LET’S GET PHYSICAL: THE TOUCH (1973) **

FORMAT:  DVD

John Holmes stars as a sleazy drug dealer named Mario who is looking to make one last score.  He blackmails a sexy associate to do his dirty work for him and sell off his remaining stash of coke.  She then goes around to her various contacts and friends unloading the white powder and collecting the dough.  Whenever her clients snort the South American booger sugar, the druggies get so turned on they wind up banging the closest gal they can find.  Eventually, our heroine makes a play to get out from under Mario’s thumb once and for all. 

The Touch is an unspectacular porno marred by a lack of budget (there are multiple boom shadows on the wall).  In fact, it might’ve been totally forgettable if it wasn’t for the participation of the legendary John Holmes.  In one scene, the King uses his Pythonesque pecker to bang a sexy French maid.  Later, he has a three-way with some ladies of the evening.  His on-screen trysts aren’t great or anything, but Holmes’ star power is evident, even during the perfunctory dialogue scenes. 

The scenes that don’t involve Holmes are a mixed bag.  Nearly all of them have a bright spot or two (like when the secretary put coke on her boss’ dick), but for the most part, they are indifferently shot, contain lackluster performances, and are not very erotic.  The big problem is that a third of the movie is plot (and by “plot” I mean someone buying drugs), another third is devoted to sex, and the final third is nothing but people snorting coke.  It all gets repetitive in a hurry. 

It’s not all bad though.  I did like the scene where our heroine sold her wares to a nudist hippie commune.  I’m sure it saved the production money in the wardrobe department.  Unfortunately, moments like these are few and far between.  To put it another way, The Touch never really grabs you. 

BUNNY YEAGER’S NUDE CAMERA (1963) ***

Famed cheesecake model turned cheesecake photographer Bunny Yeager stars as herself in this nudie “documentary” from director Barry (The Beast That Killed Women) Mahon.  Bunny gets a flat tire on the way to her latest photoshoot.  As luck would have it, Bunny spots a new ingenue at the bus stop and invites the girl to model for her.  (“I think if a male photographer had approached this girl, she would’ve run the other way!”)  However, the new model is shy and has to run the idea past her boyfriend first.  Meanwhile, Bunny deals with a creep who keeps calling her studio looking to arrange “dates” with her models. 

Along the way, Bunny Yeager’s Nude Camera captures:  A woman modeling a bath towel (and nothing else), a model in a Native American headdress, a model covering herself with a big fan, a gal in a Viking outfit (!), a set of sisters in a fountain, nudes wearing Halloween masks, harem girl outfits, and a calendar girl in a giant old bathtub. 

It’s all handled very tastefully.  The plot is too loosey-goosey to work as a narrative film and the slice of life scenes of Bunny taking photos is too thin to work as a documentary.  While it’s not exactly a rallying cry for equality, it does show Bunny thriving and succeeding in a male-dominated industry.  So that’s something.  All this is fun for a while, but the plot has more holes in it than Swiss cheese.  (What happened to the housewife who wanted Bunny to take pictures of her for her husband?)  The gratuitous parade footage also helps prevent it from being a classic.  At least it’s only an hour long. 

Oh, and this is one of the jumpiest prints I’ve ever seen.  On top of that, you can even hear the director yell “CUT!” in some scenes.  It all just adds to the overall charm of the picture though. 

Yeager isn’t much of an actress, but she does have screen presence, a carryover from her modeling career.  She does handle her dialogues quite well, especially such howlers as, “Men are vain, egotistical, and possessive.  Bless ‘em!”  Mahon even appears as himself to fly Bunny to a pirate convention. 

Screenwriter Sande N. Johnson later directed the incredible Teenage Gang Debs. 

Bunny Yeager’s Nude Las Vegas followed the same year.

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: SHOT ON LOCATION (1972) ***

FORMAT:  DVD

Rick Lutze is a sleazy movie producer who wants to double cross a rival in order to make his dream project.  His plan is to get an underage wannabe porn starlet (Sandy Dempsey) to seduce the competition so he can blackmail him.  Lutze then promises the young ingenue a part in their latest picture (a porno western).  Problems arise when the director accidentally casts the wrong actress in the lead role.  Things eventually work themselves out when everyone involved decides to have a big orgy. 

Some sources list Shot on Location as being directed by Ed Wood.  That kind of makes sense because there is a reference to Criswell.  However, the consensus seems to be it was directed by Donn (Alice in Acidland) Greer.  Either way, it’s a fun slice of old-time smut.  

The cast is particularly charming.  Rene Bond takes the acting honors as the production’s sexy secretary/script girl.  She looks terrific as always and delivers a top-notch BJ scene.  Dempsey really gets into her sex scene on the casting couch and is a lot of fun to watch throughout.  The big orgy sequence has a lot of energy too. 

I do wish they had taken advantage of the western outdoor setting though.  I mean you’ve got everyone in their Native American garb, you might as well put them to good use.  Oh well, at least the final pun works surprisingly well as it really ends the movie with a bang in more ways than one. 

The music is also good for an unintentional laugh or two.  One scene uses music from (what sounds like) the Barbarella soundtrack and others are accompanied by Muzak versions of “It’s Impossible” and “Those Were the Days”.  The dialogue is great as well and features some real humdingers, like when Lutze sees a starlet naked and says, “What I wouldn’t give to be a goose pimple!”  My favorite line though was “If you can’t join ‘em, lick ‘em!”

Greer later went on to direct the immortal Rare Blue Apes of Cannibal Isle. 

LIZZIE (2018) ***

Indie darlings Chloe Sevigny and Kristen Stewart star in this retelling of the Lizzie Borden story.  We all know the old rhyme.  “Lizzie Borden took an axe and gave her mother forty whacks, and when she saw what she had done she gave her father forty-one.”  Right away, we know the film is going against the “print the legend” philosophy because we learn her mother is already dead and her father has remarried.  I guess “stepmother” didn’t sound as good in the rhyme. 

Bridget (Stewart) is a maid who comes to work in the Borden household.  Daughter Lizzie (Sevigny) is prone to “spells” and her headstrong antics exasperate her strained relationship with her stern father (Jamie Sheridan from The Stand).  Dad is a sleazeball by the way.  Not only does his shady business practices make him enemies all around town, but he also likes to force himself on Bridget at night.  Bridget and Lizzie form a friendship that soon blossoms into a romance.  Naturally, her father’s increasingly erratic behavior threatens to separate them.  When he and his wife are murdered the fingers are all pointed at Lizzie, but did she really do it?

Sevigny and Stewart are both excellent.  The film is more interested in exploring their relationship than wallowing in the details of the grisly axe murders.  (We don’t see them till near the end.)  For a while, it works extremely well.  Things start to become sluggish though once the movie enters its third act.  Still, the strength of the performances keeps things glued together, even when the narrative dawdles.  It also helps that the murders themselves pack a punch, as it will appeal to true crime buffs and Celebrity Skin aficionados equally.  (Spoiler Alert:  They occur while the killer is totally nude!) 

It’s not perfect, but I liked the film’s feminist spirit.  It frames Lizzie’s plight as not as much of a crime but rather a women’s and/or gay rights issue.  She is often shown to be ostracized not only by her family, but by society for who she is.  It’s little wonder why someone would snap and start hacking away at the people who hold her back and stand in the way of her happiness. 

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: THE EROTIC ADVENTURES OF HERCULES (1971) *

FORMAT:  DVD

A tyrant has it out for Hercules.  He sends a slave girl to seduce and betray the legendary strongman, and she zaps him of his strength by banging him.  This allows the king to chain him to the wall in his palace.  Tied up and helpless, poor Herc is unable to do anything but watch as an orgy unfolds. 

Not that you need a Spoiler Warning for a porno movie that’s over fifty years old, but it ends when Hercules escapes from his chains.  He then stabs the king in the neck while he’s sleeping and strangles the girl who betrayed him.  I know this is just a crummy skin flick, but you’d at least expect Hercules to give the king a fair shake by fighting him while he was awake.  It just seems cowardly for someone so strong to murder his enemy in his sleep, not to mention kill a woman with his bare hands in cold blood. 

Anyway, this abysmal porno was shot without synch sound.  I only bring it up because the moaning and groaning on the soundtrack is so overdone that it’s often hilarious.  In fact, the dubbing is so bad that it rivals the dubbing in an actual Hercules movie.  I guess all the money in the budget must’ve gone to slave girl outfits and togas. 

Despite what the title would have you believe, there’s nothing remotely erotic going on here.  The opening scene is pretty gross.  The icky king sits on his throne making disgusting grunting noises while a slave girl gives him head and spits his seed into a wine glass.  In fact, there are a lot of spitting scenes in this.  What?  Did anyone in Ancient Greece know how to swallow?

That wouldn’t have mattered I guess if the stuff leading up to the semen spitting was even remotely sexy.  Since it’s anything but, the ladies’ refusal to keep their mouths shut just ends the already dismal scenes on an even lower note.  Then again, they didn’t make too many porno versions of Italian peplum heroes, so I guess you have to take what you can get. 

A QUIET PLACE: DAY ONE (2024) *** ½

This prequel to the smash hit A Quiet Place from director Michael (Pig) Sarnoski shows how the alien beasties who kill anything that makes a sound took over the planet.  Lupita Nyong’o stars as a hospice patient making what could possibly be her last trip into New York City when aliens attack and murder anyone who makes a peep.  She and fellow survivor (Joseph Quinn) band together (along with her service animal cat) and try to make their way to safety. 

You know this is Sci-Fi because it involves 1) New Yorkers who actually know when to shut the hell up and 2) A cat that listens to its owner. 

Okay, all jokes aside, this is a pretty intense and rousing prequel.  In fact, I think it might be my favorite of the trilogy.  Sarnoski sets the stage quite nicely using a mix of restraint and suspense.  He keeps the carnage mostly contained to the periphery as Lupita (or her cat) is almost always front and center.  He’s more concerned with her plight than showcasing the details of the initial alien invasion, which kind of makes it kindred spirits to Spielberg’s War of the Worlds. 

Ultimately, the film is about finding the will to live in the face of unspeakable (see what I did there?  I know I said no more jokes, but c’mon that was a good one) tragedy.  Even though Lupita’s character is terminally ill, she still must fight on to live another day.  Pretty heady stuff for a prequel to a horror Sci-Fi blockbuster.  I mean, it’s hard not to get caught up in the drama.  All Lupita wants is one last pizza before she dies.  Is that too much to ask?  I will say the film loses a bit of steam once Quinn enters the picture, but he and Lupita have enough chemistry to more or less make it a moot point.  

We’ve seen plenty of survival horror films before, but not quite like this.  In an age when most prequels feel like cash grabs, this one finds unique ways to say something about the human condition in the midst of all the special effects.  Then again, I wouldn’t expect any less from Sarnoski after the incredible Pig. 

RETARD-O-TRON VIDEO MIXTAPE VOL. 1 (2005) ***

From the twisted minds at Cinema Sewer comes a jaw dropping collection of messed-up video clips guaranteed to boggle the mind and distress the stomach.  This was basically the forerunner of viral internet video clips.  Since it’s a mixtape, the success rate of seeing clips that have actual entertainment value is hit and miss.  Most of the scenes are of home video oddities, disgusting porn clips, Jackass wannabes, skateboard and bike stunt fails, Japanese kid’s shows, movie trailers, WTF music videos, live newscast bloopers, and parking lot fights.  I guess your enjoyment of these clips will depend on your interests.  I kinda dug it, but your mileage may vary. 

The best moments are the promos for failed TV pilots.  The most memorable is Steel Justice, about a cop’s dead son who is reincarnated as a robot dinosaur.  (Yes, you read that right.)  The bizarre music video by David Hasselhoff is a close second though. 

Obviously, the porno scenes won’t be for everyone.  For me, they almost played like an X-rated mondo movie that showed everything that the old mondo movies only hinted at but dared not show.  There are scenes of guys sticking cigarettes in their dick hole, ripping bong hits out of girls’ asses, and lots of vomit and shit.  You’ve been warned. 

Some of the clips I recognized were from the Kekko Kamen live-action movie, Let My Puppets Come, Long Jeanne Silver, and Deadly Weapons.  For the most part though, I didn’t have a clue what I was watching half the time, which is about the best thing I can say about it.  Hearing The Cramps, Richard Cheese, The B-52’s, and The Ramones playing over some of the clips was kind of fun too.  Honestly, I could’ve done without all the bike riding accidents, fake Jackass shit, and footage of real fights, but there’s something here to offend everybody, which is the way I guess it should be with something like this.