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This Casting Couch Has Something Far More EVIL Planned Than Some Sleazy Fetish Videos! “Maskhead” reviewed! (Unearthed Films /Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“Maskhead” on Blu-ray from Unearthed Films!

Syl and Maddie are lesbian lovers and producers of adult fetish films.  Always seeking new talent and models, they continuously invite potential performers to their casting couch for a little background interview and test the waters of their willingness to be humiliated or dominating on camera.  When the camera rolls, the plot is about as normal as any fetish produced adult feature can be to get a viewer’s rocks off but when the imposing, metal face gear-wearing Maskhead enters frame, the change of perversion goes from sexualized fetishes to snuff material as Maskhead torments, tortures, and kills the models as Syl and Maddie enthusiastically continue to capture it all on camera with great relish in their pain and suffering.  At the bidding of the sociopathic lesbians, their associate named Cowboy purveys potential performers with his southern charm and witty storytelling as well as supplying them with jet fuel-infused weed.  With shoots lined up, Syl and Maddie are extremely tickled for the soon-to-be tortured talent ahead of them. 

After his stint of SOV sickness and violence with the August Underground trilogy, writer-director Fred Vogel continues his expedition through videotape exploitation with a codirector effort in the 2009 extreme horror “Maskhead.”  Written-and-codirected with Scott Swan, who has since transitioned into a transgendered woman Rebecca Swan, the “Extremity” and “Big Junior” filmmaker Swan folds into Vogel’s guerilla-esque scripted joy for the juggler through a nihilistic lens.  “Maskhead” is hot-rodding sadism at its nastiest in the underground world of ultra-violent and extreme horror, produced by Vogel under his Toe Tag Pictures alongside wife and costar Shelby Lyn Vogel and once frequent collaborator and special effects guru Jerami Cruise whose gruesome squibs and bloody prosthetics of August Underground’s “Mordum” and “Penance” opened the door for specialty costuming for Hollywood blockbusters, especially in the MCU with “Avengers:  Infinity War,” “Captain Marvel” and “Black Panther.”  “Maskhead” might not be a morally just superhero but can be definitely feared as superhuman with his nail protruding through a plank strap-on! 

Maskhead is essentially the executioner you don’t want to meet on an isolated porn set, caught vulnerable in your unmentionables.  The titular character is played voicelessly Michael Witherel having just come off the set of Vogel’s “Murder Collection Volume 1” released the same year.  Wrapped in bloody bandages around his upper torso, chest and head, encased with a strapped metal mask with spikes around the mouth area, Maskhead is virtually a ghost without background, without a wound explanation, and we don’t know what makes the grunting brute tick to do the cruelties he does in the unexplained relationship with Syl and Maddie who rely on Maskhead to splatter their stars into full potential.  Syl and Maddie have a little more breadth:  they’re lovers, fetish smut producers, and total sociopaths.  The women speak romantically about their auditioners coupled with immense torture-kill innuendo as a preponderance of their relationship foreplay.  Shelby Lyn Vogel and Danielle Kings have certifiable chemistry between them as lovers and portray crisp killers of apathetic character as they lap up laughter, love, and the loose morals in the face of someone’s life in their hands or behind their camera.  Shelby Lyn Vogel has worked around Vogel’s catalogue for the most of his career with roles in “The Redsin Tower” and “The Final Interview” while Danielle Inks (“My Uncle John is a Zombie!”) inaugurates herself into extreme film, and film altogether in her debut, without missing beat being the dress-wearing famine next to Vogel’s more butch lesbian.  While Vogel and Inks make an interesting pair of murderers, the more fascinating character Daniel V. Klien’s Cowboy, a charming supplier of casting couch talent with the gift of gab and the occasional backdoor fisting.  Klein (“Murder Collection V.1,” “The Final Interview”) adds to Cowboy’s mysteriousness debonair with a great twang, bearish mustache, and slightly portly figure in cowboy boats, black vest, and tight underpants when getting his kink on.  Cowboy’s persuasive manner and false promises build the character who’s to meet Syl and Maddie’s wishes.  Now, whether the couple plays Cowboy or not is not elucidated, one thing is clear the character does the Cowboy way when it comes to fetish desires and traversal wandering.  “Maskhead” is fairly carte blanche in casting their onscreen kill list with actors John Ross, Chris Krzysik, Mary Shore, Nicole Divley, David P. Croushore, Janelle Marie Szczypinski, Donna MacDonald, Lacey Fleming, and Damien A. Maruscak breaking more than a leg in their character acts. 

Suitable for those with bloodlust eyes, “Maskhead” meets niche criteria as an extreme gore and shock feature that’s all exploitational style and no narrative substance.  This type of film is very much similar to Fred Vogel’s “August Underground” series of randomized bits and pieces of not only the poor unfortunate’s filleted flesh and exposed bones but also with the disconnected scenes compiled together to meet at most the full-length feature runtime requirements.  The bare plotline to “Maskhead” are lesbian lovers Syl and Maddie signing unsuspecting actors to their doom for the sake of their snuff movies, that’s the extent and stoppage point of “Maskhead” to move forward with any sort of three act narrative. The rest intends to shock with one-sided, visceral violence that is the epitome of torture porn with bound people being merciless put in the wrath of “Maskhead” and other extreme moments of provocativeness, including Syl and Maddie’s footsy foreplay under a public restaurant table or Cowboy’s elbow deep fisting of a local gay bar tweaker.  While ultra violence and deviancy doesn’t go without merit, everyone knows I enjoy a good uncensored bloodsplatter and sexpot debauchery scene, the film is just a continuous string of nothing but that can be utterly monotonous, especially in the length of 89-minutes as it is with “Maskhead.” 

“Maskhead” is a course in sexual deviancy, a killer perversion that’ll speak to few but be repugnant by many.  You can test your ethic caliber by owning a copy of “Maskhead” on the new Unearthed Films’ Blu-ray.  The AVC encoded, 1080p high-definition, BD50 is packed with extras and presents the feature in the original aspect ratio 1.77:1 widescreen.  Vogel and Swan use polar quality to convey their narrative with a downgraded resolution, around a true 480p, with Syl’s perspective, capturing every gruesome event on her camcorder, much the same as found footage, while the rest of the film is shot in a higher, digital resolution with a third person perspective.  There’s certainly no singular picture quality approach as even third picture rollercoasters with an inconsistent, and slightly unstable, look under low-lit scenes, such as with the Syl and Maddie restaurant scene, and this unfavored condition is not a compression issue but rather a result of equipment and poor lighting, hence gore-and-shock’s conventional bantam budget.  Depth is not really a thing with the quality and a maximization of extreme closeups to get all the uncomfortableness of personal bubble space and grisly slaughter into the frame.  Color grading is also pretty much nonexistent with a raw and natural flat aesthetic palette, adding to the strived realism aspect extreme horror usually attempts to achieve.  The only audio option available is an uncompressed English PCM 2.0 that services these types of films well enough as dialogue comes over cleanly and relatively clear when on-board and commercial on-board mics are placed appropriately.  No hissing, crackling, or popping to note.  If screaming bloody hell is a high-frequency vocal modulation that gets you off than, of course, there’s plenty from the “Maskhead” track to go around.  Again, not much depth or range because of the near proximity of most of the scenes.  English subtitles are optionally available.  Much like Unearth Films’  “August Underground”  release, “Maskhead” comes packed with plenty of new and a few returning special features.  There are two new feature length commentary tracks with 1) directors Fred Vogel and Scott Swan and 2) with Vogel again with wife Shelby Lyn Vogel, special effects artist Jerami Cruise, and Ultra Violent Magazine’s Art Ettinger.  A third 2009 commentary precedes and seeks to replace the first new commentary with Vogel and Swan.  An exclusive Unearthed Films introduction by Toe Tag’s Fred Vogel provides a little gratitude from Vogel about the new release.  Swan also has his own feature cut of the film which may be more favorable for those looking for a story as the codirector’s cut seeks to build more context through editing and pacing toward the story rather than Vogel’s emphasis on the torture/gore.  Interviews with Vogel Frankenstein’s Maskhead, the titular character himself Behind the Mask, and the Cowboy Below the Brim offers that slither of realism and behind-the-scenes bibelots that makes “Maskhead” tick.  There’s also a plethora of new featurettes of raw behind-the-scenes footage:  the first test footage for “Maskhead,” the creation of the titular character, an extended death scene of Food Girl (Janelle Marie Szczypinsk), as well as on set with Food Girl, fun with special effects at Toe Tag Studios, moments from the recording room to flesh out those sound details, such as Cowboy’s whistling and some growling, grunting, and groaning techniques, I Will Break Your Fucking Arm takes you behind the scenes of the arm rack’s special effects and setup, the infamous rape scene with a 2×4 is more raw footage of preparation with a little more skin time from both Mary Shore and Michael Witherel, The Room ganders the old hotel room where Cowboy gets fisty, the character elements – mask, gauze, and 2×4 – that make Maskhead Maskhead, and an extended photo gallery.  Archive extras round out the massive list with the Jerami Cruise commentated short “Dildo:  The Creation of Maskhead,” a blooper reel, Cowboy’s Whistling Clinic to be the best professional whistler as you can be, and the trailer.  Physical elements of Unearthed Films’ latest has a cardboard O-slip featuring green graded image composition of the primary cast of characters.  The same image is displayed on the one-sided cover art of the conventional Blu-ray Amaray case.  I’m curious about one thing though, did Unearthed Films get permission from Rebecca Swan to use her then biological male name Scott Swan for credit?  I assume so with the rational of that was who created the film back in 2009.  The region A locked release and is not listed as not rated but is not rated. 

Last Rites: Most will consider “Maskhead” senseless depiction of pseudo-torture but I’m glad Unearthed Films and Fred Vogel were able to supply and add supplemental raw footage on this upgraded release. Hours upon hours of reel that shows careful preparation and setup and the dedicated cast and crew examining every shot and listening to cast suggestions that humanizes the film a little more on a relatable level and demonize it less as just junk food for gorehounds.

“Maskhead” on Blu-ray from Unearthed Films!

Snuff is the New EVIL Industry Fad! “Snuff Queen” reviewed! (Dark Arts Entertainment / DVD)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“Snuff Queen” on DVD from Dark Arts Entertainment!

Snuff, a hot commodity amongst patrons of the black market and dark web provides real violence and real death for real morbid viewers.  Laws are challenged and circumvented by consent of women willing to die for money through various ways of asphyxiation in front of the camera and sold under the controversial snuffing genre.  A Ten-minute window of revival separates the actors and actresses from permanent brain damage or certain expiration.  A snuff performer interfaces with the complexity of thrills and easy money that counterbalances against relationship troubles, social stigma, and the constant threat of actually dying hanging over their heads, or more literally, pressed against their throats.  A handful of willing performances lets a documentarian illustrate their niche profession, lifestyle, and personal struggles to the world with included behind-the-scenes footage on set and in their private spaces as they put on their line mind, body, and soul have to survive.

Those who seek out snuff, even if represented in a sensationalized, fictious way to glorify gore, violence, violence against women, and a fascination, obsession need to satisfy murder lust, likely need to have their heads thoroughly scoured for the tiniest ounce of sociopathic tendencies.  Films like “Effects,” “Faces of Death,” “8MM,” “A Serbian Film,” and the like all contribute to that black desire of control of another person’s existence and getting off perversely on the sadism.  Films like Sean Russell’s “Snuff Queen” are nothing like those more aberrant productions of cruel reproductions.  The 2023 pseudo-documentary and mockumentary hybrid began in 2008 with AVN interviews with porn stars and their take the matter of snuff or overall rough sex.  Shelved for many years because no producer at the time deemed the material worth making a movie out of it, Russell is approached by Dark Arts Entertainment’s Brian Yuzna and John Penney to finish the film with new scenes based off the 2008 script but cut most of the comedy out for a darker tone.  David Navarro producers the film.

Previously shot 2008 AVN interview footage with some of the then biggest talent in the industry, such as Sasha Grey, Bree Olson, Stormy Daniels, Jenna Haze, Stoya, Faye Reagan, Jesse Jane, Belladonna, Aurora Snow, Jessica Drake, Sunny Lane, and even Larry Flynt, is cut into snippets of a montage as they comment on death and sex in various contexts.  The series of comments and quips puts into perspective individual limitations, mindsets, behaviors, and an unfiltered truth underneath the layers of makeup, fake breasts, and forged happiness in the adult entertainment industry masked in glitzy red lights, supersized sex drives, and a prospecting tease of getting laid.  As the 2008 prologue interviews ends, the 2023 interviews begin with mostly scripted talk following the daily lives of a handful of snuff performing women, 4 principal female characters to be exact.  Moxie Owens (“Girl Lost:  A Hollywood Story”) as Jane Doe, Lexie Leone (“It Don’t Bother Me at All”) as Amy Doe, Juliet Kennedy as Angela, and Lindsay Normington (“Anora”) as Audrey Doe become the diverse batch of short-listed actresses of controversial and law-bending snuff films. These core cast of women are joined by gap-filling support, ranging from gays, to blacks, to Asians, and so forth by extenuating out from just a white female dominated industry in touching cultural and race by the less promoted numbers of adult entertainment. Much of “Snuff Queen’s” inauthenticity garb comes from the acting that’s densely overplayed and exaggerated because of the less-comedic directive by shot-calling distributors and performances stand out amongst a darker theme as too watery and less potent, like off-brand prescription drugs. Ironically enough, IMDB.com gives in the title’s controversial nature by not listing the film under any of the actor’s individual credits as to say or allure “Snuff Queen” documentary as real evidence and content based. Tuesday Knight (“A Nightmare on Elm Street: The Dream Master”), Josie Hung (“Staycation”), Gina DeFlilippo, Captain Dare, Zac Mendoza, Neill Flemming (“It Kills at Midnight”), Christopher Parker (“Spider”) and Jake Holley costar.

Much of what is laid out in “Snuff Queen,” all the provocative and debatable ethics, legality, and portentous aspects of Snuff, is all a load of crap and the director, Sean Russell, would be the first person to tell you that.  What Russell intends to convey is an allegorical emotional evaporation in adult entertainment performers and how apathetic the industry is toward the safety and responsibility for its talent who battle with low self-esteem and anger issues that either drive wedges between friend and family or ensue verbal spouts.  There’s also the treatment or being seen as just a bag of meat for the slaughter when getting the shot is important than the person taking all the risk for little reward.  Russell achieves that endgame message despite the cuts of levity humor that do squeeze through every so often but with that squeeze-in of a dark humor chuckle, coincided with a reserved approach to a documentary surrounding Snuff of all things extreme, in lies an off-putting characteristic going against the grain of the film’s black toned nature and Russell’s indelicate undercurrent theme.  “Snuff Queen” is nowhere near the shock level its required to have, especially being bestowed a taboo title, with little-no-effort in the thickness of the story’s creative girth; instead, the 2008 interviews, snipped scenes from previous controversial films, and one atypical scene at the heart of the story teases with stark nudity and blood are the only edgier content of a rather dull feature length pseudo-documentary. 

Presented in a widescreen 1.78:1 aspect ratio, Dark Arts Entertainment distributes the home release of “Snuff Queen” on DVD.  The MPEG2, 720p and 1080p, DVD9 has stark grade resolutions due to the 2008 recorded interviews and footage shoot 15-years later in 2023 with the former a blockier, less-pixelated digital camcorder for ease of AVN, working the crowd, person-to-person use.  Recent footage has the polished look of a high-dollar digital recording sans any artistic grading or stylistic lens.  No issues with compression codec that produces a very fine, detailed image reproduction that sinks into inky blacks and retains a natural color palette.  “Snuff Queen” is authored with a LPCM English stereo mix that’s an imitation of a hot mic of continuous dialogue, as many real, pseudo, and mock documentaries are, that renders cleanly through from one bookend to the other.  There’s also not a ton of interference other than in the 2008 interviews at the AVN with perhaps more commercial equipment or audio setup.  The onboard mic snags the milieu sounds with the raw range and depth.  English subtitles are available.  Encoded special features include a director’s commentary that goes through the first planned steps for the film and its subsequent rejections from producers back in 2008, deleted scenes, and the film’s trailer.  Physical features are stark and spartan with a convention DVD Amaray that has a mock polaroid border and the redacted eyes and mouth of a faceless, chest high naked woman that draws attention in conjunction with the title.  Dark Arts Entertainment presents the release not rated, region free, and has a runtime of 92 minutes. 

Last Rites: “Snuff Queen” might have worked 15-years ago with the old footage that contained real pornstars and real enough gore effects that could have turned this concept onto a creative machination in illusion of the truth or a clever black comedy that really pokes the porn industry in the ribs, but instead time and too many hands the creative pot has relinquished any power “Snuff Queen” may have wielded, dethroning it definitly out of shock contention.

“Snuff Queen” on DVD from Dark Arts Entertainment!

X-rated Adult EVIL Without Any Calling Cards. “Man at the Door” reviewed! (Impulse Pictures / DVD)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

X-rated and Exploitational “Man at the Door” on DVD!

Virtuous Anne arrives home after a stretch of day shopping and answers the ringing phone.  On the other line is her more uninhibited sister Jill telling Anne she’ll be working late, undeclaring her naked reverse cowgirl position on top of her equally naked boss’s lap.  Immediately after, Anne receives a phone call asking if Jill or if Anne’s roommate is home.  The stranger quickly hangs up soon after Anne admits their absence.  A following knock at the front door opens to Anne meeting a tall man claiming to be her roommate’s date.  Skeptical, Anne is at first hesitant about letting him inside until he forces his way in, ties her up, and molests her half-naked body before stealing her virginity with one thrust before the opening of the front door and an Anne’s unsuspecting roommate encounters the brute, but she takes his aggressive perversion in stride, eager to partake into his sexual tyranny, and finally able to bed the sweet and innocent Anne after long-lusting after her.  When promiscuous sister Jill arrives, more-the-merry for the horny home invader.

As far as time encapsulated sleaze goes, the 1976 sin-street stag film and home invasion obscener “Man at the Door” is about as obscure and odd as it’s chaste title.  Yet, there’s not a lick of chaste about the beyond-the-canoodle content of X-rated exploitation and the only licking happening here is with the scores of cunnilingus with every new starlet entering from stage left.  The lower-rung adult film has plenty of action in the simplistic of narratives but much of this a film by John Ruyter production is left unknown to the universe with no identifying credits to properly give recognition for the cast’s improper behaviors, with the crew’s dedication to stagnancy yet consistent and staid presentation, and with the sordid studio behind what was likely an obvious low-budgeted blue movie featured only in the darkest, dankest, and stickiest cornered cinemas on the infamous 42nd Street for a measly buck-fifty to get your rocks off.

Where to start with the cast?  I couldn’t even tell you.  The three satisfying starlets, unpretentious with their set dress but heady in their roles, come under the thrusting hips of a two pedestrian, stud-less joes lucky enough to engage coitally with the fairer sex.  Out of the two male performers, the titular “Man at the Door” character could pass for a less-intimidating and skeezier Edmund Kemper in a wet-blanket flesh suit looking like a former military analyst fired for his inability to hack it and tried his luck at philistine porn.  Perhaps my attitude to the casted intruder is a bit harsh, unfair, and hypercritical of some historical schlub with average measurements and downgraded fanfare – I don’t even know the guy or even his name – but my sixth sense knows the type and his type fits the bill to a T, a balding, mid-to-late 30s, man whose onscreen personality is about as dry as an overtoasted piece of stale day-old bread.  However, with much of the triple-X industry, men don’t sell product, women do.  The three ladies gracing the screen outperform above expectations after scanning the undervalue pinning synopsis with their distinct, amongst themselves beauty, able to individualize their roles, and entice with their own energies to make a synergy-coupling during the girl-on-girl scenes.  One blonde and two brunettes even liven up the boy-girl scenes against dull male talent who’s supposed to be knife-wielding sex fiend, but the women wear that personality down, grinding it to a halt as they grind on against each other.  I apologize in the lack of cast detail for this mysterious sleaze, but the DVD also mentions the lack of credits and there’s nothing on the web to match against it, not even doing image search on the actors’ faces and so we’re left with nameless sensualists of the mid-70’s sex scene.

When reviewing porn, especially from the New Hollywood era of the 70s, I always have to remind myself substance and story are going to take a backseat to skin and sex.  That is what’s laid out in “Man at the Door,” a rudimentary home intruder gimmick to extract the ethical-swathed deviancy deep inside us with sexual assault, uninhibited perversions, and even a humiliation peeing scene for those urophilia fanatics who get off on distressed whizzing.  Humdrum performances from a rather unflattering and uncharismatic male lead fashions little enthusiasm and in atypical swanky retro-porn flair, expositional statements, such as Now I’m going to fuck you both, said in perfunctory banality that it takes the story’s wind out of the sails.  Though production studio is unidentified, “Man at the Door” has blueprint echoes of an Avon assembly that prominently reeled in profit by paraphilia with fetishisms and rough-sexual-play shot on 16mm that feels very similar to this John Rutyer film.  Perhaps, John Rutyer was another of Phil Prince’s pseudonyms and “Man at the door” was his trial-by-fire initiation into the Avon Dynasty.  We can’t prove but we do love to speculate!  Avon’s skeletal productions undress the glam of fantasy for more feral roughies and “Man at the Door” has, more-or-less, the same façade with a handful of natural, sparse sets, carelessly visited by the boom mic and a few wandering heads into frame, and so this mysterious adult roughie is about as unspectacular as the next, only finding its way into our physical media devices by the pure unadulterated grindhouse gravitational pull and our extreme curiosity for its archaic and, once considered, sub-rosa period compared to what is today an easily accessible porn industry.

If curious like me or have a knack for any and all types of film, “Man at the Door” can be an interesting minor blast from the past and Impulse Pictures, a subsidiary label of Synapse Films, has secured the relatively unknown and unheard of title for DVD distribution.  Presented in a pillar boxed full screen presentation, 1.33:1 aspect ratio,” size of the storage capacity won’t affect your viewing pleasure with every typification of a dog-eared 16mm print to please the grindhouse appreciators.  To be honest, the print is in relatively good shape with faint vertical scratches pretty much from start to finish, plenty of good grain, dust, dirt, and a pinch of blink-and-you’ll-miss-it frame damage.  Grading is on what I believe to a high-key color saturation because of the heavy fill lighting casting clear shadows onto the backwalls and so skin tones can look more orange than natural but for older celluloid, I’m quite pleased with the finished product look.  The audio is an English Dolby Digital 2.0 mono track.  The collapsed audio channeled through more than one speaker doesn’t amplify the weak dialogue track, likely root issued by inferior commercial equipment or bad boom placement.   The track also has plenty of crackle and pop amongst the constant shushing interference that essentially muffles and muddles the already feeble dialogue so you may not understand half of what is being said on what is more than likely barely a script or half a script for a hour-long porn feature.  Forget about depth and range with the limited setting and confined to the actors’ close vicinity.  There’s some hint of swank laced in the soundtrack that’s feels more like looped bossa nova than like rock or funky bubblegum pop.  There are no subtitles available.  Also not extensively available are special features in this barebones disc that has been set with chapters and a sneak peek at Impulse Pictures’ “42nd Street Forever: The Peep Show Collection” preview; however, I do adore Impulse’s new types of crude color-pencil illustrations on the front cover that roughly represents the narrative concept in what is a blend of childish drawn nightmares and erotic art.  Inside the common DVD amaray case is a Synapse Films product catalogue insert and a disc pressed with the same front cover image.  The region 1 locked playback disc is not rated, obviously, and has feature runtime of 60 minutes.  Impulse Pictures has paraded “Man at the Door” more than the film deserves but it’s a fine, old obscure romp film from the porn of yore now on a contemporary format and with odd-neat packaging.

X-rated and Exploitational “Man at the Door” on DVD!

Two College Girls Are Subjected to EVIL’s Violations Below Deck. “White Slaver” reviewed! (Impulse Pictures / DVD)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

Two college girls are abducted and brought aboard a small yacht by a sex trafficking white slaver. Bound and covered, the young girls have no idea where they’re being taken or what’s in store for them by their three kidnappers, but the captors’ perversities are clear when the girls are forced to strip naked and submit to multiple sexual depravities against their will. When one abductor sympathizes with their ordeal, he attempts a dangerous escape plan to save the girls from a sex slave fate, but his degenerate cohorts have other plans.

If you have an unallocated 60 minutes of your life to spare for a below deck X-rated roughie, “White Slaver” would be all-aboard lecherous pleasure cruise to kill time. The anonymously directed “White Slaver” is the quintessential 42nd Street fare regularly spanked to on every other corner theater established with luminous marquees or neon signs lighting up salacious keywords and acronyms, like Sex or XXX, inside the once infamous The Deuce stretch of New York City. Also known as “White Slavers,” the pornographic roughies, like the 1974 released feature, are typically scarce in background and information due in part to the pocket change budget and low on the totem pole unknown sex studs and starlets engaging in mediocre debauchery in the single sticky setting of steerage, an appropriate term for cheap seat patrons. Bookend by the title and the end title, “White Slaver” is claimed by none, recognized by few, and holds no designation for a production company or even who produced the one-hour fornication of the seas.

So, who is the cast that comprises up the porn that makes a debasing mockery of the severity of sex trafficking? Well, who the hell knows? Only half the cast is credit on the back of the DVD cover and same credits are listed on IMDB.com and a deep rooting search, inserting every possible name combination one can think, through the search engines of the world wide web has come up with exactly diddly-squat. While in the early beginnings of the gilded age of porn, “White Slavery” doesn’t exactly have the cream of the crop of the then industries top shelf A-listers like Joey Silvera or Vanessa del Rio. Instead, we there’s a guy with two first names, Bill Scott, a white slaver in a sweater with an average porn-stache. In the most rigid, uninterested, lack of enthusiasm performance I’ve seen from a male performer in a long time, Scott’s blank expression sums up his own bag of tiresome tricks as he slums through his scenes with brunette #1 (uncredited first kidnapped college girl) and brunette #2 (uncredited Jim’s sleazy, tits-out, beer drinking, bi-sexual boss). Frankly, the female cast are appealing with a variety of taste to accommodate. Brunette #1 is a slim figured beauty, toned in all the right places, with an innocent face. Brunette # 2 contrasts #1 with a more butch approach and a thicker physique. The third woman, listed as Devon Mayer, is a blonde bombshell with a small waist and buxom chest and while Scott gets his licks in with both brunettes, Mayer is sexing only, who I assume is her husband, Jim Mayer as the two share a couple exclusive bowline knots, if you get my sailing terminology drift. Mayer on Mayer is a better, more enticing, combination in its well-rounded package. There’s also another unknown character with the sexless scene sex slave trader who purchases the girls at a staggeringly deal at $1000/each. In the 1970s, inflation was at an all-time low.

If you’re the average wanker looking to get off by any means possible, even on old JCPenney lingerie circulars, “White Slaver” will do the job. If you’re like me, someone who needs a little more substance and depth in their viewing pleasure coinciding with their kinky pleasure, “White Slaver” is a sinking blow to the stern with little diversity and a shell of a premise. All the skin-on-skin action happens inside the small yacht’s tight quarters that houses two segregated rooms, containing two beds, and a couch in one of them and all being used for carnal embarking. This makes for crammed cinematography to limit shots to only a few positions and severe closeups of the of the hairiest and dimple-laden hind parts and though those scenes are inherently a part of porn’s shooting culture, as they are indeed the money shots, not every damn scene has to be the width and height of my television. At least believe in the illicit sex trafficking premise, despite the morally insensitive nature of trading people for purpose of sex-lining one’s pockets. The hapless girls of “White Slaver” initially vocally counter their abductors with verbal threats and pleas for an unharmed release, but when the clothes come off and boat starts to rock, the two female sex slavery victims are all about it. When everyone’s sexed out, the girls go right back to playing pawns. While watching this wishy-washiness transpire, the lost appetite of a struggle against a mean brute before he has his way with her kills the enticing narrative that now lacks crucial roles for its very own, stay afloat, survival.

Amongst a sea of countless pornographic celluloids, “White Slaver” is definitely an interesting commodity of low-end rarity unearthed in modern times than it ever was inaugurally for the pleasures of jacks looking to unload in the middle of a theater. The provocative Synapse label off-shoot, Impulse Pictures, releases “White Slaver” onto a region free DVD home video, presented in the original 1.33:1 aspect ratio of its 35mm film. Though I’m sure Impulse Pictures presentation is the best we’ll ever see of “White Slaver,” the transfer suffered moderate trauma of wear and tear with evident film lacerations, blemishes, dirt, scratches, and even some light infiltration during processing. Also, an indication of the process mishandling is the exposure of the perforations. The sprocket holes of the 35mm stock swerve in and out of the picture due to either the introduction of light during the process or a sever misaligning of the stock in the camera reel but, either way, it’s annoying to see a rounded-rectangle box enter the frame at varied points. Not much to gain here with a flat color palette with lower deck love surrounded by nothing but awfully antiquated wood paneling and cupboards. The English language Dolby Digital single channel whispers the limp and zestless dialogue not because of the mono layer but because the amount of camera roll and static interference by shoddy recording equipment dampens the entire vocal spectrum. Special features include feature chapters and 42nd Street Forever: The Peep Show Collection with the flipping of projection audible only reels of similar, rare, era-related porn, included peep shows are “Vogue,” “Good Help Isn’t Hard to Find,” and “Liquid Plumber.” Obscurity and obscenity can’t always be a substitute for quality, but Impulse Pictures remains a steadfast platform for the little guy, even if that little guy is a forgotten morsel of American sleaze, with their newest rediscovered relic, “White Slaver.”

“White Slaver” on DVD courtesy of Impulse Pictures

Let’s Ride the Ol’EVIL Succubus to Chastity High School in “Sadistic Eroticism” reviewed! “Wild Eye Releasing / DVD)

Posted by Steven Lewis on


At California’s Chastity High School, a strict and sadistic far-right facility body abuse and favor a select assembly of pupils, isolating the semi resembling studious teenagers, who wear black trench coats, innocently worship indie horror flicks, and the idea of women, to the whims to not only a rapist principal and a Nazi fascist assistant principal, but also suffer prolonged torment from the school’s popular kids. When one of the regular teachers slips, falls, and dies on a pool of ejaculate, a voluptuous and alluring substitute teacher, Ms. Lizz, fills in, hoping to become a permeant teacher at Chastity High, but Ms. Lizz has a three hundred year old secret being a vampiric succubus who lures in and possesses the popular, sex-crazed, hormone driven high school jocks who will do her bidding in abducting the beautiful high school sluts and for Ms. Lizz to drink their blood to retain immaculate beauty. Its up to three Troma loving and heroine doping geeks and an odd janitor to stop Ms. Lizz before she laps up slut blood and moves on to the next school.

Like a barrel full of doured high school rape jokes bubbling in a stasis of formaldehyde, the farcical cringe-worthy comedy-horror, “Sadistic Eroticism,” is the brain damaged brainchild from writer-director, Alex Powers, as his debut feature film shot entirely on VHS cassette that pays homage to the SOV horror of the early 1980’s, such as “Boarding House” or “Sledgehammer.” Powers, who went on to helm “GrossHouse” and its sequel, congeals on a slapstick of analogue digressions to introduce himself as an auteur filmmaker who, unrestrained, can exceed beyond the distinct hardline of political suitably that’s not only a testament toward the very title of the film, but also, perhaps, securing Powers on a number of studio blacklists unwilling to touch him with a single junk-destined email originating from the other ends of the Earth. Starchild Video serves as production company, which if entering “Starchild” and “Sadistic Eroticism” in the same search engine field, you’ll get a nice little stern warning about your search results involving child sex abuse and any images depicting such should be notified. Yikes.

More promising than the infamous history of the Hungarian noble woman, Elizbeth Bathory, to which “Sadistic Eroticism” properly appropriates it’s title and abstract character from, is the colorful, if not disdainfully charged, personalities teeming with a variety of depraved intentions and the entire cast embraces the full blown degenerate toxicity. More than likely, most of the cast list is made up of not household names like JD Fairman, James Coker, Nicholas Adam Clark and T.J. Akins as a black Nazi fascist hard up on Christian values and stern punishment. On the flipside of that coin, genre fans can root through the blurry, sometimes overexposed, tape recordings and find familiar faces of the then scruffy looking filmmaker James Cullen Bressack, writer-director of the popular indie found footage thriller “To Jennifer” and producer to the subsequent franchise films, “2 Jennifer,” “From Jennifer,” and “For Jennifer,” suited up in a shirt-sized Confederate flag as one of four high school bullies to fall under Ms. Lizz’s spell. The prolifically half-naked all the time indie actor, Michael Q. Schmidt (“The Pricks from Pluto Vs. The Vaginas from Venus”), straps on BDSM gear for a little sodomy counseling as Principal Buggary, “2001 Maniacs” Field of Screams” Miles Dougal slaps on a wife beater for some sleazy slumber party slime ball in a high school girl’s father role, and, of course, the lovely pornographic actress who branch out and take a break from oral sex, group sex, three-way kissing, and – oh wait – they do and simulate that in this Powers’ as well. Tori Avano, Imani Rose, and Jayden Starr are the three high school sluts who shameless flaunt their assets for Sophie Dee to snatch up and soul suck her way for anomalous aesthetics as a satanic form of cosmetic surgery. The latter actress, Sophie Dee, is endowed, more ways than one, with the role of the vampire-succubus Bathory, keeping well….well abreast her monotonic acting talents with her adult industry persona. All four ladies show an abundance of above waist skin and engage in some solo girl, boy-girl, boy-boy-girl, girl-girl-girl, boy-boy-boy-girl… and now I must sit down a rest my brain. Dou Waugh, Sto Strouss, Paymon Seyedi, Candis Higgins, Mel Martinez, Aaron Granillo, Matt Johnson, Ian Fisher, Jody Barton, and Yajaira Bardales round out the cast.

Jokes and slapstick humor disassociated, “Sadistic Eroticism” still relates to the Elizabeth Bathory backstory told on VHS through a tube television presentation of Ms. Lizz’s abnormal history subjects. The succubus creature is nothing less than a buxom beaut that undresses with her feminine wiles zombifying men to do her bidding without her lifting a finger to break a nail against the hypersexualized school girls; yet, to show this century’s old cacodemon as provocatively dressed and to skim around bellying up the tension isn’t quite enough to sell the dominance an ancient evil should be wielding like she owns the whole damn school. There’s more of visceral presence of evil between Principal Buggary and Assistant Principal Defur and though they’re also vaguely under the influence of the succubus, their combined power is the epitome of “Sadistic Eroticism.” The script, characters, and subject material are indicative of Alex Powers attempting to reel in Lloyd Kaufman and his Troma slum-empire to purchase and distribute the filmmaker’s squawking lechery of a film and yet, perhaps, the Troma acquisition team also saw too much of a yawn-fest to bare the Troma brand as the nearly two hour runtime sluggishly relies too hard on being incoherently schlocky to be coalescing competent to make sense. “Sadistic Eroticism” is more masochistic in it’s ostentatiousness to desensitize power and rape and call it comedy, but rocks a mean cast of players from all walks of life to be a mean-spirited take of The Blood Countess.

Open your lesson books and get ready to be schooled by the twisted and obscene in Wild Eye Releasing’s re-release of “Sadistic Eroticism” on the label’s Raw and Extreme banner, distributed by MVDVisual. The region free, unrated release is presented in a SOV full frame of 4:3 aspect ratio. Tracking is the least of the problems with this uncouth image presentation rendered from pillar to post quality of warm tinges, severe color corrections required, and gauche details emblematic of cassettes, but all that was Alex Powers intended design to relive in the era of SOV. However, there are some less than stellar, even for SOV, that negate the effort, such as high contrast and poor lighting nearly blanking out darker scenes and the entire climatic end has a neon purple border and the scenes are also recorded in an awful tint of purple, making the entire finale be seen through Grimace vision. To top it off, the jagged opening titles, credits, and crooked visual composites are nearly discernible. The English language mono track is touch and go, mostly go as dialogue wanders into a deaden muffle and is also drowned out by a stock score tracks. There’s not much range or depth as much of the audio is picked up by the poor quality of the VHS handheld mics as exhibited on the special features, which include a director’s commentary and a behind the scenes hosted by that James Coker, who does a pretty good engaging the actors for the in-the-face interviews to explain their characters, scenes, and just overall thoughts with porn starlets and actors milling about or in takes. Sophie Dee’s bosomy eye-catchers, Tori Avano’s star-shaped nipples, Imani Rose’s vivacious sexual appetite and a stockpile of lewd, crude, and nude wets the very foundational whistle of “Sadistic Eroticism” bungled in a sloppy heap of first time filmmaking.

Order “Sadistic Eroticism” on DVD at Amazon!