LET’S GET PHYSICAL: THE BIG SNATCH (1971) ***

FORMAT:  DVD

A junkie named Harry (George Peters) is in need of a fix, so he robs a gal at knifepoint in an alley.  She just wants to fuck, so Harry obliges her before roughing her up and taking her dough.  As fate would have it, she’s a member of a badass girl gang called the She Devils, and now they are looking to clean Harry’s clock.  He hides out with a friend named Ruby (Joan Boote), but the gang quickly find Harry and pounce on him.  And by “pounce on him” I mean “force him and his pal into a having reverse gang bang”. 

Even though it’s a cheap porno, The Big Snatch has moments where it actually looks and feels like a “real” movie.  The location work is great and some of the camerawork is surprisingly professional looking.  That said, it’s still a cheap porno.  Despite the decent production values, it still features some of the worst dubbing during the sex scenes I’ve ever heard.  The same sound effect of a girl moaning “mmph mmph” is heard about a thousand times (even when her lips are clearly not moving) in different scenes.  The music also stops abruptly and or completely changes to another song at some points too. 

At the end of the day, the sex scenes are solid, which is really all that matters.  The opening stick-up/stick it in scene has a bit of a kick to it and gets things off to a strong start.  The big ball free for all in the finale is surprisingly steamy too.  (Especially when the participants bang on a waterbed and take advantage of the motion of the ocean.)  Boote is also quite fetching as Ruby, the hooker with a heart of gold. 

Oh, and for a movie called The Big Snatch, all the snatches looked fairly small and tight from where I was sitting, so that was a plus. 

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: SUCKULA (1973) **

FORMAT:  DVD

They Live’s George “Buck” Flower stars as the host of a news program doing a show about vampires living in Los Angeles.  During the broadcast, we see “actual footage” of vampires (actually vampire themed stag loops).  The program is also interrupted several times by commercials that pop up every now and then.   

There’s a lot of different ways to do a vampire themed porno movie.  This wouldn’t have been my preferred method.  The news segments are thin at best and the commercials feel more like padding than anything else.  While Suckula doesn’t exactly suck-ula, it’s not very good-ula either. 

The big problem of course is that all the comedy shit simply isn’t funny.  The commercial parodies run on way too long and even worse, don’t even contain actual jokes.  It’s all set-up and no follow through.  The other hang-up is that it isn’t very sexy either.  I mean It’s hard to get worked up when a vampire is mugging like Rodney Dangerfield while getting head.  Then again, If you ever wanted to see a guy eating a girl out while wearing cheap plastic vampire fangs, well here it is.  (For the sake of variety, a vampire woman appears and seduces a man in the final fuck scene.)

It’s not all bad though.  The music is surprisingly good.  In fact, one scene is set to Paul Simon’s “Love Me Like a Rock” which plays on a loop.  I wonder if the filmmakers actually licensed the tune or if the actresses in the movie rubbed peters to pay Paul. 

And while his shtick doesn’t exactly translate into laughs, it’s always fun seeing Flower (who also appears in drag in a couple of scenes) mugging for the camera.  Too bad he was given such (pardon the pun) limp material to work with.  Overall, Suckula just lacks bite. 

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: THE CULT OF AGFA TRAILER SHOW (2023) *** ½

FORMAT:  BLU-RAY

The good folks at AGFA bring us another wild and wooly collection of drive-in movie trailers, oddball commercials, and pop culture ephemera.  This one kicks off with an assortment of theater ads, concession stand shorts, and dated futuristic looking commercials.  (There’s also an intermission about halfway through containing similar ads.)  Then, we get a rather good assemblage of trailers spanning many genres and decades. 

Included here are previews for Asian action and horror flicks (Robotrix, Sex Beyond the Grave, Angel Terminator, Versus, Black Magic, and Bewitched), weird kids movies (C.H.O.M.P.S., The Peanut Butter Solution, The Secret of Magic Island, Pinocchio’s Birthday Party, and Starchaser:  The Legend of Orin in 3-D), documentaries (The Decline of Western Civilization 2:  The Metal Years, The Best of the New York Erotic Film Festival, and The Mysterious Monsters), certified cult classics (Meet the Feebles, Brain Damage, Forbidden Zone, Death Race 2000, Escape from New York, Blood Diner, and Frankenhooker), total crap (Birds 2:  Land’s End, Slapstick of Another Kind, Tentacles, and Meatballs 4), '80s time capsules (Body Rock, Rad, Foxes, Times Square, Tuff Turf, and Munchies), Manson movies (The Other Side of Madness and The Manson Family), as well as Various oddities (Sins of Rachel, Another Son of Sam, and an unidentified Mexican action movie). 

Sometimes the whiplash in tone from trailer to trailer provides the biggest laughs, like going from Cocaine Wars to Rainbow Brite and the Star Stealer or from Tough Beauty and the Sloppy Slop to Eraserhead.  As with most of AGFA’s “mixtapes”, the editing is often mischievous.  Remember when the Gremlins took over the projection booth?  It’s kind of like that as some scenes are repeated (like Cocaine Wars) or altered for comedic effect.  Some are shortened or abbreviated for pacing purposes. However, if you want to watch the uncut trailers, they are also included on the disc for posterity along with some funny shorts using some of the same kind of editing techniques.  (My favorite was “Rated R”, a collection of gravelly voiced narrators gravely stating movie titles.)

I will say it was odd for me seeing newer movies included here.  Yes, I know they are twenty to thirty years old, but they still feel new to me.  Such titles include The Doom Generation, Strangers with Candy, Psycho Beach Party, Suture, and Accion Mutante.  Your mileage (and age) will probably vary though.  That in no way takes away from the fun. 

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: THE PLAYBOYS (1973) ** ½

FORMAT:  DVD

A dude with a terrible Cockney accent washes his dick in preparation for a date with his girlfriend.  Bad news for her:  Some other broad is already waiting for him to bone her on the sofa.  When she finally arrives at his place, our horny hero has to keep his other lovebird a secret, so he stashes her in a spare bedroom.  He then must go from room to room making sure each lady is satisfied without them finding out about one another.  Trouble arises when a third girlfriend shows up.  When the women become too much for our put-upon protagonist to handle, he calls on none other than John Holmes to help keep the ladies entertained. 

The Playboys is like a cheap porno version of a sophisticated bedroom farce.  As long as it features bedroom action, it doesn’t make any difference if the comedy portions aren’t exactly laugh out loud funny.  At least the filmmakers do a solid job slowly building up the plot and the way they toss in more women for our hero to juggle is marginally effective. 

The sex scenes themselves are decent.  They become shorter (but more frequent) the more women show up to the house, but I guess that’s to be expected.  There’s certainly enough of them, so no one should feel cheated by a lack of skin. 

The budget for this thing was almost nonexistent and the production values are piss poor.  (Crew members are visible in the bedroom mirrors during multiple shots.)  However, there is a certain charm to the entire enterprise and the scant running time (fifty-four minutes) doesn’t hurt either. 

It’s just a shame that Holmes didn’t have more (women) to do.  He gets one OK sex scene, but it shows very little in the way of penetration.  That’s probably due to the fact the actress couldn’t get his large member inside her.  He does figure into the comedic ending though.  (Spoiler Warning:  All the ladies see his big dick and run off with him.)  Too bad the movie ends right there and we never see what happens after that. 

AKA:  The Swinging Playboy. 

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: SEX BEFORE MARRIAGE (1970) ** ½

FORMAT:  DVD

A horny dude can’t wait to marry his girlfriend, if only so he doesn’t have to worry about her mother barging in on them while they’re doing the deed.  On his wedding day, his car breaks down on the way to the chapel and a woman offers to help him out.  As it turns out, she winds up being more interested in balling.  Next, a guy offers to buy our hero’s car but learns his wife spent all his cash (after they fuck, of course).  She then seduces the groom to be.  Eventually, our hapless hero finds love with his girlfriend’s sexy sister. 

The sex scenes run the gamut from OK to better than average.  What they lack in steaminess, they make up for with frequency (even if very few of them contain money shots).  The scenes include fucking on a (very small) kitchen table, in a meadow, a girl with a guy who has trouble getting hard, and a redneck with his gal in the back of a pick-up truck. 

This movie exists in a world where easy women do their grocery shopping in their bra and panties.  I don’t know about you, but that’s the kind of world I’d like to live in.  I’ve heard some of the music in old Spook Show ads, which is to say it sounds really out of place during BJ scenes.  That’s not exactly a criticism.  It’s more of an observation than anything. 

Sex Before Marriage has a simple premise that is adequately performed and executed.  It won’t win any awards for eroticism, but it has its moments to be sure.  It also has just enough odd touches to make it somewhat memorable or at least enough to differentiate it from many of its forgettable contemporaries.  With something like this, that’s about all you can really ask for. 

THE RENTAL (2020) **

The Rental is one of those low-key horror movies that’s too low key for its own good.  Part of the problem has to do with the premise, which is thin as paper and twice as flimsy.  Two couples rent an Airbnb in a remote beachfront property and…

Let me stop right there.  That’s the movie’s first mistake.  If these bozos just got a hotel like normal people, they wouldn’t be in this mess to begin with. 

It’s also obvious from the start that two halves of each couple are secretly screwing on the side.  Gee, I wonder if their respective partners will find out and get jealous?

The caretaker is a creepy old dude.  Immediate red flag.  Especially when he pops in and out unannounced.  And what are the chances he’s hidden cameras everywhere to spy on his guests?  This wouldn’t happen at a Ramada. 

There’s more.  The listing says no pets allowed.  The idiots bring their dog.  (SPOILER: The dog lives, but they have reason to believe he’s dead, which brings matters to a boil.)

Now, I know what you’re going to say:   “If the people in this movie actually behaved like smart individuals, they wouldn’t be in a horror movie.”  And you’d be correct.  But if you’ve got to be in a horror movie, then go over the top with it.  Trying to be all subtle about shit just doesn’t work.  Go for the gore and forget the mind games.  Call it “Scare BNB” and have blood dripping from the walls and chainsaw-wielding clowns and shit.  One dude in a Halloween mask lurking about for eighty minutes just doesn’t cut it. 

Director Dave Franco (James’ brother) usually acts in comedies and shit.  His handling of a horror flick is no laughing matter.  At least his leading lady (and offscreen wife) Alison (GLOW) Brie is somewhat amusing during the scene where she’s high as a kite while everyone else contends with a potentially sinister situation. 

Other than her performance, I would say you’re better off taking a staycation than watching The Rental.  (Hey there’s an idea:  SLAY-Cation!  Money in the bank!)

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: PORNO MONDO (1971) ** ½

FORMAT:  DVD

Porno Mondo is an obviously fake mondo movie about pornography.  That doesn’t mean it’s not without its merits.  First, we meet a porno producer named George Gasser who is interviewed about the production of sex pictures.  Meanwhile, we see two sex scenes intercut with the interview. 

Next, a pornographic writer (played by sex starlet Rene Bond) is interviewed while we watch a lesbian couple go at it on a couch.  Then, we see a pair of sex performers on set who are interviewed after shooting their big scene.  This is followed by a porn distributor who is interviewed while a woman is shown blowing a guy in the kitchen. 

Then, there’s a hot scene where porn star Alice Doe disrobes and demonstrates her fellatio technique for the camera before masturbating with a vibrator.  We then meet the processor at a film lab who tells us how pornographic films have changed over the years.  Finally, an adult theater owner is interviewed while scenes of a couple fucking in front of a fireplace is shown. 

Yes, this is less a probing documentary on the subject of porno and more of a… you know… porno.  However, you can tell that the filmmakers really believe much of what they are saying about the industry and that they were trying to sneak a message in there amid the sex and “wet” scenes, which is at the very least admirable.  It also helps that a handful of the scenes are actually kinda sexy. 

We also get some unintentionally funny moments along the way, like when a narrator solemnly reads excerpts from the Bill of Rights intercut with footage of sex shops and porno theaters.  I wish there was more of this kind of shit.  Still, it’s not a bad pseudo-documentary by any means. 

AKA:  Porno Mondo:  An In Depth Study of Porno Films.