Smut Without Smut: Satanic Horror Nite (2021)

 

Including reviews of Sacrilege (1971), Satan’s Lust (1971) and The Devil Inside Her (1977)

Directors: Ray Dennis Steckler (Sacrilege); Zebedy Colt (The Devil Inside Her)

Cast:

Sacrilege:

Jane Tsentas as Cassandra; Gerard Broulard as Jay; Ruthann Lott as Maria; Charles Smith as Lucifer

 

Satan's Lust:

Judy Angel as Pamela Goodright; Ron Darby as Boris; George 'Buck' Flower as Manheim Jarkoff; James Mathers as Wayne

 

The Devil Inside Her:

Jody Maxwell as Hope Hammond; Terri Hall as Faith Hammond; Dean Tait as Joseph; Zebedy Colt as Ezekiel Hammond; Renee Sanz as Devil's Crony; Chad Lambert as Nicodemus; Nancy Dare as Rebecca 'Becky' Hammond; Annie Sprinkle as Orgy Girl; Rod DuMont as The Devil

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Movies)

 

I’ll buy you a dildo for Christmas.

Smut Without Smut, a concept created by American Genre Film Archive, works around the issue that erotic cinema would be off-putting for some, but have their compelling aspects even if unintentional. This is significant even in a serious way as, with the uncensored versions of three of the films covered as they were included in the AGFA Blu Ray release, these films represent a side of filmmaking for all their amateur and absurd tones which will be deeply problematic for some. It is worth putting ahead of time as, especially as actual hardcore films, some people will not feel comfortable (or want to) sit through work which have openly non-consensual scenes even if all these films are truly ridiculous times to witness, openly too silly (or frankly shambolic) to take seriously baring. They are from a different time, even if sadly pornography has its sleazy edges still to this day, so all these films have to be taken with a pinch of salt even in their cut-down Smut Without Smut versions, which will not be possible for all to stomach. Those who can, like myself, will witness truly strange works.

To be blunt as well, some people will not feel comfortable (or want to) sit through extended scenes of real sex if with the artificiality that it is acted out sequences which are prolonged and in gynecological detail. In mind the tone will end up having to be lowered to review these, but wanting to take into seriousness the content, even thought pornography has still a lot of distasteful content to it in tone, these films have moments for all their goofiness you would prefer not to have in them, as much as some people just do not want to watch a man’s hairy testicles up close for a prolonged five to ten minutes. Satanic Horror Nite is closer to what the point on this concept was as Smut Without Smut’s prequel. That one was before AGFA started releasing their mix-tape works to physical media, instead having a double bill of Things to Come (1976) and The Dirty Dolls (1973), two softcore sex films where the removal of said sex scenes made little sense. That title was only logical for outright porn, tackling the sordid world of hardcore that Something Weird Video accumulated alongside their other exploitation film libraries, in this case centering on the obsession in the seventies with Satan and the Devil throughout a lot of these productions.

The compilation version follows The AGFA Horror Trailer Show (2020), another early mixtape from AGFA in which it is initially set up as an actual cinema showing, starting with trailers including in the intermission, not surprisingly going for the obvious sex innuendo with the food trailers but with legitimately idiosyncratic trailers which come some of the best parts of the production altogether. Americana from a different country to mind, such as one for a Wizard of Oz Head Shop, or the obsession between these mixtapes with finding as many trailers for cinemas made for Toddy, a chocolate drink that could be served cold or hot, are an obsession I am developing through works like this. More popular in the likes of Brazil to Argentina, Toddy chocolate drinks were pushed in the USA in these types of trailers, such as one here which is an animated trailer like  an old sixties cartoon about firemen. There is even a Pac Man parody for another concessions stand food advertisement which is also memorable.

This is not about gluttony however, but the sin of lust, and trailers for other hardcore films even if one or two does at least produce a Count-Erotica film which immediately warns you of some of eye-popping content. Even if everything in the Smut Without Smut cut is softcore, the sight of a man humping into a rabbit hand puppet for what is a Count Dracula parody immediately is memorable whether you want it to be or not. These films, uncut versions as well, are weird for how they can straddle the line between legitimately sleazy, progressive, deeply dated and problematic, but also very quaint or weird, where “Englebert Humpsalot” for a pseudonym on the credits time stamps the films to their era or even earlier into the sixties, like a Carry On joke.

Sadly the first film in the compilation, Hotter Than Hell (1971), is not among those included in their full cut which is a shame as it presents itself as a sitcom about demons, presided upon by a Satan who is closer to a gregarious Saint Nick/Green Man figure, whose desire to corrupt the folks up above is less eternal damnation but orgies and sex even in the underworld. This feels like a sex romp comedy which just happened to end up with real sex, boing sounds and all, between demons magically appearing for women or being helpful to frustrated female psychologists. There is already though an inherent issue with Smut Without Smut in context too that, yes, splicing out all the hardcore scenes, alongside making some of these barely over fifteen minutes each between five films used, means that so much tonal context let alone story plotting is lost, which becomes a significant issue with appreciating it as a work by itself.

Sacrilege probably is not a film you would gain a lot of from having all the sex back in, but it is the most notorious of the trio as it is directed by Ray Dennis Steckler. Steckler, infamous for the likes of Rat Pfink and Boo Boo (1966), did make some porn films in his career, and starting with a nude woman (barring gloves and a cape) gyrating to drones and string instruments to the camera, we are absolutely in a strange territory even next to the other films involved in this collection. This woman, in the form of a more humble witchcraft enthusiast in more clothing, will temp a man reading a book in the countryside for what is a played satanic sex ritual. There is not a lot else to talk of, baring that he reads books on witchcraft, and that she has a Siamese cat named Lucifer who is the aforementioned Devil and starts a nice trend of cats in these films. There is also the weird decision to have our witch make erotic cat wails, which is probably one of the strangest aspects of any of the films as this happens even in the sex scenes.

The reason Smut Without Smut exists is that Sacrilege, bluntly, will force you to look at the lead’s testicles in close up for a long period of shots, which is not for everyone. The paradox with hardcore, which this mixtape has to work around, is that porn drags because of its hardcore scenes of actual sex but without them, not in terms of wanting to arose the viewer but for their tone, you cannot really cut around them depending on the film used without potentially losing so much of their tone, or feeling as here they abruptly change scene. Again, and with the desire to not repeat this repeatedly, these films do present a taboo nature when our male lead calls a female friend to join over when possessed by sex, the playing to a non-consensual nature to these scenes in all the films mentioned in this review something which is going to offend people, more so because of the uncut versions having real sexual acts transpire even if they are highly choreographed. Sacrilege out of the three full films I saw is the most lacksidasical, but this would still be seen as a taboo for some still even if that  the film in context, the repetitiveness of the sex scenes themselves, undercut the potential grimness with monotony. The film by the ending also possesses a very squeaky table the scene of the Satanic orgy plays out on top of, and jazz drumming on the soundtrack mixed with soundtrack pieces for a silent adventure serial, which is a realm of strangeness in itself, which cannot defend these to someone who feels sexual fantasies like this are indefensible, but do undercut such a film by reveal how absurd it is as a fictional piece, real sex or otherwise. For Ray Dennis Steckler, it definitely becomes an idiosyncratic production to watch if an acquired taste even next to the others in this. Its compilation version would probably suffice for most, but uncut, the repetition and tone becomes its weird aura.

As mentioned, there are films here which were not included as extras in their full feature form, Sexual Awareness (1974) one of these, about a religious sex cult.  A lot of clearly missing from its cut form, a fragment of curiosity that really does not stand out, and again, about a cult that use hypnosis, this does emphasis that with a childlike naivety in a lot of these films’ cases that they touch upon fantasies which many may find completely unacceptable. It emphases sexual fantasies as a complicated and at times difficult thing, notwithstanding the fact that pornography even into the modern day has problematic aspects, especially when it comes to fetishing race, where we do not willingly face these with the complexity they need as much as rightly challenge them. None of the films in this, though a few have some eyebrow raising and sleazy moments, can be seen as anything but utterly ridiculous, entirely artificial and able to dismiss as from another time in look, especially as  Sexual Awareness in the Satanic Horror Nite cut is played for all its awkward pauses in acting and non-sequiturs, alongside in the intermission afterwards subtly playing to the only innuendo in the trailer choices, with a hotdog advert terms which are far more explicit then one would presume.

Satan’s Lust, which thankfully comes with another cameo by a cat also minding its own business, tries to be a murder mystery with obvious culprits shown in their criminal act from the get-go, a Satanic cult whose murder of a female victim has people sniffing in on them. Those people are Pamela Goodnight and Wayne, who are investigating the strange death of a woman named Carla who was working for Satanic Films, a movie studio in Los Angeles who were not hiding their purpose in being an evil satanic cult. This film, even in mind to The Devil Inside Her really going for eyebrow raising moments, is arguably the skuzziest of the lot as, baring a few romantic sex scenes, which involves their leads shaking their heads in slow mo, this definitely is the one where any concern for trigger warnings is appropriate, Pamela Goodnight probably as put upon as anyone can get in terms of a secret sexual satanic cult. Even in mind that, with legitimate suspicion on my behalf from all the cutaways, that faked fluids were used to be polite about it for scenes, this does become even sleazier the further along it goes, barely over an hour for a film reduced to fifteen minutes or so without the scene. It manages to have a scene that is problematic and twisted in capitals when someone is unconscious for the sex scene, and the perpetrator is thinking of an eleven year old girl, which is gross as that sounds in mind to how slapdash it also is, especially as said scene is also pointless for plot reasons to ever have. The version in Smut Without Smut form is more ridiculous for what it is, emphasis the non-sex scenes as being an ultra low budget genre film with the lack of these off putting edges to deal with, like one’s sex partner to one’s horror turning into a skeleton mid way through. If you could not get the tone, that these films are incompetent for the most part with actors just earnestly going through them, it is completely understandable why those here would still be uncomfortable to experience. This is also in mind that Satan’s Lust does have its own ridiculous moments which could only be laughed at, the most inappropriate use of Yellow Submarine by the Beatles, as an instrumental piece, finding itself here of all places the most obvious example of this.

Out of all the films, whilst with some of the most shocking content, The Devil Inside Her is the most ambitious of the trio as well, trying to be an actual film with a knowing transgressive streak at its heart. Set in 1826, a normal puritan farming family is undercut by the fact that, among the two daughters, one is romantically attracted to a young man, whilst the other is jealous of this. The father neither helps, as even kissing in broad daylight is enough for him to call one of these daughters a “harlot” and punish her with naked whipping, but the pleas of both sisters invokes Satan to appear, as depicted with KISS makeup, spike leather neck and wrist pieces, and the horn. Obviously this is again a film where its attitude to sex has dated extremely, but it is one that feels deliberately transgressive rather than being sordid; even if Satan is depicted nude barring boots, using a backwards talking masturbation ritual to turn into the love interest for both women, there is a clear knowing sense of provocation here not just from the film’s clear low views of this form of Christianity it depicts, even having Satan having the last words with God in the finale that, as long as people are sexually frustrated and he is the first on call, he will always get to the mortals first. Tellingly, its director Zebedy Colt has a compelling history which likely explains this, in that this was someone who clearly was bringing a lot of provocation to the production knowingly; birth name Edward Earle Marsh, he had two parallel careers, a musical and acting career including in several small Broadway roles, with his homosexuality something which he explicitly showed in music about romance and love between men, contrast with his directing and acting roles in hardcore porn, including having of all people a young Spalding Gray, famous for his acting and monologue work among other things, in a role in Farmer's Daughters (1976)¹.

With Satan able to shape shift, this is where the film gets more over the top and memorable. The film certainly has an imagination – where as the jealous sister goes to a witch for a love potion, we bear witness to some vivid dialogue such as the concoction using “the menstrual fluid of a Persian harlot” and Nicodemus the parrot who transforms into a human being, needing to be "milked" to finish the love potion. There is still a lot here which would be considered shocking for people, playing to how Satan disguises himself as members of this family, brining in some shocking concepts such as incest but two really out-there moments, one more acceptable in certain areas of erotica, a golden shower, which takes place at the Satanic orgy in the finale between consenting Satanists, but the other involving consensual use of vegetables which is quite a surprise. This in the Satanic Nite Orgy loses all of this, but also a lot of the tone, where this film which may be still indefensible for its content and tone still possesses a lot more in its tiny budget in terms of tone. It is telling that, even if it goes for the happy ending where the religious win, clearly horny Satanists were the ones we were supposed to be cheering.

The actual Smut Without Smut cut is a fascinating and fun ride to witness, but honestly, it can be argued to be a failure. There will be films people would prefer to have cut down into non-hardcore films to be able to enjoy their cheesy natures, and these versions will be easier to screen at cinema presentations, and more power to those both, but it really gets into the difficulty with what one does with hardcore adult cinema as a concept. There is still taboo some have with the concept of these films, let alone if they have any artistic merit, contrasted by the dichotomy of how one of their trademarks, emphasis on lengthy explicit depiction of the sexual act, is not something that is meant to be experienced for many as an actual film, rather than for titillation, but also is how their stories are structured around them if they have actual stories, making it insanely difficult to not undercut the tone and mood by splicing out the sex. Softcore cuts of these films are still made, which is telling in terms of the market for them, but Satanic Horror Nite also emphasizes the practical issues here that, wishing to re-edit these films for consumption, what this is just is censored cuts in a compilation, with not anything which could have emphasized the disjointed results on purpose and had for fun, such as more Satanic porn film trailers or jokes based on old advertising for drive-ins. I admire AGFA still releasing this, but it is telling that, not films to just jump into as they could be deeply off-putting for their content, the uncut versions are far more fascinating for what strange and sordid productions they are, one in The Devil Inside Her managing to be compelling for its clearly artistic goals among also being porn.

 

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1) The Many Sides of Zebedy Colt from Queer Music Heritage. This is NSFW for some of the archive materials included in the page about Zebedy Colt's life.

9 Lives of a Wet Pussy (1976)

 

Director: Abel Ferrara

Screenplay: Nicholas George

Cast: Pauline LaMonde as Pauline; Dominique Santos as Gyspy; Joy Silver as Nacala

Canon Fodder

 

Yes, that title is an eyebrow raiser. Just as this hardcore film starts, there is real oral sex with a man and a woman set to pure seventies porn groove music. And this is how Abel Ferrara, the legendary and controversial director of films like Bad Lieutenant (1992), actually began his career rather than with The Driller Killer (1979). Until the work of Vinegar Syndrome, an American restoration and distribution company who alongside genre films also have persevered the Golden Age of hardcore pornography, 9 Lives... was one of the more difficult films to see in Ferrara's career, a title now for a period of films in the 2000s (Mary (2005)) caught in rights issues. This is not an absurd film to have in his career mind, as even his "respectable" films have dealt with desire and the human, body and soul, in condition, so a pornographic film about desire makes pure sense in context especially with the earlier films in his career, written by Nicholas George, were mostly genre films which had an edge to them even in purely their moods. The problem up front with 9 Lives of a Wet Pussy comes from the compromise, along one problematic sequence, that undercut this one of being a film sold as pornography, that this era allowed these film to be interesting and creative, but that they could have easily been films prioritising the sex than adding interesting touches to it.

9 Lives... at seventy one minutes with these extended scenes of sex struggles to flesh out enough of the "what-if" with its ideas. The little fragment is fascinating and, in mind to Ferrara's films having themes of Catholicism for a key period of time, it is as much because this is also a mystical New Age occult film as well. Gypsy (Dominique Santos) is receiving letters from a former lover named Paulette (Pauline LaMonde), a free spirits whose recounting in them of all her sexual partners is the only solace for Gypsy beyond opium fantasies of this former love. Eventually, in the little plot we get, as Gypsy narrates and explains to the viewer from her sanctum home, we learn she has supernatural powers and intends to find a way to return Paulette to her. It is a compelling idea for a film, softcore or hardcore, ennui to be found here as Paulette casually wanders through relationships, be it the perfect male sex machine who is cold elsewhere, to an attended at a gas station bathroom whilst with the former, to a Nigerian princess.

It is structured around the sex scenes, but the idea of a figure who is purely of desires, and the other woman who still thinks of her, plotting as her guardian witch, is a fascinating idea especially from Abel Ferrara, whose films evoke a certain aesthetic even with his later work, suggesting tantalising ideas of how he would deal with this subject matter. Bluntly, the film is not profound and struggles for its slightness. It could have worked, especially as this is still a time of porn cinema where, unlike the emphasis on scenes in the modern PornHub era and some films, there was an emphasis on theatrical films which had surprising amount of production design to them nonetheless. The soundtrack alone is strong too, even if one song does suggest it is going to turn into a Status Quo track, tonally inappropriate in terms of this review, and the most British reference to bring in, but impossible for me to ignore. In terms of its subject, the concept of the film as a series of erotic segments including reinterpreting a Biblical tale from the Old Testament offers a lot that is not out of place for Ferrara to tackle.

And moments do show that something very interesting was here. Even the un- Ferrara choice of jazz fusion does not undercut one scene when the film is focused, Gypsy's sexual desires for Pauline depicting envisioning the later in a space entirely nude in a blinding white light as a reality. Even a scene which would be understandably seen as unacceptable now suggests what this film could have been, which is the reinterpretation of the Old Testament, that of Lot's daughters, which is retold with Paulette's grandmother, whose she shared her face and soul with, and her sister with their father. Containing Ferrara in an onscreen role, through with a stung body double and clearly not a Swedish old man just from his accent, the segment will be uncomfortable because it is non-consensual sex and incest, but is fascinating in literalising a real Bible passage which is contentious in itself, that it is Lot's daughters getting their older father drunk and conceiving children with him, the later never explicitly talked about in this version. Due to how the film feels threadbare in content, there is no ability to make this type of scene have any meaning, with one of the more transgressive aspects being that the film has real sex for all the scene including this one, even if the film is of actors choreographing scenes which just invoke real sexual contact at the end of the day. At least with that scene, shot lacksidasical which undercuts the discomfort, the idea it is tackling dealing with Paulette's heritage, and tapping into taboo sexuality which is found even in the Bible and is a tale of rape even in that context, makes it something that, in another film, would have still been a challenging and problematic work but still to consider with pause for thought.

Not defendable in the slightest, uncomfortable and even padded out, is the rape scene of the Nigerian princess which exists only for the disquieting idea of being erotic, something which back than would have been an easy red target for an anti-porn feminist like Andrea Dworkin to show if she had been aware of this. It is part of the uncomfortable schism in seventies erotica of trying to be serious, even with this type of controversial content, but clearly made with titillation, a schism where you get films which, even if uncomfortable, were intentionally aiming for something truly challenging, and then films like this where the scene here is lacksidasical in depiction, last a while and most would not even be interesting in debating, quick to dismiss it. Baise-Moi (2001), a controversial film from two female directors, was a rape-revenge film where the sex, consensual and not, was depicted with the actors actually have real sexual contact, which can be debated in terms of whether it was justifiable for that film, but was part of a film that was meant to shock and make people uncomfortable for a reason. With 9 Lives..., I cannot really defend the film at all for this scene, because its purpose, especially as there is not a lot to the film around it in actual material that can undercut and/or change how one is meant to interpret it, especially as the character barring some relationship with Paulette leaves the film soon after never to be seen again.

Moments like this undercut the fascination 9 Lives of a Wet Pussy can have, as even his scuzzier work from later one had deeper thoughts, or were a film like Fear City (1984), which was so brazenly ridiculous (and sincere) you had to admire it. This film instead suffers from having to tick boxes for being a porn film, which alongside the moral concerns with some of the content, also reveals how much of this is really a first attempt at making a film that found it not fully becoming its creators' own take on the genre. Even The Driller Killer for all its luridness as a Video Nasty fits Abel Ferrara as an auteur in his obsessions like a glove.  A slither of interest in here, the mysticism, becomes the most enticing idea of the film, ending with Gypsy turning into a man to have sex with Paulette, in the middle of a twilight reality with a protracted shot of the moon like the pinpoint camera hole in a black screen. This idea, even if the film had been longer and had more sex scenes, offers at least the idea of something very unconventional yet befitting the type of films its creator would go on to do.

This instead is still however porn in the dismissible way for large parts of it, not one of the creative ones which managed to possess something special, or just suit the point of the genre of titillation in a way which was actually admirable in a pro-sex good way. An older Ferrara film would have tackled this subject, even in softcore, with something truly compelling, and it is with praise knowing his next film, The Driller Killer, fully cemented his trajectory fully. This feels like the first attempt, and if it had been without the rape scene, and had more time to flesh itself out, literally in content and in its ideas, I would look to 9 Lives of a Wet Pussy with more than curiosity. Even the title feels absolutely inappropriate for an Abel Ferrara directed porn film, the clumsy first film which has its intrigue undercut by the context of what the film turned out to be.

Summer Lake Massacre (2018)

Originally Massacre at Pine Lake

Director: Andre Madness

Screenplay: T.H. Robb

Cast: Alexis Ford, Andy San Dimas, Briana Blair, Mr. Pete, Ralph Long, Rocco Reed, D. Snoop, Steve Crest and Lee Stone

Archive Review

 

It is shameless, to be honest, to include a Letterboxd review, but with this not a film easy to find. I wish to nonetheless preserve this existence of this weird curiosity, effectively "porn without porn", a slasher porn film from Adam and Eve productions with all the hardcore sex cut out to leave a forty or so minute slasher film. The edited version was briefly on Amazon Prime in the United Kingdom, the review originating from February 15th 2019, but is long gone.

The porn version, part of Grindhouse XXX (2011), a neo-grindhouse porn double bill from when the Quentin Tarantino-Robert Rodriguez film Grindhouse (2007) led to a exploitation film pastiche movement, is available. It is a film that would be fascinating to return to, in the cut version or not, even if I honestly think it would not grow and improve in entertainment. I think the greater disappointment is not the lack of desire to track this down but that the review has a negative tone I jettisoned from my work, where the most negative I can get (for the most part) is when I have little to say. When you debate whether to track down and pay for titles you take a risk for, the risk needs to be for something idiosyncratic and weird, and I do not have high hopes from this review this was ever going to stand out even with the hardcore sex.

Grammar has been corrected, if need be, alongside anything to improve the quality of presentation and turn of phrase even if words were changed or removed. Nothing in the review's content has been altered and when need be, any additional notes would have been included as time has passed and thoughts came to me returning to this review. The Letterboxd review was originally written around a work covered from a user called Scumbalina, from her list "Neon Boogers", an ode to "candy colored quivering frontal lobe aberrations on humanity". That list provided a couple of films that, if I have not written about already, would wish to. Even for this negative older review, this is a positive for anyone reading this to look into.

 

[Some Plot Spoilers]

So yes, Summer Lake Massacre was originally a porn-slasher hybrid created by Adam & Eve Pictures called Massacre at Pine Lake. I was initially hesitant to review censored version of the film, only to find that the Summer Lake Massacre version does have its own IMDB page¹. As much as we view this as a pretty liberal era when it comes to hardcore porn, it's still a common occurrence that "softcore" versions edited from the initial origins of films are still a practice, a segregation from the mainstream where that's still a viable method of gaining a wider audience. This suggests that the desire to break through a perceived moral barrier as was desired by the seventies filmmakers, some of which thought they were making art, is still an issue and far from over.

The one only redeeming aspect, if in a perverse way, about Summer Lake Massacre is its aesthetic. The brightly coloured clothes are the kind equivalent to all the pastel colours and nineties neon from the basement of exaggerated, gaudy pop culture. And let us be honest, as many of you the readers have probably have seen one modern porn clip in your lives once, there is the strange detail of how modern porn, in need of a location to shoot in and usually shot on digital cameras, always have the brightly coloured and lightly decorated environments you might find in a furniture catalogue. One slight touch up in the lighting and you get a Greek New Weird film aesthetic, and if you are bored of the sex, some people might find some greater interest admiring all the various ornaments and pictures in the background.

As for Summer Lake Massacre as a film, it is too short in the censored versions to be painful, but the problem is that it is a half arsed production. [Writer's Note: A crass choice of words, and viewpoint I would never use in future writing]. Even with the pornographic aspect, there were only three scenes visibly excised and they looked the most generic sort from what was left in fragments, cutting to a random lizard in another time zone for the first, but sadly never continuing with this unintentionally hilarious choice with a "boing" sound in the transition. Worse, with the awful makeup on the actresses, which does not compliment the plastic aesthetic that I can find charming, the film clearly prescribed the dumbest stereotype of the erotic which is cheesy and frankly dull, an argument for the virtues of softcore erotic actually being mere erotic as it did not spend all its time on boring real sex.

It is a testament to how bad any work is, regardless of genre, if its actresses are lit or dressed in a way that is embarrassing. In fact, if there is any virtue to having watched Summer Lake Massacre, it is an excuse to go on a long and protracted tangent about a severe gender politic issues about mainstream porn, about how it has always been about the exaggeration of sex (in actresses' literal physical shapes, even plastic surgery enhancement, let alone what it depicts) but in such a childish and frankly dull way. [Writer's Note: Now I have a more sympathetic view of female actresses in adult filmmaking. The aesthetic is bland is going to be the argument if you ever need to actually debate this rather than view the material as it was sold for, it we are going to be blunt.]

The debate of misogynistic gaze is not the issue I am thinking of, the one argued by people by Andrea Dworkin and for another conversation, but just how tired and un-erotic something like this (even without the sex) is compared to even a film like from Walerian Borowczyk or Jean Rollin, films which have even gotten defence from women because of both their aesthetic sensuality, but even for their depictions of women as sexual beings. Even really cheesy softcore which has a sense of fun, like the sixties sexploitation films, have more interest regardless of possibly dated attitudes. It is not surprising that the influx of women who are making pornography for themselves, in any media, are more adapt to it than most males in making far more rewarding (and frankly sexier) work as they care about things like aesthetic and emotions that make the work more rewarding, even erotic fan fiction. The kind of things Borowczyk, Rollin and a male creator who cared for such things who gained cult and even a female fan base from when they passed.

In fact whilst we are on this subject as its pertinent, one of the aspects which has always looked off putting in mainstream pornography for me personally, and is here in spades and among one of these issues of mainstream erotica, is that in vast contrast to the idolisation of the female stars, they always cast very generic men as if they were mere props and to allow male viewers to be stand-ins for, not considering that even a heterosexual male could appreciate a really attractive man onscreen even if they have no sexual desire for the same sex. As much as his reputation off-screen has been tarnished by real life scandal, there was a reason James Deen (not to be confused with the Hollywood star), became a cult figure with a huge female fan base as he was attractive and oozed charisma.

[Writer's Notes: The scandals with Deen from 2015 onwards do not paint a pleasant picture in the slightest of the man. To sidestep this to a more light hearted but pertinent comment to make, yes the like of aesthetic care for men in erotica in general is a strange and off-putting aspect. How ironic, even in the worst and least defensible erotic work you can have a hope that a female figure can still stand out above the muck around her, because of the strange paradoxical gaze that is objectifying yet can be subverted to make her stand out, against how the maze gaze really makes the male look grotesque in comparison.]

Back to the film itself, the slasher contingent would be disappointed with Summer Lake Massacre too as, even as someone who has a conflicted and strange relationship with the horror sub genre, this is pathetic next to even some I have found overrated and dull. It could lead to another long tangent, but I will rein it in, that for all my gripes about it, and dismissing some sacred cows, I have enough respect for the slasher genre that I am seeing a film like this one completely squander the premise in such a lazy way. Even some of the most notoriously bad (yet beloved) examples in the genre could stand proudly above this as Summer Lake Massacre barely gets the point of the tropes, baring allowing one to admire a well built horse stable the film is partially shot in. In fact, there are probably slasher films shot in someone's backyard that have better gore effects than this whilst we are at it, slashers as much as mere titillation requiring some actual enthusiasm to be of any interest.

This is all in mind that, with openness to any idea, I have no biases against porn and anyone who works in it, and no concept is potentially bad. There is the obvious, and somewhat weird, notion here that it is meant to turn a person on with real sex only to star killing off individuals, which I do not want to try to explain even in its butchered form. We could do without the black stereotype character either, even if the actor might have been in on the performance and (unlike other films) he manages to get away scot free to safety.

Putting all these concerns together, yes let us have more of this kind of gaudy colourful erotic genre weirdness, but please make something with some actual motivation next time. The initial result here is tedious and would not have stood out even with the sex kept back in.

 

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1) It does not when this archive review was preserved.

Cashmere (1999)

 

Director: Michael Ninn

Screenplay: Michael Ninn

Cast: Kylie Ireland as Penny Lane & The Lanettes / the Co-ed / the Lover's Lane Babe / the Pin-up / the Prom Queen; Vicca as a Go-Go Doll; Nikita as a Go-Go Doll; Shayla LaVeaux as Mrs. Kennedy / the Pin-up / the Cheerleader; Jill Kelly as Crooner's Lover / the Pin-up; Jeanna Fine as Sister Mary Francis; Anna Malle as Sister Francis Mary; RayVeness as the Pin-up; Brick Majors as the Drive-In Lover; Colt Steele as the Diner Guy

Ephemeral Waves

 

Bed time snacks make a girl crackle.

[Note: Cashmere is a pornographic film, but the version watched for this review is the softcore Redemption release. A British company who release titles in the United States and the United Kingdom, they have varied between the likes of Euro horror (Jean Rollin for example) to Japanese pinku softcore. They have also had a habit of releasing softcore cuts of hardcore cinema, this with some "strategic" close-ups among edits to alter the release for the more "easily offended" British public.]

Interpreting early sixties culture through late nineties shot-on-video aesthetics, I had high hopes with Cashmere as another delve into adult cinema's idiosyncratic tangents. It introduces me to Michael Ninn, a figure who starting in 1992 would become a significant name within the pornography genre for idiosyncratic titles like Latex (1995), a figure whose work embrace and work around low budgets (and video toaster and green screen effects) for fetishistic and ambitious looking productions. He is someone I am open to, regardless of my final opinion of Cashmere, as certainly going in he has an idiosyncratic premise even for a film for the sake of real sex to latch onto, embracing the aesthetic of early sixties and late fifties Americana, the touch of the titular Cashmere. Certainly having your lead actress Kylie Ireland duplicated as a whole girl group, Penny Lane & The Lanettes, for a 1961 set musical number is memorable for an opening for a porn film. Shots of a cinema, Ireland in a white ball gown as all the members, Lucio Fulci approved fog, and actual music, all very alien especially to a lot of modern day porn found online.

It is more eighties in aesthetic, by way of replicating the past, but when does an adult film in the modern day have actual musical numbers, one of many with different songs, with the music actually of some merit even if Casio backing music is used? Ninn to his credit, alongside an obsession with aesthetic (the latex costumes of Latex and Shock (1996)), has tried his hand at new directions, whether adapting those older films into Full Motion Video adult games, to Playboy's Dark Justice (2000-1), a softcore adult animated sci-fi show for Playboy TV. Cashmere's music is to its credit the best thing of the film, where even if some of the music reminiscent of a guitar magazine bonus CDs, the instrumental tracks to help teach guitarists new styles, the music in context is a solid quality with good vocal work. Even if it comes closer to nineties music (and Whitney Houston) the more they appear, they are unexpected in their existence within the film.

It does evoke Rinse Dream, real name Stephen Sayadian, the director of idiosyncratic films in the medium like Cafe Flesh (1982), especially when you learn the strange dialogue that has been repeated over scenes throughout verbatim - "Wrap me in a micro-mini" or "They're still stuck in the sixties" - were borrowed from Sayadian's Party Doll A Go- Go! 1 and Part 2 (both from 1991). Ninn's own production style, as stated low budgeted films which use video effects, and a lot of hazy aesthetic, is distinct especially as, contrary to my introduction to the film being set in the fifties, it is explicitly set in 1961 and the early sixties, right down to the eyebrow raising references to Jackie Kennedy. Played by Shayla LaVeaux in the famous (infamous) Pink Chanel suit suit, there is no sex scene with her, but she is evoked in the narration by the un-credited Michael Ninn, recounting nostalgic memories of that era against its iconography. It is very neon and tawdry, with blonde or pink bouffant wigs on the female cast, American diners and even a Cadillac used to have actors have sex on, but it is distinct to choose. Never was there a film, in tone with its bright bubblegum pinks and cheerleader costumes, where an Angora sweater or two would have been perfect and suitably erotic.

The immediate problem is that, rather than trying its hand at a series of vignettes or a narrative, Cashmere is a series of scenes of sex which whether seen uncut or in a censored form is repetitive and with not a lot else. The narration from Ninn himself really does not work, and you have the immediate issue with pornography that its length in scenes is endurance in terms of viewing, depending on a guttural arousal or lack of, and that this is a medium whose tropes about sensuality for many can be a bad cliché. (Or at least exaggerated to the point of its own logic which can be alien to a viewer's own eroticism or parodied). The paradox of pornography is also visible in how women are objectified, but they are figures who are lavished with diversity, the stars and with access to costumes and personas, whilst most male cast members in the case of a film like this are faceless figures. None of them are allowed to be more than stock figures - be they generic beefy men, scuzzballs or in a fake Clark Kent pair of glasses and wig - whilst another paradox exists in the variety of costumes and looks a female star can have. The moment in humanity's prehistory where women were to traditionally wear makeup and costumes is as much been one of our many failures as an intelligent species, but it has on the other side of the coin the advantage that, for all the fashion and aesthetic men can have, even traditional "feminine" fashion and cosmetics are so diverse there is the ability to use their variety to develop a person's individuality and even rebellion against norms, even in terms of not wearing makeup and dressing down as a more radical option.

Even in this film, where the audience is likely to be mostly male, the women in this film can play act, be figures of heightened (even absurd) femininity which can be dominant. Even if you have to bear in mind the film as a piece of pornography of the then-modern day which undercuts the illusion a lot, like the amount of tan lines, this does command a lot more visual power regardless of the explicit sex especially against the male actors, many of which do not even get IMDB profile pictures in the modern day and emphasis their status. No male actor, like LaVeaux playing Jackie Kennedy or heightening the cheerleader outfit, gets to riff on iconography either. One male is dominated by two leather clad dominatrix for his lusts for a schoolgirl, but no one is allowed to neither play in this world of dress up, nor become an eroticised figure that is in him as appealling and erotic even to a heterosexual male viewer. Even from a bias position as a cis-gendered heterosexual man myself, many erotica targeting male audiences tend to not portray men as physically pleasing in the slightest which Cashmere falls into the trap of.  There is no James Dean type - not the porn actor who, once a figure who drew female viewers to his work, sadly was revelled to be an utterly repellent figure, but the legendary Hollywood star of few films before his tragic end whose aesthetic style would have been perfect in this film's illusion, alongside many a greaser or rock 'n' roll figure. Even an Elvis impersonator would have been apt, in these early "wholesome" sixties, as there is a male sung musical number of a crooner, but this never goes anywhere.

Neither is the film, like Rinse Dream, going to challenge the viewer's sexual desires nor be inventive. The most diverse moment is what is described as "girl-homo", which is definitely a line of dialogue from a Rinse Dream film we never got, but is just a scene with only women which is not that illicit nor likely to win favour over for gay or bisexual female viewers even if, all wearing pink wigs, you could have had pure erotic camp. Honestly the disappointment with Cashmere is that, for a film about sixties iconography, one wishes it was not bothered with the initial goal of making a porn film and dared to sell itself as a pure wave of weirdo, nineties interpretation of early sixties chic.  Especially as this is pre-hippy psychedelic as well, which is a very distinct and niche aesthetic to sell, this could have been brilliant, even if still a string of sex scenes, if it had been a parody of a film or pop culture from the time.

The set up, with the opening music video even if all the members are Kylie Ireland, suggests a peculiar documentary of an old girl group, by way of dreamlike sequences of old childhood nostalgia, which if shoved further in detail would have been more. Even a "ghee whiz" parody of an old film or sitcom, like has become bread and butter in the later decades with porn parodies, would have been more rewarding especially as Ninn's aesthetic and production value is a leap above in terms of distinction. I would have preferred a narrative film, or an outright oddity, which just embraced trying to recreate an old film from the era with real sex, full of iconography like jukeboxes and quiffs on the studs. What you get are just surface level aesthetic on sex scenes which, even if you have the aesthetic strangeness of chessboard tile floors, or translucent yellow and red plastic pillars against fern trees, is still set dressing to sex scenes which have a lack of additional flair. Said scenes, if seen in a softcore form, do not even have what the film was meant to always sell, which is not appealing to another viewer either.

It does show Michael Ninn's virtues, but the final product could have been a much more different and more appealing production. As much of this I admit is merely the expectation of more to the film - i.e. more than a string than sex scenes. Certainly seeing screenshots of the film, and its heightened plastic sixties interpretation, even the stereotypical porn figures of the cast, does have a strange energy to it that is compelling, one that can be devoured and stretched. The issue is that, actually watching Cashmere, one wished there was more to work with than that energy. 

There is No Sexual Rapport (2011)

 

Director: Raphaël Siboni

Cast: Hervé Pierre-Gustave

Ephemeral Waves

 

We'll do a fake blow-job.

If pornography is a day job, then There is No Sexual Rapport definitely emphasises this, following a figure named Hervé Pierre-Gustave in his day-to-day work filming low budget adult films. Unlike other documentaries though, this project by Raphaël Siboni is entirely told by behind-the-scenes footage, from thousands of hours worth, all recorded on secret cameras. The first shot of this film even has a camera being used in a scene, shooting a threesome between a man and two women, tip down and end up staring at the tiled floor. I will also warn you the reader now that, if you are not fond of lengthy discussion of sex in words and details, or the more morally contentious aspects on the subject, it is not recommended to continue reading on as describing There is No Sexual Rapport will have to be blunt and matter-of-fact as the content.

Actresses and actors show their IDs (blurred) to introduce themselves. Then we cut to the nitty gritty, of sitting around nude and having to stage scenes, even if they involve real sex between the participants or scenes involving having to fake this. Even in the modern day, this documentary has a lot still which is surprising, mostly the lacksidasical way shooting porn really is and how it drags out. The interesting thing is that, however explicit the film is, is also shows the banality of the work to the point it completely de-eroticises everything, with even moments of the productions being openly faked, such as a male co-star merely slapping an actress' thigh and rocking the deck chair she is on, just off camera, to play act a sex, undercutting titillation for titillation's sake.

Far from a turn-off, it is humanising. These are beautiful people of all shapes and sizes willing to sit around nude, with the men calmly sitting around with erections and the women naked or in costume shop nurse outfits all day looking bored or cold. The human body is beautiful and erotic, but porn is as much a boring day job as anyone else's desk job here. Whilst there are moments around its central figure, filmmaker Hervé Pierre-Gustave, which are an issue later in the film, this instead raises the issue that pornography nowadays, with a lot shot in peoples' homes rather than with ambition of the more elaborate films of the seventies and eighties, does seem stuck in a schism. That the clichés feel even more out-of-place, and a concern ethically, as a lot of the film here is as much an encouragement to gander with interest at peoples' furniture and environments like a furniture catalogue, especially as many of the scenes are on tiled floors and in bathrooms.

It does cause you to imagine, alongside a greater verisimilitude for the regular viewer, what it would be like to be naked even in a fake leather couch, which is not as trivialising a comment to make, especially as, unless one wished to go for the cinematic idea of eroticism, celebrating the reality of desire would be equally be worthy. (Some locations, like purple walls leading to a turquoise bathroom, do have their own grounded aesthetic and aesthetically pleased me in their own low-aesthetic way.) If anything, the dangers this presents are the same tropes and clichés being played out, as even Hervé Pierre-Gustave has to figure out some narrative, as at one point, to justify a scene, forcing him into such clichés. The body with its moles, fleshiness and tattoos is more beautiful than we mostly are honest with, and not the problem. Its flaws and our fear of our mortality is likely why we have over-heightened, objectifying views of beauty, men and women alike, and likely why sex is a taboo subject for many. Porn, whilst losing its aesthetic of yore, has at least found reality with actors with piercings and tattoos whilst yet being totally fabricated, the later farcical in what we see and the concern.

The fact sex is depicted and usually padded out does not help adult films, and this also shows the absurdity of the acts and how difficult they are to actually film, which adds a perverse comedy when, under Suspiria green and red lighting for an ejaculation scene, they do not even know if any semen has been caught on film. One male actor, in the midst of a gangbang, even reveals the reality that, if you do multiple sex scenes in a day and have a regular sex life, you can be completely dry and have to rely on condensed milk to fake scenes, an emphasis in one line on dialogue on the expectations being too high in the fantasy. This is even without Hervé Pierre-Gustave fantasising about a budget of 10,000 Euros for special effects, as there is no real difference filming this or a regular film baring that a few people, especially the actresses, are brave to have real sex (in its choreographed way) on camera.

The costumes on the actresses especially, despite being aesthetically interesting even in their tackiness, show the strangeness of these filmed fantasies. I can see how cumbersome they are, like a pink and blue chequered skirt with a tie holder, a tie on a bare sternum, and with the makeup, I can see why, whilst fashion for women for me is frankly more aesthetically creative and interesting, why this is objectifying in just being stuck in awkward clothing. It is enough to imagine the pleasure of just sitting at home in pyjamas having just more meaning. That these are real women behind the costumes is a factor the film emphasises. When one actress in one line reveals herself to actually be a mother of a five year old daughter, you should not demonise her for this career choice, it is just work for her in a gangbang scene with three guys, as much as one of those men admits to having a girlfriend. It is contrived like a Hollywood production, as they even laugh about the target male audience buying this thinking its real. You still have to be directed in the best way to do a blow job. Pierre-Gustave still has to direct actors' motivation, so plot is still important even if it is ridiculous, being duped with a USB of porn videos then the promise of sex with an older woman, rather than just having a three person scene where people just fancy having sex. Soft porn, where everything is faked, is more contrived and awkward to film

This is also existential and two questions. 1) Why is sex such a taboo despite 2) why is it such a huge part of human nature universally beyond even procreation in the first place, creating this paradox? In terms of what you see, the banality of the work completely undermines the taboo, with only the costumes and the names of the performers being heightened, where I could list all the over the top names. William "Storm" - Pierre-Gustave's key main male actor and a lynchpin he has to rely on - of the many actresses named like Dolce Elecktra, Super Sex or Nymphy. One stage name which is in poor taste is Sexy Black. We could have had the one black actress have a name which was more tasteful, especially as in the middle of the countryside in the daytime, naked having sex with one leg raised by her male co-star and trying to balance against the bonnet of a Mercedes-Benz, she has a tiring day's work most do not. Little details like this do emphasis that, yes, there are many issues within pornography as a medium, but surprisingly it is not the real sex but subjects we have huge issues of, such as representation, that are the issue and can be found in other media considered more wholesome.

Amateur actors, not professionals, are also involved which raises their own questions, even if the two we see, "Pom-Pom Girl" and a larger woman named Sophie, are two young women wanting to participate in fantasies of theirs. There is an unexpected moment of sweetness, when to the concern of the two men in the scene with her, Pom-Pom Girl after a scene is in tears only for it to be tears of joy from the first explosive orgasm she ever had. With the figure of Sophie, including her and Pierre-Gustave getting very intimate afterwards by the computer he works and edits his film from, the issue of whether a line is crossed, and what is real and fake in this documentary, does come to mind. I wished there were more of the actresses talking about themselves, even in the structure of this documentary, as this is the kind of production, in content, does find into in a place where, especially after the MeToo movement, one's concerns whether this type of work is coordinated without sexual exploitation is a huge issue to consider.

This is to keep in mind when we are introduced to Puceau, a male black actor, only nineteen, who is involved as Hervé Pierre-Gustave also films gay porn. We see Pierre-Gustave tell Puceau of how, if he does the film, it will inevitably be on the net as people will copy it and be out of their hands first. It is here both Pierre-Gustave strays close to the line precariously, but also that this industry is in a weird place, as here you awkwardly have someone who is trying to film this work even though he himself is not clearly gay or bisexual, especially as for here and a scene with Puceau with three other male amateurs they have to put on heterosexual porn to get everyone in the mood. The only real exception to this at all is a BDSM scene with two men helped by the fact, with so many chains and cables to lift one of them up it looks perversely comfortable too, that they actually like each other physically. You also have the moment where Pierre-Gustave tries to big up Puceau to feel confident, falling back onto the cliché of being man enough to impress girls against weedy rich males from the schools he goes to, Pierre-Gustave himself still having to wheel-and-deal, which in itself is a problematic thing.

The film is not subjective or taking a side, which adds another layer which will discomfort some, as it does not take sides on whether this is good or not. Puceau, when informed that being a male porn star is not an easy world of money women, a dog eat dog world requiring confidence and a willingness to put up with the hard work, does feel the one scene where you do think of this, especially as Puceau looks like a deer in the headlights as Pierre-Gustave talks of the popular people being idiots whilst they are "warriors" does show they are flawed human beings. Nothing truly awful, jut obsessed with success and dated ideas of impressing women. One thing Pierre-Gustave that dangerously puts him in the fire line, with a nineteen female performer Anna Polina, is when he talks that the brain only fully develops at twenty one, whilst the military hires at nineteen because people will still take risks at that age, which in itself, depending on how it is interpreted, is a very misguided thing to have said aloud, whilst taking erotic pictures of her. Even if she visibly is rolling her eyes at her, that in itself just a bit later in the decade this film was released would get him far more scrutiny even if he did not entirely think of how creepy the words sounded.

He is a curious figure in himself - alongside stepping into non-adult cinema as a director, he has also been involved with some films like the controversial Baise-Moi (2001) - so he has had flirtations with other forms of cinema. To lighten the review a little, he is also nude all the time, or just in black boxers, which is bizarre even if the reason was to make his cast feel comfortable being naked. Emphasised by also being bald and having no body hair, it would be more elicit if he wore trousers in a scene. For the most part, he just feels a person who works, having to just scrape by with these productions, using his own bravado and confidence to even if that in itself has become, rightly, something to be wary of as too many people have exploited this gift to exploit others. The irony, as mentioned paragraphs earlier, is that these problems are not just in pornography though, so it can no longer be demonised in itself.  And whilst others may find the film dull, lacking context or with aspects where it feels uncomfortable how these films are put together, I found it compelling for these reasons as much as it's completely non-judgemental attitude, viewing this all from all the thousands of hours of footage and forcing you to have to think about how you feel. The finale shot are exhausted men contemplating in the BDSM scene room, one Hervé Pierre-Gustave, both spent and emotionally drained is a powerful shot in itself. These figures, even in this career, have to grind themselves through the metaphorical meat grinder of life to get anything done, regardless of what you think of them. It is obvious, but as an eighty minute film, few probably consider the adult industry with this light upon it.

Night Dreams 3 (1991)

Director: Stephen Sayadian (as Rinse Dream)

Screenplay: Stephen Sayadian (as Rinse Dream)

Cast: Lauren Brice; Tom Byron; Harry Jabarr; Sharon Kane; Stephanie Page; Paula Price; Joey Silvera; Tianna

"Mention On the Waterfront and she gets randypants"

With his reputation mainly cemented in cinema by Cafe Flesh (1982), the career of Stephen Sayadian is sadly miniscule. Neither is it helped that, as most of his career is in pornographic films, they are a) maligned as a result, b) beholden to rights issues from porn distributors, who may not necessarily seen them more as mere titillation, and c) are at least difficult to access in the United Kingdom, where unfortunately our laws do not take this into consideration and it is financially impractical for any distributor to release such films as they would only be allowed in licensed sex shops. The one non-pornographic film in his career, Dr. Caligari (1989), is also worthy of rediscovery by itself, a weird film which proved Sayadian's vision was not restricted to filming real sex, able to tackle perversity with his canny trademarks, such as his also staccato and postmodern dialogue. Sadly, that film was a one-off.

After Dr. Caligari he returned to pornography for the last films of his directing career, shot on video work like two sequels to Nightdreams (1981), a collaboration with director Francis Delia but was affirmatively a Rinse Dream production. Nightdreams, in honesty, was a compilation of sex scenes, but Sayadian's background in advertising and poster design meant that, alongside his scripts, his visual eye is just as striking, embracing a palpably warped sense of strong colour and distinct props.

Nightdreams 3 is a film that compromises and accepts being entirely porn, a literal series of scenes based around a threadbare structure of a female doctor, Dr. Sledge (Lauren Brice), who deals with sex therapy and is openly a voyeur. All the film is shot in the same soundstage and, intercutting scenes of sex never seen fully, feels a likely piece to Nightdreams 2, which was shot the year before. If you are here for the ambition of the early Rinse Dream films, the first Nightdreams is still an aesthetically bold work, whilst this second sequel would be disappointing. Where it gets interesting is how in an extreme minimalism, Nightdreams 3 is a weird film. A deeply weird film even if it could have been more and also deliberately constructed as such, showing the director still has his touch.

The elephant in the room is that this is porn. Not said as a dismissal, and not necessarily ethics of the form neither in this particular review, nor in artistry, but whether a viewer can engage with watching other people having real sex beyond said titillation. Morals can take an important part in this subject of the virtues or lack of in porn - even if you are neither a pro-sex feminist or an advocate of Andrea Dworkin - but the notion of the viewer's gaze (not necessarily a male one) has an effect especially if you are bring a viewer's gender and sexuality to how they react to the sex. There is also the obvious, and less pretentious comment, of whether it becomes boring to watch porn if you have no intention to masturbate to it, which is a significantly more profound question than that sounds, as it asks whether pornography can grow beyond an ephemeral product to an actual piece of worth.

Artistry is definitely a concern here as Rinse Dream films are distinct in deliberately alienating their target audience, and in honesty, whether the form of pornography is defendable as art or not, I will argue what adult actors and especially adult actresses do in films, especially in the current day, is a form of physical performance that is not thought about. For actresses especially, who in a form of irony become the most significant figures in these films even with all the concerns of objectification and latent misogyny that might be involved in individual productions, they have a willingness to be bared in a literal gynaecological form that should be held in greater admiration, as few people would willingly do so filmed or even in their own bedrooms, and especially with the insane level of dexterity it requires sometimes, this means even more.

One thing that is important, and has been a huge moral issue, is that porn is a heightened and exaggerated form of sexuality, where the performers' bodies are fetished and exaggerated, the concern when we presume this is what sex is especially for impressionable people, presuming they can merely get to some of the positions rather than with conversation, having an open minded sexual partner or two, and a lot of good cardio. Even if you view this film as titillation, which to be honest Nightdreams 3 was clearly meant to be, Stephen Sayadian has always played to this exaggerated to an extreme. How you deal with Nightdreams 3 is that as a narrative, it is vague, but it is intentionally exaggerated, distorted, repeated and even done in off-putting and un-titillating ways.

There is the other issue of whether you can watch another person's body this much up close too. The real corpus, tangible and flawed human body is there even in all the strange positions, extreme kinks and silicon enhancement involved, and not everyone in comfortable with this. The issue porn has, beyond whether prolonged real sex can actually engage beyond the reptile brain urge to procreate, is also whether this exaggeration can mean anything else. I will not argue Nightdreams 3 will - go to Cafe Flesh for something more interesting - and stereotypes of porn's idealised erotic woman (and man too) are problematic. Non binary males and gay and bisexual women will at least have an issue with this film for how limited and frankly boring they might find the sex scenes between the female cast is.

What is interesting, if porn is a ritual of exaggerated sexuality, is how legitimately and deliberately weird the film is in its exaggeration. Where Nightdreams, the original film, had actual nightmares and Wall of Voodoo on the soundtrack, even a piece of toast playing a saxophone, this second sequel is repetitive, arguably the equivalent of minimalist music in its continuous repetition.

You still experience a feverish atmosphere with barely a set in this film, baring the alarming amount of unexploded artillery shells lying around a medical building which are never explained once, nor is the bust of Beethoven sternly watching over the sex on a bare metal framed bed that looks closer to a torture device. The world of Nightdreams 3 (which is mostly purple, blue and green) is a world drenched in hazed and scored to the type of dreamlike soundtrack that would birth the Vaporwave movement in the 2010s, only with bizarre squeaks and industrial noise that, set to merely white credits on a black screen, last at least a good couple of minutes.

The little plot follows an obsession of Stephen Sayadian's of strong woman, a porn director and writer who yet, for all the objectification of their bodies even in the non pornographic Dr. Caligari, always writes strong women with insatiable appetites for sex against men who are merely bystanders or frigid. The lead here is the same, an anti-heroine and doctor whose treatments for patients goes further than her female senior appreciates, only for her own sexual desires to be easy for Dr. Sledge to use to gain power over here.

Performance art is arguably the only way to explain some pornography. That exaggeration, a fetishishtic obsession with every peroxide blonde lock and piece of clothing, alien to gonzo work shot in cameras on the hoof, but still existing whenever a brazen (even deliberately kitsch) amount of colour or an odd prop is in the location. This is also a thing Rinse Dream ran with throughout his career, whose work in his graphic and photographic art sculpted his visuals, even his actors. Here he is subdued and clearly working on very limited means, but that does not stop everything having a striking look, from a clear fixation (unless of the time) of everyone male and female having slicked back hair, to the unexpected appearance of a bedside cabinet sunk slanted in the ground to be writhed upon. Lauren Brice in the strictness sternness in her features, and command, even evokes Madeleine Reynal in Dr. Caligari baring the distinct arm movements and penchant for cigarettes.

The dialogue as well is idiosyncratic, and whilst it takes a while to appear, you can relish the absurdity of lines of people being "ravenous for boy jerky" or Dr. Sledge being described as being "a cupcake full of strychnine ". It is inherently quotable, still as if he ingested the influence of post modernism in his mixing of antiquated slang with bold descriptive comments with a clipped style to them. The repetition applied to this as well as he will taking shots of certain dialogue and repeat them over scenes, which considering the film's video format, feels like how one would find material edited and repeated in loops. That repetition is something that can easily be perceived, reading this, as occasional. No, it is repetitional, constantly cutting to the shot of the line being spoke in the midst of sex scenes over and over and over again with an attempt at being hypnotic.

The result by the end, when Dr. Sledge seduces her boss to gain power control over her, becomes such a repeating barrage of stimulus that it does eventually drill itself into your brain if you let it. The other aspect, which is even more likely to have alienated him from his career in the media, is to continually add deliberately off-putting content. When he intercuts different sex scenes in the same time line, it does have a striking effect. Here, however, there is also an inherent creepiness to everything, and whilst there are no rat men like in Cafe Flesh, there is the grunginess of the entire environment and that most of the sex scenes are on the barest of metal framed beds. His interest in blurring gender, whether progressive in the modern day or not, is a surprising detail, one of the lead's patients a woman who wants to transition to a man. Nothing in the subplot, the barest of them, is inherently transphobic, only with the fact Dr. Sledge goes to have sex with the husband, who reacts negatively, and that the patient is merely looking strung out on "testostereeny" on a dirty floor as a nice bed was unfortunately not available.

The repetition and successive cuts also have a disconcerting edge, no longer lengthy sex scenes but the ending up instead a hypnotising effect that leaves you dirty. The film's final shot, when Dr. Sledge bends her boss into a submissive, is a close up of the other's mouth screaming, which after the repetition and constant use of the phrase by Sharon Kane of "Give suck", feels like a psychological breakdown than an orgasm. Out of what I have seen, Cafe Flesh is still more rewarding than this, and arguably Dr. Caligari is Sayadian's best work, as much for the fact you do not have the prolonged real sex scenes to disrupt the pace. But from initial disappointment came something peculiar with Nightdreams 3. Not a great film but one that, in the midst of limited means and whose existence can be questioned, is a good argument for auteurism, and one as already mentioned which is definitely a bizarre thing to experience.

Abstract Spectrum: Erotic/Grotesque/Minimalist/Repetitious/Weird

Abstract Rating (High/Medium/Low/None): Low