Oriental Hawaii (1982) tells the story of the Walker family, living in Hawaii and in some financial trouble. Bob (John Leslie) and Mildred (Jesie St. James) announce to their four, um, “children” (Jesse Adams, Jon Martin, Rhonda Jo Petty and Danielle) that they will have to tighten their belts a bit. One of the boys suggest the siblings double up on rooms and the family advertise at the local university for a student or two to live in the house and pay rent instead of living in the dorms. Soon enough, Lelani (Mai Lin) and Ming (Jade Wong) answer the ad and move in to the empty room. Their presence, unsurprisingly, leads to a series of erotic encounters.
There’s a lot of incest in Oriental Hawaii, including a dream that Bob has in which all the members of the family and the two students have sex with each other. It’s inherently creepy, but it would be a lot creepier if it was in any way possible to buy the fact that any of these people are related to each other. The most glaring example of this is Jesie St. James, who is supposedly the mother of four college-age kids who look the same age, but who barely looks more than a few years older than any of them. As far as all the siblings being the same age, they could be quadruplets, but it’s never really discussed. Interestingly, the sisters have a sex scene with each other, but when we see what’s going on in the boys’ room when they’re bored and horny, they’re just reading books and whining before going to bed. At least it’s edited in a way that makes sense.
The second feature on the disc is another “porn movie about making a porn movie”: Mai Lin vs. Serena (1982). Carlos Tobalina (himself) is casting for his new feature, and Mai Lin (herself) and Serena (herself) are both up for the role. Only one of them can get the role, though, so a competition is proposed that Tobalina will judge. The winner will get the role and the $25,000 payday. And so they’re off, wandering into local businesses and starting orgies everywhere they go until they end up in jail, where things go pretty much the same way. For the big finale, Serena invites a few dozen guys over to her place where she and Mai Lin service them while sitting in a huge pink claw-foot bathtub. Whoever wins, those guys all won, apparently. Watch for Jade Wong, Billy Dee, Herschel Savage and Jesse Adams, who all pop up throughout the film.
Vinegar Syndrome presents both features restored in 2K from the original camera negatives, and as such they both look fantastic. These films are bright and colorful, and are served well in this new scan. They’re both technically solid, but still land around the middle of the pack of the Peekarama line for quality of production and storyline versus pure titillation. This release will probably appeal most to fans of the actors involved in the films, but anyone looking for more satisfying cinematic experiences will want to look elsewhere.
The Outing (1987) and The Godsend (1980)
Originally published on Horror 101 with Dr. AC 10 July 2015
Scream Factory has been making a name for itself among horror fans over the last few years by giving many genre films their first Blu-ray and/or DVD releases, ranging from big-name franchises to obscure gems. Some of the latter have found their way onto double feature discs, most of which have an overt theme in common: the double feature of Italian "haunted house" films Ghosthouse and Witchery, or the "nature's revenge" disc with The Food of the Gods and Frogs. One of their latest double features, however, pairs two films that appear to have nothing in common whatsoever: 1987's The Outing (aka The Lamp, USA, directed by Tom Daley) and 1980's The Godsend (UK, directed by Gabrielle Beaumont).
In The Outing, a trio of young criminals break into the home of an old woman to steal her "piles" of money, but instead accidentally free an ancient and powerful evil from what looks to be a bonafide magic lamp. Some of the old woman's belongings make their way to a museum curated by Dr. Wallace (James Huston). Wallace's daughter Alex (Andra St. Ivanyi) interrupts the examination of the lamp and puts on a mysterious bracelet decorated with the same blood-red jewels found on the lamp, only to find she cannot remove it. Alex and her friends decide to sneak into the museum after hours following a field trip, but Alex's violently jealous ex-boyfriend Mike (Red Mitchell) and his friend also manage to get back in. Locked in the museum overnight, the kids come face-to-face with the creature from the lamp, an evil genie hellbent on carrying out its master's wishes and only too happy to kill anyone else in its path.
While it's not hard to see why The Outing is something of a cult favorite, it's also not surprising that it hasn't had any previous high-profile home video releases. For such a goofy setup, the film is oddly mean-spirited. In particular, the character of Mike goes beyond "hateful ex-boyfriend" to "this guy should be in jail" about a minute after he's introduced. He tries to run Alex's new boyfriend off the road, pulls a knife on a fellow student in school, attacks a teacher, spits racial slurs and rapes one of Alex's female friends. That last scene is particularly unpleasant and sticks out badly in that it's not in keeping with the tone of the rest of the film at all. Most of the film is pretty standard 80s-horror fun, with embarrassing clothes, bad life choices, and some really good practical effects. Best of all is the genie itself, a towering beast shrouded in mist that delivers a bizarre, hilarious bunch of exposition before the climactic showdown. Overall, The Outing is pretty solid but needlessly cruel.
As previously mentioned, The Godsend could not be more different. Illustrator Alan Marlowe (Malcolm Stoddard) and his wife Kate (Cyd Hayman) live an idyllic life in a rural cottage with their five children. One day Kate meets a strange young woman (Angela Pleasence) who is heavily pregnant. Kate invites her to their cottage for a visit, where she gives birth to a little girl and then promptly disappears. Alan and Kate assume responsibility for the baby and raise her as their own, naming her Bonnie. But Alan suspects something is off, and before long the Marlowe children begin meeting tragic, seemingly accidental ends. Is the family just cursed with bad luck, or is little Bonnie not the innocent angel she seems to be? And if she's a killer, can Alan convince Kate that something must be done before it's too late?
The comparatively heavy parental horror of The Godsend is a huge departure from the genie-based antics of The Outing. The lead performances by Stoddard and Hayman are good, but their characters feel like dated caricatures. Alan is The Man, seemingly barely phased by the deaths of his children, while Kate regularly descends into a screaming, weeping wreck. Aside from its blatant gender stereotypes, the film is built on a solid, genuinely unsettling concept. Director Gabrielle Beaumont plays on this concept effectively, investing several scenes with queasy tension. Pleasence makes a strong impression in her small part as the creepy stranger, using little but her deliberate movement (or lack thereof) and wide eyes to create a memorable "monster." The little girl who plays the oldest "Bonnie," on the other hand, is just not scary in the least, mostly because the film tries very hard to make her seem that way. By the nth time she furrows her little brow, it's become more of a punch line than a sign of ominous portent.
Both films have been given a "new HD transfer" for this Blu-ray release, and the result is something of a mixed bag. The Outing is very dark and grainy, and the picture frequently has noticeable smearing likely due to digital noise reduction. The Godsend has a little of this, but as it mostly takes place during daytime in bright sunlight, the picture is much cleaner. Neither film is unwatchable, of course, and this is the first time The Outing has been released on home video in the States in its correct widescreen aspect ratio. Included on the disc with the two films is the theatrical trailer for The Godsend, a two-minute highlight reel of spoilers depicting every kill in the movie, transferred from what looks like a well-worn 35mm copy. Sound mix on both films is fine, and it's nice to have optional English (and English SDH) subtitles. Despite the transfer issues, it's highly likely that this is the best presentation of these films that will ever be available on physical media; fans of either film will probably find this disc is more than worthy of a place in their library.
Pretty Peaches 2 (1987) and Pretty Peaches 3 (1989)
Originally published on Daily Grindhouse 31
July 2014
Vinegar Syndrome’s Peekarama line of adult double features has so far focused on the 1970s and early 80s, but one of their latest releases is something of a departure in more than one way. First, both feature films are from the late 1980s (1987 and 1989), and second, this is the first release in Vinegar Syndrome’s “Films of Alex de Renzy” line of releases. de Renzy, a legendary adult filmmaker whose career spanned 70s up until his death in 2001, is considered by many sex film aficionados as one of the best directors who ever worked in porn. Vinegar Syndrome has announced they will be releasing a number of his films in restored versions such as this one. So how does the introductory entry, Pretty Peaches 2 and 3, hold up?
Pretty Peaches 2 opens with Peaches (Siobahn Hunter) and her boyfriend Bobby (Peter North) about to have sex when Peaches’s mother Eunice (Tracey Adams) yells at Peaches to go to bed and get Bobby out of the house. Peaches gives Bobby some bad directions to the bathroom and goes to bed, while Bobby ends up in Eunice’s bedroom hiding behind a curtain while she undresses. While Peaches laments that she’ll never learn about sex, her mother and Bobby get acquainted in the other room. Peaches resolves to ask her stepdad Stanley (Herschel Savage) to tell her about sex the next day, but all he can manage to tell her is to ask her friends in the locker room. His one piece of advice: “Don’t be a tease.” Determined not to play “hard to get” thanks to her stepfather’s advice, Peaches takes off hitchhiking to San Francisco to visit her Uncle Howard (Ron Jeremy).
On the way she meets a trucker (Buck Adams) who is so impatient to have sex with her that he hires a hooker (Janette Littledove) who knocks on their hotel room door while Peaches is in the bathroom. Meanwhile, Eunice and Stanley discover Peaches has run away and they head to San Francisco, too, reliving their motel room glory days in the process. When Peaches gets to Uncle Howard’s house, she leaves the dinner table early when Uncle Howard and Auntie (Ashley Wells) start a threesome with their son (Billy Dee). She then meets aloof Crystal (Melissa Melendez) and strange Granny (Jamie Gillis), a cross-dresser who finally teaches her about sex. Eunice and Stanley arrive in San Francisco, but how will they get Peaches back to her small town life now that she’s seen Chinatown?
In contrast, Pretty Peaches 3 (subtitled The Quest) follows Peaches (Keisha) as she leaves the trailer park where she lives with her mother (Tracey Adams again) on a quest for spiritual enlightenment. This journey is spurred on by an encounter with psychiatrist Dr. Thunderpussy (Rachel Ryan), who Peaches’s mother notes must be good because she was on “The Oprah Show.” Peaches catches a broadcast of weeping preacher Billy Bob (Jamie Gillis again, doing his best Jimmy Swaggart) and takes it as a sign. She heads for Billy Bob’s home and once again, her mother sets off after her, this time taking Peaches’s boyfriend Bobby (Gene Carrera) along. Unsurprisingly, Peaches’s quest does not go all that well, and most of the people she encounters on her trip are a lot more interested in her body than her soul. Will she ever find spiritual enlightenment, or will she at least get a ride back to the trailer park?
It’s not hard to see from this pair of films why de Renzy is so highly regarded among adult film fans. While they obviously had much lower budgets than contemporary American studio films, they more or less just look like standard big-studio sex comedies that happen to have actual sex in them. This applies more to Pretty Peaches 2 than Pretty Peaches 3, which has a much thinner storyline threading its sex scenes together, and its full-frame (1.33:1) presentation makes it look less like film than Pretty Peaches 2, which is presented in widescreen (1.85:1). However, both films look and sound nice, both have a lot of funny stuff, and the casts are mostly very good and everyone looks like they’re having a great time. This is particularly notable in the big scene with Peaches and Granny in Pretty Peaches 2, where it looks like Siobahn Hunter is having a tough time not cracking in the face of Jamie Gillis’s hilarious performance.
Vinegar Syndrome scanned both features in 2k from the 35mm camera negatives, giving these two films unquestionably the best presentation they have ever had on home video. The disc also includes the theatrical trailer for Pretty Peaches 2. This is another great release in the Peekarama line, and does a great job of whetting the appetite for future releases in the “Films of Alex de Renzy” series!
Purely Physical (1982) and Cathouse Fever (1984)
Originally published on Daily Grindhouse 29 August 2014
Aside from the Pretty Peaches Alex de Renzy double feature and the first Bob Chinn disc (Sadie and The Seductress), Vinegar Syndrome’s Peekarama line has focused mostly on adult films from the 1970s. Those discs dipped their toes into the 1980s, and the latest Peekarama follows suit with two films directed by Chris Warfield under the pseudonym “Billy Thornberg.” Warfield was a film and television actor who appeared in television series such as Perry Mason, My Three Sons and Lassie before moving entirely to adult feature film work on both sides of the camera (acting, writing, producing and directing) in the 1970s.
Warfield’s long career in show business clearly paid off in technical experience: Purely Physical (1982), the first film on this disc, is one of the best adult films Vinegar Syndrome has released yet. It opens with a sequence following aspiring writer Kathy (Laura Lazare) riding a bike through a scenic coastline area to apply for a job as a night clerk at a cheap motel. Set to upbeat lounge-pop, this opening has a look and tone approaching Radley Metzger territory. Once the action is settled at the motel, Kathy gets the job, and she imagines the sexual adventures of the guests who come into the motel, although sometimes the reality does not quite match up with her imagination. Occasionally, she interacts with the guests more directly, but she’s generally very professional.
Purely Physical is not strictly a comedy, but it does feature some hilarious moments and has laughs during the sex scenes. In fact, more than the majority of adult films even of its own era, Purely Physical fleshes out its characters with dialogue during its sex scenes that make them more interesting and move the nominal story forward. The first scene with teenage lovers Bernard (Albert Johnson) and Dorothy (Jade Wong) is funny, awkward, and cute. A later scene between movie trivia buff Charlie (Michael Morrison) and Iris (Tigr) is laugh-out-loud funny: Charlie expresses admiration for Iris’s ass, to which she instantly replies “Do you want to lick it? It would probably do you some good!” The film is technically on a level on par with smaller studio films or contemporary films by independents like Crown International Pictures such as the same year’s The Beach Girls, only it’s actually smarter and funnier than that film could hope to be.
After Purely Physical, Cathouse Fever (1984) comes as something of a disappointment. Office worker Becky (Becky Savage) decides that she’s had enough of fantasizing about all the men she would like to bed and answers an ad in a newspaper for a brothel in Las Vegas. She flies out to Vegas to try being a hooker for a day, and gets exactly what she bargained for. There’s even less of a story through line here than in Purely , although it still has some of the fun character work that made that film such a success. The focus here, though, is much more firmly set on the sex scenes, and while it’s nicely shot, there are some weird editing issues and other technical problems that are nowhere to be found in Purely Physical. Additionally, that film never quite reaches any point as ridiculous as the scene of Becky nude except for a full feather headdress, servicing Tex (Jerry Davis), a bearded redneck who never takes off his black cowboy hat.
Still, this disc would be worth paying full price for Purely Physical alone. Scanned in 2K from the original camera negatives, both films look great, and special note is worth making of the Las Vegas night scenes in Cathouse Fever. Those scenes in particular look spectacular, bursting with color. The disc includes the trailers for both films, and in that category Cathouse Fever is the hands-down winner thanks to a thinly-disguised cover of Ted Nugent’s “Cat Scratch Fever” replacing those words with the title of the film. Any fan of 70s and 80s adult film or anyone looking for a good place to start exploring the genre wil
l find this a worthwhile purchase.
Red Heat (1975), The Mad Love Life of a Hot Vampire (1971), and Peeping Tom (1973)
Originally published on Daily Grindhouse 21 October 2014
Most cult film fans probably know Ray Dennis Steckler best as the man behind such oddities as Rat Pfink A Boo Boo and The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies!!?, but he also made many adult films throughout the 70s and 80s under a number of pseudonyms. Fortunately, it’s pretty easy to tell when you’re watching a Steckler film of any type, thanks to the distinctive voice of his wife Carolyn Brandt, who appeared in or narrated quite a few of his films. Vinegar Syndrome has collected three of Steckler’s 1970s adult features for their Peekarama line, and it makes for an intriguing change of pace: Steckler’s special brand of filmmaking on the cheap gives these films a particularly gritty feel quite different from most of the adult films Vinegar Syndrome has been releasing. These are the kinds of films where the girls don’t wear high heels in bed, so the audience gets a good look at their almost invariably dirty bare feet!
First up is Red Heat (1975), made under the pseudonym Cindy Lou Sutters. Billed as a sort of horror/thriller, the film is actually a weird meta-porn that tracks three different story lines that occasionally intersect but never really entirely come together. Cindy Lou Sutters (voiced by Carolyn Brandt) is casting for an adult movie and comes across a young redhead perfect for her film’s lead. The girl’s boyfriend gives her the name “Red Heat,” but before shooting can start Red catches her boyfriend with another woman and stabs him to death. She wanders the streets of Las Vegas in a haze while Sutters and crew recast the lead role and continue with production. Meanwhile, an anonymous guy on a motorcycle drives around robbing various shady characters. It seems like only a matter of time before this thug and Red cross paths, but what will happen when they do?
The Unrepentant Cinephile Page 87