) hides out in the convent, Monica wastes no time hopping in the sack with him. Together, he and Monica conspire to set Emanuelle’s cooled loins afire.

There’s a lot of sexual tension between Zanchi and Gemser, but it’s pretty much a foregone conclusion that Emanuelle’s gonna end up turning into a slut again. While the sex scenes are plentiful, there’s really little variation between them or the actors (most of them are lesbian scenes involving Zanchi) and lack the flair (and sleaze) of previous installments. And although the film is stylish and features a lot of Zanchi in various states of undress, it’s also very episodic and sluggishly paced. It also loses points for tossing out one of those annoying “it was all a dream” endings too.

Emanuelle fans will be disappointed to learn that since Gemser spends most the movie in a nun’s habit (it takes about a half hour for her to finally show a little skin and well over an hour to get a little something-something) it leaves little time for her to get naked, but I suppose it’s worth it because she’s so damn hot. Even though she spends most the movie as a spectator and not a participant, Gemser is still radiant as always. Zanchi is also very hot and usually ends up getting naked in nearly every scene, so that’s a plus. Of the badly dubbed dialogue, the older nun gets the best line when she says, “Bladder trouble is God’s punishment for sinful flesh!”

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: EMANUELLE AND THE PORNO NIGHTS OF THE WORLD (1978) ** ½

“E-‘MAY’-NUELLE”

FORMAT:  BLU-RAY 

After a one film absence, Emanuelle (Laura Gemser) came back for this second sequel to Porno Nights of the World.  She begins our journey of perversion with a drive down the Las Vegas Strip.  Once she’s back in her home, she tells us about seance where the spirits possess the female participants into disrobing.  We then witness a black magic ritual that ends in an orgy, an adult carnival with midway games that give away blow-up dolls instead of kewpie dolls, a magician who makes audience members’ clothes disappear, and a stripper whose costume is made up entirely of ribbons, and her customers must pay to pull each strand. 

In a scene reminiscent of Emanuelle in America, a stripper named Lady Godiva lets her horse get into the act, if you know what I mean.  Trans exploitation star Ajita Wilson (who starred in Porno Nights of the World No. 2) makes a cameo photographing an orgy.  Next, Ajita takes in a lesbian live sex show.   There’s also a private club where a male bodybuilder causes the clientele (mostly a bunch of old ladies) to writhe back and forth in ecstasy, a behind the scenes look at the making of a porno that ends with filming a scene where an actress plays hide the snake literally (perhaps a callback to the infamous scene in Emanuelle Around the World), an S & M club where a woman escapes her ropes before banging two guys dressed like gangsters from the ‘40s onstage, a club in Montreal that specializes in “bubble bath boxing”, a sci-fi themed nude ballet, a televised striptease competition where the rowdy crowd pelts the losers with rotten vegetables, and a coed nude beauty contest. 

My favorite bit had an unhappy housewife bringing her husband to Tokyo to receive a penis transplant.  This scene contains some really fake looking prosthesis and phony looking gore during the operation.  The stereotyped dubbing on the Japanese doctors is hilariously bad too.  Another highlight is a cabaret act featuring “Snow White” and her four dwarfs.  (Gemser explains the other three “Got jobs as short order cooks”!) 

The most tasteless scene occurs in the New Guinea segment where tribesmen go through great lengths to ensure their bride is a virgin on their wedding night.  Footage of the (obviously faked) wedding night is intercut with real shots of piglets being beaten and butchered, which was totally unnecessary. 

Once again directed by the duo of Bruno Mattei and Joe D’Amato, Emanuelle and the Porno Nights of the World may not be as entertaining overall as its predecessor, but it is a little bit more consistent from segment to segment.  It also benefits from a snappier pace and some humorous commentary by Gemser.  (“What would you do if a flying saucer landed in your cabbage patch?”)  If you go into it knowing what you’re in for, I’d say you probably won’t walk away disappointed.

AKA:  Emanuelle and the Erotic Nights.

ABDUCTED BY THE DALEKS (2005) **

I’ve never been much of a Doctor Who fan, but when I found out about this Skinamax spoof, I knew I had to check it out. 

Four hot babes are on a road trip when they run over an alien.  They then wander around the forest in the dark for what feels like an eternity.  They eventually lose their clothes and wind up being abducted by the Daleks (FINALLY!). 

All the ladies have really thick accents, so it’s hard to make out what they’re saying.  In fact, the robotic voices of the Daleks are easier to understand than the actresses.  Not that it matters much, especially when the actresses are naked so often.  Thankfully, it’s only fifty-five minutes long, but even then, it wears out its welcome way before the end credits even have a chance to roll. 

This doesn’t even feel like a “real” movie.  It’s more like a softcore fan film.  (There are some moments that flirt with hardcore.)   The Daleks themselves are well done though.  It’s possible they were using real props from the show, but then again, what do I know?

Oh, and I’m not one to kink shame, but this didn’t do much for me.  I’m sure that 1% of the population with an S & M Doctor Who fetish is gonna LOOOOVE it.  I guess it starts out well enough for what it is, but it sort of loses whatever steam it’s built up when the girls are menaced by masked killers in the woods instead of the cheesy robots.  Then again, your mileage may vary. 

It's all very cheap and very dumb.  Then again, so is Doctor Who.  But since this has tons of boobs, I’d say it’s a lot better than that BBC shit.  

This will probably be a wet dream for Doctor Who nerds.  It might work as a curio for nudie movie fans.  Everyone else will be understandably perplexed.  

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: PORNO NIGHTS OF THE WORLD (1977) ** ½

“E-‘MAY’-NUELLE”

FORMAT:  BLU-RAY 

Laura Gemser stars in this (fake) Mondo movie in character as Emanuelle.  She’s your hostess for a visual tour of the world’s naughtiest nightclubs where anything can happen.  One club features a stripper who takes it off for a man in a shoddy ape costume before doing it on stage.  Later, another dancer strips for a dog and lets it lick her bush, which gives a whole new meaning to the term “lapdance”.  There’s also a club in Hong Kong that caters to lesbians and a segment on a dancer named “Butterfly” who does performs tricks with golden ping pong balls. 

We also get a glimpse of sexual customs and oddities from around the globe.  In Paris, a hooker works out of a storefront window in the red-light district, and another has her own private nude roller rink.  Elsewhere in India,  ancient fertility rites are still being practiced (“That’s right my friends, this is going on today in the atomic space age”), in Amsterdam we visit a “sex school”, Berlin is the site of a “most beautiful breasts” competition (“Who will win and who will get the booby prize?”), in Bangkok there’s a den of inequity which is a combination of massage parlor and barbershop, and in Brazil, we see a macumba ritual.  There’s also an expose on “Taxi Mothers” who pimp their daughters out to wealthy businessmen, and a funny scene where hundreds of women gather to watch a super stud named Omar bang a bunch of women on stage (one of whom is Uschi Digart). 

Other nightclub acts include a magician who performs a sex change on his assistant (thanks to some editing), intergender mud wresting, and a dancer named “Lollipop” who encourages audience participation.  Later, the magician returns to invite couples on stage for a game of “Guess the Fanny”, and an Arab couple have to pantomime their lovemaking in a club to adhere to strict local policy. 

This is kind of an interesting, if not entirely successful, way to simultaneously ride the wave of both the Mondo movie craze and the Emanuelle franchise.  (It also manages to keep the bestiality theme of the Emanuelle series going.)  Oh, and if the scene of cannibal castration looks familiar, it’s because they were taken from Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals. 

Directed by the one-two combo of Bruno Mattei and Joe D’Amato, Porno Nights of the World is a grab bag of oddball exploitation elements.  Because of its very nature, it’s uneven as all get out.  The upshot is that most sequences are short, which means they don’t stay on one subject for too long.  So, if there’s a segment that you don’t much care for, just be patient.  D’Amato and Mattei will be onto a new silly sequence before too long.  All in all, it’s not nearly as successful or fun as something like D’Amato’s similar Crazy Nights, but it works more often than not. 

AKA:  Sexy Night Report.

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: EMANUELLE AND THE LAST CANNIBALS (1977) ***

“E-‘MAY’-NUELLE”

FORMAT:  BLU-RAY 

While Emanuelle (Laura Gemser) is undercover in a women’s mental hospital, she witnesses a patient bite off a nurse’s nipple.  She does some digging and learns the patient was an escapee from a long thought lost tribe of cannibals in the Amazon.  She then takes a trip down river to do a story on the tribe, and naturally gets more than she bargained for. 

The Emmanuelle series had already dabbled in horror and gore with the snuff scenes in Emanuelle in America.  This time around, director Joe D’Amato leans heavy into the gore with this entry meant to capitalize on the cannibal movie craze of the late ‘70s.  While it doesn’t have the hardcore inserts that the past couple of Emanuelle sequels had, the cannibal gore makes up for the lack of sleaze. 

The film benefits from a disciplined plotline as it lacks the hodgepodge travelogue aspect of the previous entries.  Despite this, there are still some sluggish bits in between the highlights.  In fact, it probably works better as a cannibal movie than an Emanuelle skin flick, if only because there’s so many characters in the expedition that Emanuelle winds up getting lost in the shuffle at about the halfway point.  

The expedition scenes feature all the stock footage shots of animals you might expect from a jungle picture.  However, there are some eerie moments along the way like Emanuelle hiding her camera in the head of a creepy doll and every time she presses the shutter, its eyes close.  There’s also a memorable scene where Emanuelle Interrogates the prisoner in a straitjacket by fondling her.  The gore includes castration, eyeball eating, nipple ripping, gut munching, heads on spikes, spearing, disemboweling, and a man is cut in half during what can only be described as a game of cannibal tug of war.  We also get a snake attack, a narrow quicksand escape, and assorted cannibal traps.

Although her role is somewhat diminished in comparison to other films in the series, Gemser still looks great.  She even gets to bang her real-life husband Gabriele Tinti a few times before finally heading down to cannibal land.  Once there, she bathes nude with a hot beauty while a monkey wearing sunglasses looks on.  If that doesn’t scream “must see”, I don’t know what does.

AKA:  Emanuelle’s Amazon Adventure.  AKA:  Bloody Tracks.  AKA:  Trap Them and Kill Them.

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: EMANUELLE AROUND THE WORLD (1977) ***

“E-‘MAY’-NUELLE”

FORMAT:  BLU-RAY (REWATCH)

ORIGINAL REVIEW:  

(As posted on September 15th, 2007)

Laura Gemser returns as the beautiful bed hopping, globetrotting reporter Emanuelle in this fourth installment in the “Black Emanuelle” franchise directed by legendary sleaze merchant Joe (Beyond the Darkness) D’Amato. This time she goes from Italy to Hong Kong to The Middle East trying to bust a white slavery operation, while still having the time to hop on over to India to debunk a famous sex guru played by George (The Grim Reaper) Eastman. Oh yeah and she has lots of dirty sex along the way.

While not quite as jaw dropping as Emanuelle in America (hey what could be?), it still features one outrageous scene where the Chinese slaver forces a woman to hump a dog while he puts a snake up another girl’s pussy! It’s not on par with the horse fucking scene from Emanuelle in America, but it will do in a pinch I guess.

Although Gemser is stunning and the sex is plentiful and the film is hardly boring it does make a few missteps here and there. The pacing stops and sputters every time D’Amato frantically whisks Emanuelle off to her next exotic location, often leaving the plot in the dust. (Nearly every scene begins with a voice over conversation to clear up just how the hell Emanuelle got there.) Not that the plot hardly matters in a movie like this, but every time D’Amato introduces a potentially interesting character (like the horribly scarred rapist who looks like Darkman’s inbred uncle) or situation (like when some skuzzy politicians throw a girl to a bunch of homeless dudes who unexpectedly rape her) he ends things so abruptly that we never get a satisfying payoff to these scenes. Like Emanuelle in America, D’Amato tosses in some random ass XXX footage during the sex scenes, but they’re edited in so clumsily that they become devoid of any titillation whatsoever.

Despite these major flaws, Emanuelle Around the World remains highly entertaining and is a must for any Gemser or D’Amato fan. Sadly although we see Emanuelle going around the world we never truly see her go “around the world” if you know what I mean and I think you do.

AKA: Confessions of Emanuelle. AKA: The Degradation of Emanuelle. AKA: Emanuelle Versus Violence to Women.

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: EMANUELLE IN AMERICA (1977) ****

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LET’S GET PHYSICAL: EMANUELLE IN BANGKOK (1976) ***

“E-‘MAY’-NUELLE”

FORMAT:  BLU-RAY (REWATCH)

ORIGINAL REVIEW:  

(As posted on September 15th, 2007)

Sometimes writing the plot synopsis of a movie is kinda tricky because you don’t want to give away certain plot points or little surprises. Other times you want to let everyone know about this one great part to get their attention because that one scene is about all the movie has to offer. This synopsis is quite simple: Emanuelle (Laura Gemser) goes to Bangkok and gets naked and has sex. A lot. I mean seriously, that’s what it’s all about. No plot. No motivation. Just Emanuelle. In Bangkok. Having Sex. Why they didn’t just call the movie Emanuelle in Bangkok Having Sex a Lot is beyond me. (Maybe it wouldn’t fit on the marquee.)

But I’m getting off topic here. Where was I? Oh, anyway, so Emanuelle goes to Bangkok and has sex. A lot. First with an anthropologist (played by her husband Gabriele Tinti), then with a host of others, all the while randomly getting naked every chance she gets. Then she gets a sexy massage from an Asian chick who gives her a bath in a very imaginative way: she jumps in the bubble bath and then rubs herself against Emanuelle’s naked body. Genius. Then she gets naked for her bellhop (who gives her a massage) before going off to watch a stripper pour candle wax all over herself. Next, she participates in a pot fueled orgy before getting ANOTHER massage, this time from studly Ivan Rassimov (who would later go on to star in Emanuelle Around the World and Emanuelle in the Country). And so on, and so on, and so on. At one point she gets gang raped, but her promiscuous level is so high that I’m sure all they had to do was ask.

All this plays against positively one of the goofiest musical scores in the history of cinema. Seriously it sounds like the banjo player from Deliverance teamed up with The New Christy Minstrels and tried to reach that New Age Enya market or something.

Director Joe D’Amato does a credible job with his first entry in the series and gives the fans exactly what they want to see, namely Emanuelle getting naked and having sex a lot. (Sample of a typical scene: Emanuelle walks into a room and disrobes. She notices someone in the next room all hot and heavy. She bones them. Repeat.) He would go on to direct FIVE sequels (some unofficial, but if it features Emanuelle naked it counts in my book), the most infamous being Emanuelle in America, which is still the best. Emanuelle in Bangkok may lack the later sequels’ sleaze factor and general WTF quotient (although we do get to see a snake fight a mongoose), but it can’t be beat for the sheer amount of gratuitous nudity. I mean you can’t help but like a movie where the leading lady can’t keep her clothes on for more than 48 seconds at a time. (It gets an automatic four-star rating if you have a masseuse and/or bathing fetish.)

The dubbing is of course atrocious but adds to the flick’s charm. The dialogue is just as bad, especially when Emanuelle cries out, “I feel naked without my camera!” I mean Jesus Christ lady; you’re naked for 70% of the movie, what’s one more second? But it’s Rassimov gets the best line when he tells Emanuelle, “You’re not like them; you’re different. You understand how to control your ecstasy.” 

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: BLACK EMANUELLE 2 (1976) **

“E-‘MAY’-NUELLE”

FORMAT:  BLU-RAY (REWATCH)

ORIGINAL REVIEW:  

(As posted on March 2nd, 2008)

For whatever reason, Laura Gemser decided not to reprise her role as “Black Emanuelle” for the first sequel in the long running series, so we’re stuck with Sharon Lesley.  She’s nowhere near as hot, sexy or entertaining as Gemser, but at least she’s actually BLACK!  (Gemser was Indonesian.)  She’s got a nice rack too, so that helps somewhat. 

 

In this installment, Emanuelle has amnesia (stemming from a bombing in Beirut) and gets locked up in a looney bin.  Her doctor tries to get her to remember her identity, but mostly he's too busy dealing with his nymphomaniac niece who always wants to fuck him.  During the course of the movie, Emanuelle is whipped in a dungeon, has sex with her photographer, gets groped by a homeless street musician, has sex with a basketball player during halftime, has a lesbian tryst with the doctor’s niece, does some nude body painting, and gets gangbanged by a bunch of bikers. 

 

The story is told in flashbacks Rashomon style (some people remember things differently and we see the same scene play out through their different points of view), which makes things needlessly arty.  This installment is rather light in the sex and sleaze department and at times almost seems like an R rated version of General Hospital.  Lesley doesn't come close to matching Gemser's magnetism, but as unrelated sequels of rip-offs that don’t feature any of the same actors go, you can do a Hell of a lot worse.  

 

Dagmar (House by the Cemetery) Lassander co-stars as the psychiatrist’s frigid wife and gets the movie’s best line:  “Up your fat fanny with you and your Freud!” 

 

AKA:  The New Black Emanuelle. 

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: BLACK EMANUELLE (1975) ***

“E-‘MAY’-NUELLE”

FORMAT:  BLU-RAY

Even though I’ve seen about a dozen or so Black Emanuelle movies, I somehow never got around to seeing the first one.  Since Severin’s Sensual World of Black Emanuelle box set has been sitting on my movie shelf for a while, I figured it’s high time to remedy the situation.

Laura Gemser is Emanuelle, a famous photographer on assignment in Africa.  She stays with a wealthy couple on their vast estate and soon learns her new hosts, Ann (Karin Schubert) and Gianni (Angelo Infanti) know how to get freaky.  She also becomes acquainted with the various freewheeling couples who are in Ann and Gianni’s inner circle.  (Including a perpetually drunk Scotsman played by Gemser’s real-life husband and frequent co-star, Gabrielle Tinti.)  Predictably, Emanuelle gets so caught up with boning everyone in sight that she forgets she actually has to take some photos or else she’ll lose her job.  After snapping exactly one photograph of a waterfall, it’s back to boning. 

Gemser (who is simply billed as “Emanuelle” in the credits) looks as stunning as ever.  Some might complain that she spends a lot of time admiring the bedroom antics of others before she finally gets down to business.   However, once she does…. YOWZA! 

Schubert is no slouch either.  I liked the scene where she is seduced by a gas station attendant while director Bitto (Black Emanuelle 2) Albertini not-so-subtly intersperses suggestive shots of a car at the pump getting refilled.  (The final scene where Emanuelle is gangbanged on a train is similarly accompanied by shots of steam whistles and pistons, although it's noticeably less effective.)  There’s also a great sequence where she and Gemser go on a photo safari and wind up taking more shots of themselves nude than the animals. 

All this seems rather tame compared to the wilder entries that came later.  Then again, I guess that’s to be expected from the first film in such a long running series.  Still, it’s surprisingly well made, which is something that can’t be said for some of the Emanuelle rip-offs that were released further down the road. 

This will be the first film of many in Severin’s The Sensual World of Black Emanuelle Blu-Ray box set.  I don’t tend to discuss bonus features in this column, but I have to give a shout out to Severin for designing what has to be the physical media release of the millennium.  Not only is it packed with special features, commentaries, and documentaries, it has some of the best bonus items I’ve ever seen.  Most box sets include a book, as this one does, but how many home video releases include a magnetic fashion play set, a board game (which is a helluva lot of fun), a necklace, passports, and even a travel bag!  To say Severin outdid themselves is an understatement.  With this set, they have cemented their status as the best boutique home video label working today. 

AKA:  Wild Emanuelle.  AKA:  Emanuelle’s Holiday.  

THE FIRST OMEN (2024) ****

The First Omen is bar none the best “Give Us the Child” movie in existence.  If you’re a sexy pregnant nun fan, then you’re in luck too.  The one-two punch of this and Immaculate is pretty incredible.  Two hot pregnant nun movies in a span of a couple weeks?  As a fan of hot pregnant nun movies, I have to say we’ve been eating pretty good here recently. 

Naturally, The First Omen is a prequel to The Omen.  It hits all the callbacks (or in this case, call-forwards) you would expect from a new installment of a long dormant horror franchise.  The filmmakers deliver variations on famous scenes from the first movie with just enough clever tweaks here and there to make it interesting. 

That’s to be expected.  What’s not expected is all the funky fucked-up places the movie goes in between these scenes.  Imagine a slightly less warped version of Possession and that might give you an idea of what we’re talking about.  Folks, I’ve seen a lot of shit in movies, and I shit you not, there is shit in this movie I ain’t never seen before.  In fact, there is one scene in particular where I wondered out loud, “Are you ALLOWED to show that in a movie?”  I’ve seen NC-17 flicks that don’t even dare to go this hard. 

I mean, this is a 20th Century Studios movie we’re talking about.  As in, formerly 20th Century Fox.  As in, owned by Disney.  Somehow, CEO Bob Iger was able to slip that wild ass shit in this movie and get away with it.  In an age where everyone bitches about CEO salaries, I must play the contrarian and say, “PAY THAT MAN HIS MONEY!”  He earned that shit. 

Oh, and since this is a Disney movie, does that make Nell Tiger Free, the hot pregnant nun, a new Disney princess?  I sure as shit hope so.  I wanna get a photo of her and I at Cinderella’s castle next time I’m at Disney World. 

Free is incredible in this movie.  I thought Sydney Sweeney was a lock for “Best Actress in a Hot Pregnant Nun Movie” after her turn in Immaculate, but lo and behold, here comes Free to unseat her.  Remember when I compared the flick to Possession?  Well, she comes damn close to matching Isabelle Adjani when it comes to cavorting around with demons and undulating uncontrollably.  Folks, praise doesn’t come much higher than that. 

If you don’t want to be grossed out, don’t see this movie.  Theater patrons with weak constitutions headed for the exit at my screening long before the credits rolled.  The only other movies I can think of where that happened were House of 1000 Corpses and The Green Inferno.  That puts The First Omen in some elite company, if you ask me. 

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: EMMANUELLE 7 (1993) ***

“E-‘MAY’-NUELLE”

FORMAT:  DVD

Sylvia Kristel returns to the series after a two-and-a-half film absence.  This time, she’s using the miracle of virtual reality to help a friend work through the sexual hang-ups of her past.  Together, they enter the virtual reality world and try to “reprogram” her old unfortunate memories with new sensual and pleasurable experiences. 

Virtual reality was a common gimmick for ‘90s Skinamax movies, so it’s only natural that the Emmanuelle series would dip its toe into the subgenre.  It’s also a neat way to include Kristel in the fun, while also using another actress (in this case, Annie Bellac) to play Emmanuelle during the flashbacks and nude scenes. 

The VR set-up is good for a laugh too as it employs some rather chintzy CGI graphics.  Also, ‘80s gamers will find something to chuckle about as they will immediately recognize the Nintendo Power Glove being used as part of the virtual reality suit.  Oh, and if you want to watch someone else’s virtual reality experience?  No problem!  Just put on a cheap pair of sunglasses and you’re good to go!  The biggest laugh comes courtesy of the computerized voice that says, “Insertion Activated!” once the VR client has finally gotten down to business with his virtual partner. 

The VR scenes themselves are pretty solid.  The best involves a woman who wants to be Marilyn Monroe who flashes passersby in a Seven Year Itch-inspired sequence.  Most of these VR movies play at living out fantasies through technology.  However, what makes Emmanuelle 7 memorable is the notion that characters use the technology as a chance to replay missed intimate moments.  I’m not saying this is exactly a thought-provoking film, but the fact that it deals with the psychological ramifications of lost opportunities at love is intriguing, and it’s handled in a more engaging manner than you might expect.  I mean, who wouldn’t want another chance at the “one who got away”, even if it was only in virtual reality?

Kristel also appeared in several straight to cable entries of the series the same year this was released. 

AKA:  Digital Love.  AKA:  Emmanuelle in Cyberspace.  AKA:  Emmanuelle’s 7th Heaven. 

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: EMMANUELLE 6 (1988) ** ½

“E-‘MAY’NUELLE”

FORMAT:  VHS

Austrian beauty Natalie Uher takes over for Monique Gabrielle as Emmanuelle.  She’s not a particularly great actress, but she does kinda look like Sylvia Kristel a little bit.  She also looks great naked, so that’s all you really need to know. 

This time out, Emmanuelle is suffering from amnesia.  It seems that she and a bus full of models headed down to the Amazon for a photo shoot.  There, they wound up prisoners of a drug lord who also stole a stash of priceless gems the ladies were traveling with.  Eventually, she escaped with the help of a sexy native girl. 

Like Emmanuelle 5, this was another case where a master of erotic cinema directed about half the movie due to its chaotic production.  In this case, softcore vampire impresario Jean Rollin took over after the original director quit.  And as with the previous installment, it suffers from a fractured narrative.  It’s obvious that all the “present day” scenes with Emmanuelle and her shrink is less about trying to jog her memory and more about cobbling together a nearly unfinished movie. 

The plot is similar to Emmanuelle 5 as well.  This time, instead of being captured by a horny sheik, she’s captured by a horny drug lord.  It’s important to make these distinctions when you’re spending a month watching Emmanuelle movies and rip-offs.

It’s also curiously lacking the fun of the earlier entries in the series.  We will occasionally get glimpses of the playful eroticism the franchise is known for (like when Emmanuelle seduces a sailor in the ship's boiler room and steam symbolically escapes behind them during the height of their passion), but there’s not quite as many as you would expect.  What it doesn’t lack is gratuitous nudity, so it skates by on the sheer acreage of skin alone.  I will say it is a definite step down from Part 5 in just about every department though. 

AKA:  Emmanuelle 6:  Wild Paradise.