Emanuelle in Bangkok (1976) - Sleaze Adult

Emanuelle in Bangkok (1976) - Joe D'Amato has a long trail of adult sleaze, porn and genre films to his credit. The Italian director worked from his first credit (according to IMDB) "Sollazzevoli storie di mogli gaudenti e mariti penitenti - Decameron nº 69 (1972)" until his death in 1999 with his last credit being Amore & Psiche which came out after his death in 2000. He was prolific with 199 credits to his name as a directo. I encountered him first with some really bad horror films but since have seen quite a few of his less wholesome entries. These films really do fit into one of the focuses of this blog, I attempt to cover many of the things I could not see as a teen in the 1970s and there was that time inthe decade when sleaze and adult films were running in mainstream theaters across the country. The Emanuelle series of films were a stolen idea D'Amato exploited throughout the 70s and early eighties. The idea from a series of french films with a similar name were erotic sex adventures, basically he changed Emmanuelle to Emanuelle and created his on stories with different actors but for sure was taking advantage of the success of the originals. Emanuelle in Bangkok is the first in the series. It stars the beautiful Javan actress Laura Gemser as a photo journalist who also is experimenting with free love. Really the entire edifice is to find ways for Gemser to take her clothes off onscreen. In this film she and sometimes boyfriend Roberto (Gabriele Tinti) are talking about attraction in a restaurant He notices how the men look at her and she how the women look at him. Then bang! right to a sex scene between the two, with no time wasted. The sex scenes are the soft core variety with a bit of frontal nudity on Gemser's part. There is rolling around kissing and the implied oral sex, but nothing too shocking. There is a ridiculous sex theme music that plays every time there is a love making scene where the participants are mutually consenting. It is clear from the conversations Emanuelle and Roberto, that he has stronger feeling for her than she for him. She is not quite ready to settle for one man and he is forced to reluctantly agree that they are going to split for a while. D'Amato show a casualness to sex with multiple partners that was prevalent in the time period, although I thought it was a fading idea by 1976.
Emanuelle travels to Thailand to be the guest of Prince Sanit (Ivan Rassimov) with the hope that he can get her in to visit with the king. He is the most miscast person in the film, an obviously very white man playing a Thai prince. They explain this away by saying that the Thai royal family has been so prolific through the years that everyone in the country can claim some kind of connection to the king. When she arrives at the hotel before meeting with him there is the classic difference between sleaze and non sleaze films. Where in a traditional film when a person wants to take a shower after their travel they generally get to the undressing and you see the dress drop to the floor and the lower legs of the actress. In this film Gemser just strips in front of the camera and the scene cuts after showing her nude, it doesn't really matter if she showered or not what was important was the nudity. It also emphasizes her attitude towards nudity, when she sees the house boy drawing her a bath she doesn't wait for the young man to leave but just takes her clothes off without shame.
Now we could continue to rehash the plot in detail but that really is not the point of the film. Instead lets give a quick synopsis and talk about the themes presented as a way to show nudity. At its heart that is what this film is all about. Emanuelle is propositioned by the Prince Sanit after she tried to bribe him. He suggests they get to know each other better instead of bribes but she is not biting. A bit odd that this one guy is not a turn on for her. There is a strange guy in army fatigues watching her as she goes sight seeing.
She has sex with the female masseuse Gee (Koike Mahoco). She has sex with the house boy at the hotel. She meets Roberto and his friend the obnoxious Americans Jimmy (Giacomo Rossi-Stuart) and Frances (Ely Galleani) and they go on a montage of Thailand's cultural offerings including kickboxing, cockfighting and a strip club where a dancer does a wax and fire show and another does a ping pong ball routine. Emanuelle excited by the show gives knowing glances not at Roberto but at Frances. All of them go back to Prince Sanit's house and smoke opium have sex changing partners through the drug fogged night. I think and I am no expert that much is being made of Emanuelle's inclination to be attracted to women. She is intimate with both Gee and Frances but she is a multi partner person who is not securing any one relationship in her life. She is free to engage in sex with whomever, as Prince Sanit put it she has a unique ability to experience sex in a pure form.
This is going to come in handy in the next couple days when Sanit disappears and Emanuelle is trapped in the empty house by the strange guy and his buddies. When I say disappeared I mean furniture and everything. There are reasons explained later about the Princes relationship with the king. This does not help Emanuelle though; They surround her and then gang rape her. It is a weird decision by director D'Amato in that the filming is them ripping her clothes off and each climbing on top of her in turn but they never take out their cocks. It is like each is taking a turn dry humping her. The princes words echo in her head and she stops struggling and by doing so seems to enjoy the sex and gain the confidence of the assailants. This is so fucking bizarre I can't really wrap my head around it. Really it is just so easy to release from the horror of a gang dry humping? The scene does not fit with the rest of the film where all the sex is respectful and consensual. I think D'Amato was trying to show Emanuelle as a different kind of free sexual spirit who can accept any form of physical interaction, but I think he fails with this sad display. This is just a start in her troubles though...her passport has been stolen from her room...wait! Here I am again giving the nuts and bolts, not what should be going on. Lets stick to romance and sex here, Emanuelle has sex with the airport security guy to get out of the country and to Roberto in Casa Blanca. She has sex with Roberto and his new girlfriend Janet. She and Janet have sex with a group of Arabs (not shown) that was amazing in its stereotyping of a people. She falls in love with Debbie (Debra Berger), the immature but attractive daughter of the US consul. Then Roberto with Debbie watching from the door but refusing to join. Each time there is the theme music by Nico Fidenco overwhelming the tame visuals. Emanuelle opens from a woman who is into free love but after exploring intimacy with women and men together finds herself in love with Debbie and says goodbye to Roberto, I am sure in 1976 very few people went into this film looking for this journey and for them you can see from the above they got lots of nudity and simulated sex. Poor Roberto has a sad tale, he loves Emanuelle and would like them to be together but also likes having other women involved. He not only loses Emanuelle but also his rebound girl Janet, she is never the same after she and Emanuelle spend the night having sex with the eight arabs, I am not trying to be racists just calling them "the arabs" but seriously that is the presented stereotype. She comes back and breaks off her engagement to Roberto.
Debbie grows up a bit through her relationship with Emanuelle and although they too part, setting up the next film by freeing Emanuelle to go States bound in Emanuelle in America. The secondary track for this film is to show musical sightseeing montages in between the sex and nudity. These scenes are of the cultures and city streets of where ever Emanuelle is, Thailand, the middle east an archeological dig each place is explored with silly over the top music and the actors smiling, looking at things and showing interest in their surroundings.
Rating (4.5) 5.0 and up are recommended in the Zombiegrrlz system Skip it!

Strip Nude for Your Killer (1975)

Strip Nude for Your Killer (1975) - Nude per l'assassino, Sometimes a film is way too on the nose and that is the basic problem with this killer movie. I would call it a Giallo but in that genre there is a mystery around the plot, there is no mystery at all in this one. The opening scene is a woman, Patrizia (Solvi Stubing) who appears to be receiving an abortion on a table with a doctor in attendance. Since he is all alone you get the sense that this is not an official visit but more of the back alley kind of abortion. When things go wrong and the girl dies of heart failure the doctor instead of reporting it calls Carlo and the two move the body to her apartment to be found and rules a home death. This is the incident that sets the killer off. How do you know? Well in the very next scene we watch the doctor as he drives home, when he arrives a killer in a leather motorcycle outfit and helmet runs up to him and stabs him to death. Like I said it is a bit on the nose. So really the story is not going to be about why the people in the film are being offed but more by who. The killer is completely covered head to foot so an identity can not be made. They are slight in build and can possibly be a woman, or is the film trying to mislead the viewer?
As we learn who the players are, models Lucia Cerrazini (Femi Benussi), and Doris (Erna Schurer) as well as those behind the modelling agency, owner Gisella Montani (Amanda) Photographers Magda Cortis (Edwige Fenech), and Carlo Bianchi (Nino Castelnuovo), Stephano (?) and Maurizio Montani (Franco Diogene) Gisella's husband and really sad sack the mystery is which of them is the killer. There are minor character, Gisella has a lover, a woman who is killed, There is a gay man who knows the killer who also is an early victim. From this we know the killer is definitely at the agency and the build of the killer is that of a woman. So ruled out of the equation is Carlo a built man and Maurzio a fat man.
Working through one killing to the next we quickly and without a lot of trying who the killer could be. Since Magda and Carlo are working together they are eliminated so it really leaves models or the shop owner. Like I said, it is a bit on the nose. Sure there are some side stories to try to throw you off. You learn that Gisella has a female lover who she likes to dominate. She smacks her and yells "You Bitch! You love it don't you." and "You're a big whore." There is connected to this a blackmail scheme that she has to be mysterious about.
You would think that misleading the audience would be the way to go but this film really sabotages this. Everytime someone is going to be killed there is a flash image of the girl in the bathtub. It's like the writer Massimo Felisatti and director Andrea Bianchi thought we forgot over and over again why the killing was happening. Instead of just reminding us though they took the tension out of the film by telegraphing when the murders were coming.
What also is on the nose is the product placement. Throughout the film you will see two products prominently place. First the is J&B Whiskey which is all over this film, then the other is Levi Jeans which appear in posters and advertising so much so that there is a poster for the product above a character's bed.
There are some memoriable bits of dialog in the film so here are a few gems, I liked when Magda was talking about coffee, Carlo wants her to put milk in his and she says "What, you can't ruin good coffee like that." ... "Milk in coffee is like water in wine, both are ruined. That's the truth."
Then there is poor old Maurizio who is constantly trying to get with the models. His pervy pursuits finally look like they are going to pay off when he wears one model down. Doris agrees to having sex with him but he can't perform and she leaves after his crying out. "Oh Mama, mama why does it always end this way." he walks into another room and gets a blow up sex doll to blow up. "Your the only one who can make it happen. The only one." So sad.
Later in the film the police chase a guy down a dark alley and I kid you not after a cursory look into the shadows the cop turns to another cop and says "Forget it he's gone. No way we can find him now." and the other cop says No, too dark." Noe that is stellar police work.
What this film does have going for it is some really beautiful women, I know we at Soresport Movies say that about many of the Italian Giallos, but it is true. Our lead Edwige Fenech is lovely and they spare not an opportunity to have her and the other actresses in this film to take their shirts off. It is part of the genre and the italians apparently like the look of a woman's breasts. So hats off to them at least when the movie is crappy there are beautiful women exposing themselves. I am sure this does little for the women in the audience but at least it is a distraction for me since I pretty much figured out this film about 2/3 the way through.
Whether you choose to watch this or not know there are better examples of the genre out there, Tenebre comes to mind. This film did not really do it for me although there are not many movies that end with a couple in bed where the man is joking about wanting to have anal sex.
Rating (4.8) 5.0 and up are recommended, in the Zombiegrrlz system I say SKIP IT!

Satan's Blood (1978) Horror Cult

Satan's Blood (1978) - "Escalofrio" The opening scene of Satan's Blood has little to do with the film's main story other than to establish the precedent that Satanic cults have rituals and that those rituals involve sex and murder. It has no bearing on the plot at all. The woman is forced onto the alter and the old horny priest kneads her breasts like dough and then mounts and fucks her until he stabs her in the chest. This really is an artifact of the type of film it is. When horror films became popular in the 1970's in Spain where this film was made, many were co-produced with other countries, particularly Italy. Strict Spanish censorship kept many from being screened in Spain at all or the versions were chopped up to make them clean. When the dictator General Franco died in 1975 within two years censorship was abolished and a new class of movie was developed the "Clasificada S". It meant that the film contained strong sex scene violence and horror. "Satan's Blood" is one of those movies, lots of sex, bursts of bloodshed but placed in a way that could be edited out for markets that did not allow such scenes, and yet the story could somewhat hold together. Produced and Directed by Juan Piquer Simon who is famous for the slasher "Pieces", this earlier work has some very promising parts to it. -- paraphrased from Peter Tomb's description in the Mondo Macabro DVD extras.

The story concerns a couple, "The As" Andy (Jose Maria Guillen) and Annie (Mariana Karr) in the dubbed version I have. The film makes a point to let us know Annie is pregnant and later that they have had a miscarriage in the past. So one would think that this was important information. They are looking for something to do for the weekend and while out are flagged down in there car by another couple, Bruno (Angel Aranda) and Mary (Sandra Alberti). Bruno seems to know Andy from school but Andy can't remember him. They are invited to come out for drinks at Bruno's house and agree to follow them there. At the house there seems to be inconsistencies in Bruno's story but Andy is still taken with the couples friendly attention. Strange that Andy and Annie's current address is on the back of the school photograph. the hosts are a bit off but not startling so. What is even weirder?

1. There is a guy other than the gate keeper roaming about the house trying not to be seen.

2. Mary has an amazing gaze that can mind control the dog Blackie.

3. When Annie comes into the kitchen she finds Mary bent over the counter her head in a bowl eating what appears to be raw meat without her hands. That's weird, and making dog noises. It leaves you thinking that she may be a werewolf or something.

They start talking about talking to the beyond with the Ouija board. Everyone is open to the idea as it seems like it might be fun. At this point pregnant Annie has been drinking wine and smoking, I guess it was not the same approach to pregnancy then as it is now.

By the dreadful day of judgement.

By the four beasts before the thrown.

Having eyes before and behind.

By the fire which is about the thrown.

I command thee to grace us with your presence, to enrich our poor souls, to take us into your heart.

Talk to us O powerful one...

The seance brings out some personal information about both Bruno and Annie and ends with Annie fainting. When she comes to they are going to leave but the storm outside they will have to stay the night. Another nudity scene is interjected and then we get to Andy thinking about the photograph. Going over the points in Bruno's story that don't make sense. They hear Blackie their dog and then we see that the thing is dead and being dragged by someone outside. Strangely though that night Annie is awake late and hears the dog again, she gets up and goes downstairs only to run into the stranger, who promptly tries to rape her. Since all she has over her lovely thin body is a bathrobe he comes damn close before being kneed in the balls. This is it for our couple so they dress to leave. When they get to the living room they see the couple in the middle of a ritual, nude in a pentagram. They somehow get enchanted and there starts a long night of foursome sex. You can see the magic in the air as they are all rubbing oil on each other and doing satanic rituals. It doesn't seem to go completely right, Mary after having Bruno blood smeared on her abdomen screams a frightful scream.

Seeming to have forgotten all of the nakedness Annie the nurse by trade tends to Mary only going off with Bruno to look for something to give her. Mary back in the bedroom with Andy makes her move so that Annie will walk in as she is passionately kissing him. Create conflict in your duped couple, this is a smart idea. Divide and conquer to keep them from leaving together. When Andy goes after his pissed wife Bruno and Mary go at it making animal noises. The strange rapist wanna be watches Bruno from outside but the gatekeeper comes up behind him and kills him.

Insert a dream scene where a creepy doll walks into the room and Mary in a shear black nightie tries to seduce Annie and you have the makings of a freaky night.

Everything conspires to keep the A's at the house including Bruno and Mary taking their car and going to town to drop there own car at the shop. They arrive back to find the slightly pissed of A's who have been snooping around. They made it up to an upper room where they found a picture of themselves. Something is definitely not right and they are getting out of there. They do not even remember the photo being taken. Bruno of course pulls a wire in the car so they are going no where. Where the hell is that dog too?

There are some really freaky scares and it gets really out in the open after the moment where Mary's shadow scares the shit out of Annie and then they see Blackie hanging dead in the pantry. Annie has had it and a lot of the veneer goes off the other couple. They are in the other room when we hear a gunshot. Bruno is injured in the head. They watch him die. Mary goes off on a moped before they know it and returns with a doctor who accuses Andy of killing Bruno. He orders the As to stay and await the authorities and leaves. They are not sure what to do next but when they realize they have not seen Mary in a while they find her slit wrists in the tub. Putting her in a bed she suddenly pops upright and in a demon voice says she is not dead yet, kill me kill me. Andy stressed at this point does just that???

We move toward a climax and a as Andy and Annie go to leave. Mary is there dead and standing with a gun, the struggle for the gun and Andy kills the woman again. They stage it like she is still in the tub, why? Who the fuck knows at this point. Again they go to leave except now we see Bruno's body is no longer on the couch. They get to the car but have to go back for Annie's purse. Bruno is there back from the dead, Annie shoots his ass. Then the freak doll... bang, then a scream from beyond the grave and the doors of the house start slamming shut. They find the body parts of the wannabe rapist and then get out of the place.

When they arrive home there is one more climax scene which leaves you thinking that maybe they we dead all along. Nothing ever came of the baby in the oven thing and the film does a twilight zone final shot that leaves you perplexed. Overall for what it is it is a reasonable confusing film but one that it not terrible. If only it made just a bit more sense. Maybe Andy and Annie were already dead and this is some sort of private hell. Suicide played a part in the personal stories of both Bruno and Mary, so maybe they were ghosts playing a part in that hell. Certainly the violent ending scene and then the one to follow could support such a hypotenuse. The nudity scenes are plentiful and the people are attractive to look at. If you like that then you are in luck, at least with the cut I am reviewing here. This is really a borderline recommendation because I can see a lot of you really hating this. There era though produced so many more horrible films than this.

Rating (5.5) 5.0 and up are recommended.

The Devil's Plaything (1973) - Horror Vampire

The Devil's Plaything (1973) - "Der Fluch der schwarzen Schwestern" Also known as Veil of Blood or Vampires Ecstasy. A rather sleazy erotic horror film that tells an at least semi interesting story between its scenes of swaying topless acolytes and lesbian suggestive interactions. 1970's erotic film master Joseph Sarno gives us not a great film, hell maybe not a good film but a film that is competent and complete but is really for those with a taste for this kind of thing. There is lots of nudity mostly in the form of swaying cultist as they do their spells.
The story is that at a castle in Germany there is a cult that wants to bring a vampire Countess back into the world by allowing her soul to posses one of the two beautiful young descendants that have been lured to the castle. Helga (Marie Forsa) and Monika (Ulrike Butz). Monika is accompanied by her cross dressing companion (Flavia Keyt), they are surprised when they learn they can not share a room. It was really thrown into the script so I threw it in here too. The fact that they are lesbians only serves the purpose that later on the character played by Flavia joins the cult to support her companion. Shortly after those three arrive a storm picks up and Dr. Julia Malenkow (Anke Syring) and her brother Peter (Nico Wolferstetter) arrive, saying their car has broken down. There is a look that passes between the housekeeper Wanda (Nadia Henkowa) and the superstition studying Julia. Did they really break down?

That night the drums of a ritual are heard in the depths of the castle. They are really African drums which is strange for this German castle. A bunch of women including Wanda dance and cast a spell apparently on Peter who tosses and turns in his sleep. Sister Julia comes upon him and touches her own breast watching as he appears to have a wet dream. When he wakes she makes sure he has his cross of garlic on and says he should never remove it. It is protection against the magic she suspects is afoot.

We learn the superstition of the baroness who was supposed to have drank the blood of her subjects. She did black magic and well, was a vampire, but was burned at the stake some three hundred years ago. The priestess, Wanda and the swaying nude woman cult are working towards bringing her back into the world. Thank you Julia for the expository story about the baroness.

Helga finds herself drawn to Peter and very soon they are in the horse barn doing the nasty. There is some weird editing in this scene that makes you think it was cut drastically. They read the will of the aunt and we learn they(Hilga and Monika) have to stay in the castle for a year to inherit the place. Helga is enchanted by the cult of priestesses, they surround her and stare intently, then the event is culminated with fingering her. She is now initiated. So to strengthen that we get more swaying cultist scenes and Helga and Monika staring at the portrait of the baroness.

Julia is onto Wanda and lets her know it. The garlic protects Julia in her battle of wills but Wanda is no fool even when her intense staring fails she has options. She does the divide and conquer by putting spells on different characters to weaken Julia. They suck in the Flavia character as they try to get closer to Monika. She is initiated into the cult. We learn that Julia and Peter are descendants of the people who burned the baroness at the stake and there is some vengeance to be had here.

Meanwhile those damn sexy drums are really driving Helga crazy, and she needs to pleasure herself with a candle giving the audience a facial expression of satisfaction.

Julia is really worried that things are coming to a head but she doesn't know what it is. Now Peter wants Helga and expresses his love. Wanda uses that relationship by making Helga super horny and saying it won't stop until she gets Peter's cross off him. She is driven to this end and we here the distant sounds of bees buzzing during this scene.

On the night of the Vampire which occurs once every nine years, Wanda is gloating to Julia that she can not be stopped and the spirit of baroness Vaga will be back soon. Peter and Helga talk and he has given her his cross and she is no longer driven crazy.

So much is happening, Peter and Helga are part of the ceremony to bring back the baroness. To keep Julia out of the way she has spells cast on her to confuse her on the grounds. She ends up in a barn and the most ridiculous bats pull her clothes off. The bats are really black gloves with wings on them. Hilarious!

Peter and Julia try to get Helga to leave. Julia believes the vampire is back but Helga does not feel she needs to leave her inheritance. Peter is frightened by a sound in the woods and they have to return. Monika is the baroness and now things are moving along. She comes to the gathering of them all and says "Our winged cousins of the night they call me, they call." wonderful. A reference to Dracula, the film of course not the book.

They use Peter to go to his sister and come on to her. Julia likes it, the incest feelings are strong in her, and he tries to get her to take off the cross, dirty trick. She does and now they will get to her too. She realizes it and they struggle until she gets her hand on it again and saves herself by getting the cross back on.

This convoluted plot has Peter making love to Monika and her biting him. Then she drinks from Helga who is in the corner being felt up by some cultists. Julia tries to get in and has to fight off a couple cultists herself. They his like cats but the garlic cross keeps them at bay. Peter somehow makes it to her in the room she has locked herself in and she sees the weakened man has been bitten. She gives her cross to him.

The cult is chanting up a storm now not in the cellar but in the main room of the house. They believe they have won. Julia falls under this spell and proceeds to touch herself. Out on the woods Helga is on a hanging platform, Julia will take Helga's place and Monika will have her blood. In a slick move Julia gets into position near the platform and is able to pull a piece of wood free and use it to stake Monika as she comes in for the kill. Suddenly the spell is broken and people are stumbling about and wandering off. The cults power is gone and the cultists are all free from the power of the baroness.Although the plot is interesting in this there is so much strange shit that I will not recommend this. The pace is pretty slow and really the nudity although abundant is not the sexiest you can see.

Rating (4.4) 5.0 and up are recommended

One Eyed Monster (2008) Horror/Comedy

One Eyed Monster (2008) - Oh what people think up! While snowed in at a cabin in the woods the crew of an adult movie is terrorized by an alien from outer space. Starring Ron Jeremy's dick, Amber Benson and Charles Napier and this piece of crap is funny in some ways but can not overcome the just horrible plot. The alien enters Ron Jeremy and then detaches from him, leaving him dead, using his penis as a way to try to breed. WhyBecause aliens have seen all the porn beamed across the airwaves for years and have seen Jeremy as the biggest reproducer of us all. The dick then goes about killing anyone who messes with it and trying to mate as much as possible. There are lots of serious line about how to stop the dick. The group realizes that getting the dick to cum will leave it vulnerable to an axe, so they devise a plan and attempt to execute it.

Rating (3.5)

Coffy (1973) Drama

Coffy (1973) - This is a "blaxploitation" vengeance film starring Pam Grier as a nurse, Coffy who pays back the Mother F$%^ers who hurt her little sister by selling her drugs. Coffy tries to balance her life as a nurse with her night time activities posing as a prostitute in order to get close enough to the drug traffickers to kill them. The story is pretty straight forward and Coffy has little trouble infiltrating the crime organization. Being an exploitation movie the script written by director Jack Hill does not try very hard to have more than one level. There are some common blaxpoitation lines about how society won't defend minorities so they have to do it themselves. It has the standard black man drug lord, King George (Robert DoQui) but naturally the guy really in charge is white. This is common for this brand of movie. The higher up is a mobster named Arturo Vitroni played by Allen Arbus, a great character actor who was in some of my favorite M.A.S.H. episodes as Major Sidney Freedman, an army psychiatrist. Also playing a thug is legendary horror actor Sid Haig. The film is straightforward and there is enough street justice to make it enjoyable, but as a film it leaves a lot to be desired.

Rating (5.4)