Do you remember when I announced the closure of the Secondhand Smut column? Well, here I am again. With nothing secondhand but certainly Smut. I’ll explain.
I had plans for the fourth installment to cover my findings from August,
September, October and November 2014, but this simply wasn’t meant to be. So,
here I am, reviewing some Smut that I
recently got my dirty hands on.
Sweet & Sour (1974)
The male lead is a photographer (of mainly pornographic stills) and he
just found his muse off the streets who is a musician. Together they will
experience sexual acts that are moving this film in a very conventional way;
that is, until the violent outburst of the ending which makes the whole journey
worthy.
There’s no telling how much of a Lloyd Kaufman fan I am. He’s mostly
known for his independent ‘70s and ‘80s flicks, but I’m more in love with his
‘90s and ‘00s masterpieces. Sweet &
Sour (1974) is an early pornographic film of his. The copy I have is in
terrible condition and I pray that someday Vinegar Syndrome will release a good
restoration on disc.
Hardgore
(1976)
Maria [Dianne
Galke from Teenage
Runaway (1975)] is a
nymphomaniac with masochistic tendencies as we learn, and so she is locked in a
nuthouse. She should suspect that this institution for mental patients has
something to hide though because the nurse who’s showing her into her room is
teasing her and soon the two of them get to have some hot lesbian action. Later
Maria will find a couple of dildos in her room too; professional help, right?
A nurse will
have her throat slashed and this is the movie’s turning point. From then on
everything seems to be lit in a horror movie way. Just when you thought you’d
get scared though you see a dildo attached to a medical machine providing
pleasure to the female lead, and just when you thought you’d get horny you see
a dick chopped off.
The female lead
is kidnapped by some people who force her into ceremonial group sex (there are
several black magic symbols here on display, or maybe they are Satanic, or
both, or I don’t really know). There is a man in a Devil mask that is
conducting most of these orgies. And there are a few flying penises that are
shooting insane amount of semen, resulting in a bukkake scene. You can’t call
it bukkake per se because the term was first used for post-1980 Japanese films,
but I don’t know what else to call that scene.
There are some more bloody scenes here, in the form of murders, or
‘forced accidents’, and the whole thing reminded me a lot of Herschell Gordon
Lewis’ best moments even though it works mostly as a Slasher film. It didn’t
seem to be very popular back then, but this combination of hardcore pornography
with hardcore splatter seem to be attracting many new fans nowadays as this
film has finally its cult following and is mentioned way too often online.