Emanuelle in Bangkok (1976)

AKA Black Emanuelle 2

Emanuelle is sent to Bangkok on an assignment to interview and photograph the king.  She is met by a prince, a cousin of the kings who is bizarrely played by a white man. $1000 he can introduce her. Though for him this isn’t enough, he wants to get to know her more. And here begins Emanuelles erotic Thai journey. He wants to show her the Thai ways of pleasure and what better way than to send her to a spa that specialises soapy massages. A true delicacy of Thailand indeed! He assumes that of course she wouldn’t mind another woman rubbing her naked soapy body against hers. And he would somehow guess right. Perhaps he saw the first film or perhaps that’s just the notorious nature of Emanuelle that she is famous for. It certainly wouldn’t be last time we see her enjoying the pleasures of the female flesh.

A typical Thai prince.

One sexcapade leads on to the next and she soon finds her life in danger. Her hotel room has been ransacked and her films and passport have been stolen. The prince was actually trying to overthrow the king. She is told she must leave the country immediately. With no passport she seduces the immigration officer and soon Emanuelle is no longer in Bangkok. This pretty much sums up the first half of the film, in the second she finds herself in Casablanca where she sleeps with many a man and woman.

Emanuelle in Bangkok is the first sequel in the Black Emmanuelle series. Taking inspiration from the French film Emmanuelle this is one of many films that cashed in with the success. The original film itself had a long line of sequels still going today with straight to video titles and even a TV series. There were many unofficial titles, a lot of which avoided legal trouble by simply misspelling the lead characters name. Along with the Black Emanuelle series, we saw Yellow Emanuelle, the British Emmanuelle in Soho and the parody Carry on Emmanuelle.

Bathnight!

Starring the goddess of softcore that is Laura Gemser, the Black Emanuelle series even fell victim to having its own unofficial sequels. Many films staring Gemser were renamed in some regions to appear as part of the series.

This foray to Bangkok is a typical erotic journey of the beautiful woman living the high life, flying first class, staying in luxury suites in exotic locations and floating through the gritty native land like an instagram influencer trying to show how down to earth they are. All whilst sleeping with a bevy of young woman and bizarrely all middle aged, rugged men who no doubt retch of old spice. Journeys such as these could never take place flying economy and staying in Travelodges.

And she does indeed sleep with a lot of people. A surprising amount. And a lot more lesbian encounters then I expected, although a lot of them seem quite short. I wasn’t sure whether this was intentional or just because my DVD appears to highly cut. I watched a UK DVD that has been sitting on my shelf for quite a longtime. Looking at the time listed online and whats on the back of the case it appears 20 minutes is missing. Some of which I won’t miss, apparently there was a rape scene and some animal on animal bloodshed. Though one scene featuring a stripper in a dingy bar cut just as she picked up some ping pong balls. Leaving me left to wonder what on her earth she was going to do with them. Either way it left me wanting a game.

The Bangkok of the title is only relevant for the first half. It would have been nice to explore the seedier side a bit more though she did go to a massage parlour and get cleaned up, though as I stated before this seemed to have been cut short. The Casablanca half doesn’t really offer much in the way of story, but just takes us from one encounter to the next until Emanuelle meets up with boyfriend that we meet in the first half. When they reconnect through the language of coitus and are watched by a female admirer of Emanulles, we discover that he doesn’t take to any of that girl on girl nonsense. They break up and off she trots to the next exotic location.

Airplane WC: That's definitely not economy here.

The film is directed by Joe D’Amato. No stranger to smut, jumping back and forth both soft and hardcore throughout his career. He worked with Gemser on many occasions after this, including many more of the Black Emanuelle films which progressively tilted towards more violent themes as they went on.

Emanuelle in Bangkok isn’t a standout film in the genre but it isn’t dull either.  

Pirates (2005)

Based on: Pirates of the Caribbean (2003)

The Pirates of the Caribbean series has been a huge hit for both its star Johnny Depp and Disney. And before that was a popular ride at Disneyland since the 60’s. Pirates, produced by Digital Playground, and Adam and Eve, also follows on from this success. Based on the films rather than ride. Though I’m sure in some communities a ride would also be very welcome.

Pirates opens with a young couple who are about to consummate their marriage. Soon after breaking cherries their ship is attacked by the vicious pirate Stagnetti and his band of men (and women). They want the groom, so they can stick a knife in him to locate the location of some treasure they cannot locate. His wife is thrown overboard and the ship is sunk.

Some amount of time later she is picked up by Captain Reynolds, a naive, wannabe pirate hunter with little to no success. He reluctantly takes up the challenge to hunt down Stagnetti and rescue her husband.

Pirates is a highly impressive piece. The sets and costumes are very well done, with the exterior ship set being the best. Though it did help with the fact that those scenes were shot on a actual replica of the HMS Bounty. They apparently neglected to mention to the owners that the particular film that they were shooting would be slightly pornographic.  

The plot follows some similarities with the first Pirates of the Caribbean film however the Johnny Depp, Jack Sparrow inspired character, Stagnetti, now becomes the villain, with little to no redeeming features. The hero of the story is now Reynolds, played by Evan Stone, who surprisingly is quite a good and likeable character actor. 

Sex scenes: The sex scenes typically seem to last just under or around 10 minutes. Which seems like a good length. We get time for a good variety of couplings and the plot doesn’t at all seem rushed to move on to the next one. They do seem to have taken their time to give the story space. A lot of parodies and indeed other story driven porno’s seem to follow a formal of 5 minutes of story followed by 30 minutes of sex. Which probably begs the question, how much sex is enough for a single scene?

With the sex itself we get plenty of straight couples, a FFM threesome and three, yes three, lesbian scenes. Which completely surprised me. A lot of the time we are lucky to get one. The actual sex does however seem a bit too aggressive for my liking. There’s quite a bit of flipping bodies over, grabbing by the neck and choking on dick. Jesse Jane gets so much dick down (or up in this case) her throat I can’t tell if she's trying also give the guys balls a lick atthe same time or just swallow them as well. The lesbian scenes as well could do with a bit more sensuality, instead we get a lot of flipping, throwing, grabbing. Everyone seems to be in a rush to take everything all at once. One scene features Jenaveve Jolie (the only non-blonde woman in the film) with Carmen Luvana, enacting some girl on girl at a bachelor party, I found this to be one the best sex scenes of the film, maybe also because Jolie was probably my favourite gal of the film, though I was a bit put off with the over the top “yars” and pirate talk from the men watching.

The film is undeniably well made. And at a budget of $1 million, you would expect so. It has a kind of quality a TV movie or any straight to video release should aim for. And it was well received as well, winning several awards. An R-rated version was also released, quite possibly to push the film into other markets, such as late night TV, or possibly for those who want to watch a porno but without all those off putting sex scenes. A follow up was soon made, and like with most sequels it tried to up the ante with a budget of $8 million, making it possibly one of the most expensive films ever made. I have yet to see it, but I have seen the trailer and it looks like a definite sex fest. Pirates is the film that anyone making a porn parody should aspire to. 

Lesbian Fuck Club (2012)

Based on: Fight Club (1999)

“The first rule of fuck club is you DON’T tell the guys about fuck club.” And the second is you do tell the hot girls, so the box art tells us. This is actually a lie. As Lily Cade, the director and star tells us the rules are as follows:

1. No Men (okay so the first was actually true)
2. No Bullshit (not sure why thats a rule)
3. If it’s your first time, you have to fuck (so can you sit it out the next time then?)

Apparently unlike its inspiration, they don’t actually care if you tell anyone. Unless it’s the cops. Though I doubt that’s because there’s been a recent crackdown in illegal lesbian sex fests. But probably because they are using someones warehouse without permission. Do they need a warehouse for a fuck club? I’m not sure. Currently their membership is five people though they are initiating four new members. Although their reasons aren’t too inspiring. They mainly seem to want to try something new. Will anyone be signing up to become full members? I will leave you in suspense for that answer.

Each member takes a newbie off and gives them a darn good seeing to, with the last being seen to by two members so she can fulfil her fantasy of being the Lucky Pierre in a strap-on sandwich. After that the nine girls get together and go nuts sex-wise.

And that sums it up plot wise. The story is almost non existent and this only barely counts as a parody, mainly because of that famous line, and the fact they’ve formed a club. They don’t end up forming some sort of militant group and the person running it doesn’t turn out to be part of the main characters imagination (spoiler). I would have liked to at least find out more about this warehouse. It’s owned by the boss of one of the members, and she would get fired if they found out. Wouldn’t that be an interesting turn of events if said boss suddenly turned up in the middle of it all? And gets wrestled down by nine sex hungry lesbians. Why do they even need a whole warehouse at all? I guess because at least its free. I’ve no idea what kind of fees this “Fuck Club” charges… I know I would be happy to pay them. Wouldn’t it be easier (and more legal) renting out their local community hall? Mondays: Martial Arts, Tuesdays: Spanish, Wednesdays: Lesbian Fuck Club.

Sex wise the film is pretty much non stop. Twosome, Twosome, Twosome, Threesome, Nine-some. And its hot, no complaints there. However, and its a big however. Orgy scenes should always be shot with more than one camera. The big thing that was missing was close ups. When you have 9 people going at it you are never going to get it all. So a second camera capturing all those… finer details would have been nice.

Official Psycho Parody (2010)

Based on: Psycho (1960)

Warning: Spoilers!

For some of these porno parody reviews I aim to look at the films they are based on beforehand. However this time I decided to instead watch Gus Van Sant’s 1999 remake of the classic film. Mainly because A: I have seen Hitchcock’s original and B: I’ve never seen the remake. Van Sant’s version is actually a shot by shot remake so it’s kind of like watching the original. When asked for a reason why he did this, he essentially said so it would be like watching the original but in colour with a modern cast. So really it’s a very expensive way to colourise a film. It’s certainly an unusual approach to remaking a film but historically things like this have been done before. Back in the 30’s Laurel and Hardy would reshot scenes in multiple languages to help market their films for foreign markets. And Universals Dracula was practically remade whilst the original was being made. In the daytime the famous Bela Lugosi film was being shot and at night on the same sets the Spanish version was made. A very time consuming and expensive way to dub a film. Although Hollywood practically does this with foreign films all the time.

Van Sant’s remake was considered sacrilege by critics and filmmakers, both before and after it was made. Many consider Psycho to be Hitchcock’s masterpiece and should be left alone. But Van Sant promoted his shot by shot remake as an experiment, in to what I don’t know. I guess the mastery of Hitchcock’s filmmaking. However this just made people think that it wasn’t just sacrilege but also very pointless. It isn’t exactly though a 100% copy, there are some artistic differences. The film is now set in the modern era, the script has been tweaked (by the original scriptwriter no doubt) and a handheld camera is used in some scenes. Some of the actors have chosen to make their characters their own whilst some have tried to imitate the originals as much as possible, making the acting sometimes feel very strange. Less like the cast are playing characters rather than playing other actors playing a character. There are a lot of shots that standout as they are plain imitations the iconic shots of the original such as the cop staring directly at Marion as she wakes in her car, or the ceiling shot of Norman carrying his mother downstairs.

From the moment the opening credits roll Van Sant’s film latches tightly onto Hitchcock’s mastery. The Saul Bass credit sequence, backed by Bernards Herman score, appears almost exactly as the original but with some added green. We then get a admittedly very impressive helicopter shot flying past the tall buildings of Phoenix and straight through the window of the seedy hotel where the film begins. A shot that was near impossible back in Hitchcock’s day. Viggo Mortensen mumbles through his dialogue, seriously I just couldn’t make out what he was saying in this film. But it seems to be very same-y. The colours really pop out being a stark contrast to the original black and white, which I believe was an artistic choice rather than a limitation of the day, as Hitchcock had made plenty of colour movies before then (though the budget for Psycho was a lot tighter). As Marion and her boyfriend talk we hear another couple next door having sex, the first indication that this film will make some minor deviations along the way. In fact that is the main deviation; sex. A thing that 1960 was only suggested or hinted at. And it mainly comes from Norman Bates himself. We see the odd porno magazine lying around in his childhood room for one thing and odd flash of a nude woman during one the killing scenes. But the major change is during the peeping scene. Bates plants Marion in the room 1 on purpose, so he can peep on her changing from the parlour next door. Vince Vaughn’s version of Bates seems to want to take this scene further and jacks off seeminglessly without motivation. It was never really made clear that Anthony Perkins version of Bates peeping was even sexual.

Hitchcock’s Psycho is one of those films that many feel should be left untouched, however Gus Van Sant’s isn’t the only one who tried latch on to the classic. Psycho has had three sequel’s and a TV movie spinoff; Bate’s Motel. And more recently had a TV series also called Bate’s Motel. The sequels were fairly low budget affairs that had little input from the original creators (Hitchcock had long past away by this point), and were considered like the remake as pointless. Perkins did reprise his role however the original didn’t really need sequels. It was fairly complete as it is. That said Psycho II is actually a very good film. Not on the same caliber as the original. If perhaps they changed the title and the characters name it could have been considered a horror classic.

Who wants to shack up here?

Now onto the Official Psycho Parody. First of that title. Urk. Nothing sits right with that title. What makes it ‘official’? Is there involvement from Robert Bloch, the writer of the original novel?

Did the makers, Zero Tolerance, reach a licensing agreement with Universal? Maybe when films come out this will be part of the whole merchandising package; soundtrack, novelisation, action figures, porno parody etc… But alas there’s no mention of Universal, or really any association with the original film. So what makes this film official? I don’t really know. It’s really unofficial, like any other porno pardy. And would hurt to add a ‘The’ at the start of the title. Official Psycho Parody, sounds more like a description. And what kind of parody? Most others have at least some mention, XXX, Porn… The cover doesn’t even look like porno, but like a cheap bargain bin horror. Very misleading. So let’s correct that title; The Unofficial Psycho Porn Parody. Surprisingly they have used the same font for the title as the original films.

The original film (and Gus Van Sants remake) followed Marion Crane, who steals a bundle of cash from her work in order to get her boyfriend out of debt. She goes on the lamb, eventually ending up at the Bates Motel. She meets Norman, who lives with his mother and runs the motel. They have dinner and talk. Afterwards she retires and has a shower. The mother, filled with raging jealousy bursts in and the stabs her to death. The main character, who we spend half of the film getting to know is dead. Norman discovers the misdeed and disposes the body. Not long after a detective, Marion's sister and Marion’s boyfriend come looking for answers. Things happen and they discover Norman’s mother has been a shrivel up corpse hidden away in the basement all this time and that it was actual Norman doing the killing, who has assumed his mothers personality.

Before watching this porn parody one thing came to my mind. I’m very likely going to be watching a porno where the main character gets stabbed to death. I didn’t know how I felt like that. Although in most porno’s once they had sex they would very likely not be seen again anyway.

The film starts with a recreation of the famous Saul Bass opening credits, we then meet Marion Crane (Sara Sloane) and her boyfriend in the hotel having their lunchtime affair. There’s no sex to be seen, they’ve already had it. Marion gets back to the office. Her boss comes in with a client, who has an impressive wad (of money). The boss tells her to take it straight to the bank. So off she goes and skips town. Back at the office Marion’s colleague (Katie Jordin) decides to offer herself as an incentive to the ongoing business deal. The three have sex, on Marion desk no doubt. Won’t she be pleased…

She makes it to the Bates Motel, and it looks impressively awful. That doesn’t put her off though and so in she goes. She meets Norman, a man who wears red nail polish, high heals and as she later finds out ladies panties. Marion retires to her bedroom. Norman spies on her through his peephole and lusts over not her but her brooch.  After a while Marion overhears Norman and his mother arguing about crotchless panties (indeed). He then comes a knocking at Marion’s room offering a sloppy sandwich. Unimpressed she accepts it. They go in to the parlour where Norman shows her his crudely stuffed birds. She then spots a more realistic creation sitting in the corner, his old nanny, preserved and taxidermy-ed. This somehow sets her off. Yes in that way. She’s fucking aroused by the sight of her. She demands that Norman screw her. He agrees but only if he gets her brooch and pumps.

A hooker

After the dirty deed is done off she goes to have a shower. You can guess what happens next but her sex scene is done with so It’s fine. And after that dirty deed we meet the Detective, who with Marions boyfriend and sister are trying to find out what had happened to her. The detective is the first to visit Bates, and after he does he goes off to another motel and screws a hooker (Kagney Linn Karter) (who is not in the original film). The sister and boyfriend then see the local Sheriff who explains that Norman grew up always feeling great pressure from his mother, being that she was a fashion diva with very high standards. Which explains the crossdressing elements. They leave and the sheriff ,wearing high heals, screws his wife (Francesca Le), unloading himself on said high heels.

The sister (Breanne Benson) and boyfriend check out Bates house and find Norman entertaining the perfectly preserved dead bodies of his Mother and Marion. Lost for hope, they leave and find the way to overcome the issue and move on is to fuck. And so they do.

what to do.. what to do?

Well I have to admit this film was better than expected. The first time we meet Norman with hints of transvestitism kind of bothered me a bit. It suggest that he was transvestite. However Bates wasn’t so much, it was more a requirement from the Mother personality. However as the twists of the story become apparent it seemed to made sense. And that twist at the end, I absolutely loved it. It was unexpected, probably not original and no doubt done in horror films before. It also explained why we don’t see Norman cleaning up his ‘Mothers’ mess after the shower scene which is a key scene in the original. Along the Marion’s long drive in the original, these are both tension filled scenes that probably aren’t essential when the story is more time limited in a porn. Marion getting aroused by the sight of Norman’s taxidermy work was however extremely weird and disturbing but so is thought of them having sex.

For the most part the locations, costumes and makeup look alright for the era. Maybe the guy playing the boss could have been older, or least not had a modern hairstyle and glasses. Maybe if they threw a stylish wig on him it would looked fine… Sexwise we start off with a threesome and then we get four straight couple scenes. All of which seem to almost follow the same pattern of cunninglingus, blowjob, sex with some ass licking thrown in. The women look fantastic and are a treat to the eyes. The only one who doesn’t see any action (aside from the nanny) is the actress briefly playing the mother in a flashback scene. With her squeaky voice and petite physique I think she would have great to see getting down.

Overall, It’s an entertaining parody with a great twist at the end that should no doubt surprise those who are familiar with the original.

Night of the Groping Dead (2001)

Inspired by: Night of the Living Dead (1968) etc...

The film opens with Ruby LaRocca in an empty laundrette. She has an hour or so to kill so she climbs up onto one of the worktops, sticks her hand down her tights and masturbates. With a few crotch shots we do get to see what lies between her legs, with a piercing shinning through. You would think she was keeping them on in case anyone should walk in. But no, she is fearless, so off with her top. The one handed action is soon over so she follows it up with a half naked catnap. I know if I as making this film and found myself with a launderette to shot in, this is exactly what I would be filming.

Suddenly in walks the janitor, a cheaply made up zombie one no doubt. He spots her and proceeds to molest her butt. This is Night of the Groping Dead, and it’s trash.

After a good feel around he then tries to penetrate her with a dirty broom handle (don’t worry its only simulated as this is a softcore film). This is enough to finally wake her up. She is chased by two more perverted zombies and is soon taken captive by non other than Marquis De Sade who it turns out is building an army of S&M zombies and is looking to recruit with LaRocca in mind. All it takes is a quick ravishing by the sex pest zombies and to have few chunks of flesh bitten off. When we next see her she has red hair and is wearing a Dawn of the Dead t-shirt. She is now an S&M zombie. She then overthrows De Sade by biting his “S&M dick” off and becomes the Queen of the zombies or something. She captures Misty Mundae, has a lesbian affair and soon forgets about world domination instead settling for moving to a trailer park, which I believe is meant to be humorous.

Made in 2001, this softcore cheapy, was left unreleased until 2008 when it featured as an extra for the DVD for An Erotic Werewolf in London (which I reviewed a few weeks back). The film is short at 48 minutes and feels somewhat incomplete, or at least they all just gave up at some point. The film is amateurish, being shot on a handheld DV camera with under lit scenes. It appears to be zero budget, shot in whatever locations they had to hand with the bare minimal spent on costumes and makeup. As the title suggests it’s inspired by zombie films such as the Night of the Living Dead series. However in no way resembling any of the plots. As soon as we see De Sade we it seems to make a complete departure and just becomes silly (not that wasn’t before that point). Instead we get a few direct references, a Dawn of the Dead t-shirt and a Night of Living Dead poster.

How about the sex? It gets as explicit as showing low angle crotch shot but with guys copping an easy feel and dibbling colossal amounts of fake blood makes this as erotic as a day old cheese sandwich. The sex is simulated with the male characters not even bothering to unzip their pants, whilst the two female actresses go full monty allowing themselves to be touched everywhere possible. The film feels at times just an excuse to have some easy feelies. To watch it’s dull and poorly made. Which is probably why it took so long to get released in the first place.

The Naked: A Psychological Film [Golasy] (2001)

Okay so this is an unusual one to review. Technically this isn’t a porn film, it just has a lot of nudity. A lot is perhaps an understatement, as the characters are nude throughout. There’s no sex at all or to quote the back of the DVD case “…they don’t fuck because this is a psychological film.” Yeah they like to make a big brew haw about it being a psychological film even making it the films sub-title.

The Naked is a Polish comedy/drama set in an office where every character happens to be naked. No mention is made about it and the story itself wouldn’t be effected even if they weren’t. But that may be the whole point. To bring something we see as provocative and bring it upfront and then ignore it to show that really it’s no big deal. 

The film concerns three women working in a dreary office together. The new girl has just started and appears to be constantly struggling with the computer, which the other two women don’t seem to see the point of. Their day consists of interruptions from salesmen and people thinking they are either a vet or bank, gossiping and talking about a soap opera. Their boss gets bitten by a possibly rabid dog, two boys come in and create havoc, chopping cables and throwing things about and some free cans of meat gets everyone excited. The new girl, who is the only one actually trying to work, also suffers from a constant stream of belittling and shouting from her co-workers for not knowing what she’s not really expected to know on her first day.

The film is just over 70 minutes long and shot on handheld digital. From the moment it starts you get a feeling of extreme cheapness, exactly like a porn film of the era. The film takes place in real time and rarely sets foot outside the small office space. The idea itself might not be exactly revolutionary since it could be essentially seen as a modern day nudist film. From the 1930s to 60s, sex and nudity in cinema was rare due to the restrictions of the Hayes code. Nudity however could be shown in documentaries and nudist films, but only if it wasn’t shown as being sexualised, merely in a cultural or lifestyle aspect. Of course nudist films found a market in those wanting an easy thrill. Unfortunately these films were terribly dull and quickly vanished as soon as the Hayes code did and a new era of erotica took its place; the nudie cutie. With The Naked it seems honest about it’s nudity. The cast haven’t be picked because they have the hottest bodies. We get a real mixture, young and old, male and female, fat and thin. Their bodies show all the wear and tear that comes with life; sagging skin, scars, body hair. We see both beautiful and ugly bodies. I feel however that the cast was more chosen not for their bodies or acting skills but rather than they agreed to shed for the camera.

The nudity is presented in a way that it shouldn’t be seen as important. So what are we left with? The story. And there’s isn’t really much of one. The film really is pretty minimalist, very much like a play. It’s really a build up of one event after the next eventually erupting into chaos. It’s actually very dull, like a nudist film. Once the novelty wears off there isn’t much left. However with a nudist film there at least was a reason for the nudity, in fact it was the whole plot. I cannot consider this a nudist film because after all this is a psychological film.

Hand Solo (2018)

Based on: Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018)

Ah Solo. The Star Wars film that not one asked for. A saying that implies that that is a bad thing. However no one really asked the first Star Wars and look how that turned out. But in this case, not many people were too excited about Solo either. But why not, after all Han is one of the most beloved characters. Perhaps it’s Disney’s fault. Ever since they acquired the rights to the franchise they have being going nuts with a new sequel trilogy, Rogue One, Rebels and Resistance animated series and much more on it’s way. They are reeling out an excessive amount in such a small amount of time that it’s given even the most harden fans a bit of fatigue. Plus lumped in with the fact that there had been much disappointment with the way the sequel trilogy was handled, the latest of which had only been released about 6 months before Solo.

I won’t ever proclaim to being the biggest Star Wars fan, but I do love the series. Rebels is a fantastic show and I am hugely looking forward to the Mandalorian series this November. However with Solo, like most, I wasn’t expecting much. There have many story’s already about a young Han, there’s even a Han Solo novel trilogy, so this movie isn’t exactly breaking new ground. Yet it didn’t seem right, perhaps it was someone other than Harrison Ford playing Solo, perhaps it felt like an easy cash in on a beloved character, or perhaps it was just unnecessary. That’s exactly how the prequel trilogy felt to me at times. Unnecessary. It seems to me sometimes that the formula for a Star Wars prequel was to find a spoken line in the original films that refers to the past and make that in to something. When Obi-Wan said, “Your father and I fought in the clone wars,” that become a 5+ season animated series (albeit a very good one). So this film pretty much as expected would be about how Han made the “Kessel run in less than twelve parsecs.” Or at least that was a small part of it. In fact everything you could image a young Han Solo film be about, pretty much happens in this movie. How Han met Chewy, how Han met Lando, how Han first came across the Millennium Falcon, how Han won Falcon from Lando, how Han did the Kessel run… Everything of significance that we all know of Hans past, happens in this movie, and bizarrely all happens in the same week!

Despite that Solo actually is a good movie. It’s at the very least entertaining. I wasn’t disappointed. But still it felt unnecessary, a shameless nostalgia cash in. Speaking of which…

Digital Playgrounds’s Hand Solo. Made just one month before Solo was released this parody follows an original plot but interestingly have a few parallels.

The film on the DVD starts bizarrely with a trailer self promoting itself. After the familar In a Galaxy Long Ago text we go straight into the story. Han Solo (Danny D) works in a dead-end job as a barman in a strip club. He over hears about a job to retrieve some Spice from a cargo ship that has been attacked and abandoned. It’s a job that could lead to fame and fortune, but its also a dangerous job that no one is willing to take. A stripper called Rina (Valentina Nappi) who wields a lightsaber, and may or may not be a Jedi, wants to tag along. There’s a clear sexual tension between the two. The only thing he needs now is a ship. Solo spots his dear old friend Lando (or Bando depending on who’s talking) (Isiah Maxwell) sitting right next to him and sees an opportunity.

At Rina’s insistence they play game of chance. Han isn’t too pleased by the choice of game, but it’s quicker than a game of Sabacc. If Han wins they get to borrow Lando’s ship (a Millennium Falcon clone with wings tacked on), if they loose Lando gets to screw Rina. Lando roles a dice annnnnd he wins.This would of course been a good time for Rina to put her Jedi skills to use and cheat, however we later find that despite all her efforts she’s still quite useless. Even though it would been futile she could of at least tried. But then this is a porno, so screwing comes first. Solo slinks off whilst the two get it on. Rina doesn’t seem too displeased with the outcome, perhaps that’s the way she wanted it. As the two undress, Rina unbuckles her belt carrying her lightsaber and with a great thump tosses it somewhere on the floor. She really is a terrible Jedi. Yes sex is the focus right now, but thats no way to treat a weapon. And you have to be pretty confident in your surroundings to just toss it aside. Anyway half an hour later the story carries on. Whilst Lando basks in the afterglow of poon, Rina grabs the start up codes for his ship. Either way the bet was pure win-win, for her at least.

 Solo, who apparently was going solo on himself the whole time, and Rina ‘borrow’ the ‘Falcon’ and head off to Kessel. Its dashboard comes complete with an array of vintage video game joysticks. They soon meet two of Lando’s crew; a bespectacled lass I believe called Nomi (Athena Palomino), donned in A New Hope era Solo uniform, and a wookie called Screwbacca, who seems to have the hots for Rina. After jumping through hyper space and fighting through an astroid field it’s high time for more sex. This time it’s Han and Nomi. Rina and Screwy also do get it on, but that encounter is left to our imaginations.

After the session is complete they make it to the abandoned cargo ship. They are soon finished but have to hurry as their oxygen tanks are almost empty. Suddenly Boba (or Choda) Fett turns up with a red chick (Carly Rae), who also want the booty. Han throws away his oxygen mask away as that seems to no longer be an issue. They duke it out until the Empire turns up. Boba flees in the Falcon taking the girls with him, Whilst Han and Screwy are captured. The red alien chick doesn’t much appreciate working for Boba and so teams up with Rina and Nomi to save Han and Screwball. Reddy and Nomi offers Fett their bodies if he agrees to turn the ship around. Another thump is heard giving me deja vu, this time Nomi throwing aside her glasses. What’s with these girls? After the threeway, they go back and save the day. In which Rina finally proves herself to have some sort of Jedi powers by making her saber fly into her grasp. Reunited, Han and Rina have sex, whilst no doubt everyone else waits around so they can at last leave. The film ends with everyone having a celebration party back at the strip club. With Black Sun, the gang who wanted the spice in the first place, pleased it looks like more work is on the way for Solo from the Hutts.

There are a few similarities with the film it’s based on, they seem to check a few of the same expected plot points. How Han met Chewy, the 12 parsec thing and even both ending with them being in line for more work from the Hutts. Han even dons the iconic ensemble we see in Star Wars being a good lead in. Which seems to fit fine being it used to be Nomis. The film is also littered with familiar lines from the original series; “Never tell me the odds,” “Aren’t you a bit short for a Storm trooper?” etc… Which seems like a good nod, however kind of feels out of place. The set pieces and costumes are all fantastic, especially the Wookiee costume, and I was quiet impressed with the battle scenes on board the ships. Outside the ships we see some pretty basic but respectable CGI, however its kept to minimal and is in keeping with the budget. If I was to change anything it would perhaps have a few external shot scenes on a planet, however this doesn’t particularly fit in with the plot.

On to the actors; For Solo we have a fairly international cast; American, British and Italian. Quality of acting varies, some great, some poor. Nappi’s accent sometimes makes it hard to hear what shes actually saying. Danny D, I must does a good job as the young Solo. The girls are overall pretty good looking, I especially like Nappi and she’s looks fantastically sexy in her uniform. I wish I could of seen more of the British woman (not sure of her name) at the end who played the Imperial Officer, however she stays fully clothed.

Sex scene wise we get 3 M/F couples and one M/F/F threesome. Its mainly standard stuff, perhaps they could have been cut down and bit and given a bit more variety. I felt the threeway has deeply lacking in girl on girl interaction, though the whole point of the scene was to please Fett, not each other. And of course this is just my personal preference. The final scene could would have made a fantastic orgy scene especially if it included the girls we don’t see get naked. Maybe we could even see Screwy get some action, or would that be too weird?

Despite all that its a very accomplished piece, but then this isn’t DPs first foray into the world of Star Wars as they have had two other titles, Star Wars: The Last Temptation and a piece with original characters; Star Wars: Underworld. If they made another, I would certainly welcome it. And I should also mention the DVD artwork is too a fantastic imitation of the Solo poster. I’d say if you had DVD sitting on your shelf it would be quite a while before someone noticed it was porn.

Rockey X: The Final Round (1988)

Based on: Rocky series (1976-present)

Bizarrely the opening has a different spelling for Rockey.

So first off, I have not seen the first film. Second; this is a sequel. Probably should have mentioned that first. Of course there’s always that joke when it comes to porno, “Oh I haven’t seen the previous films so I might not follow the story. LOL.” However this isn’t Spooge Tits Part 32, or any nonsense like that. No. It’s Rockey X, and it has a story, albeit a very simple one. And thankfully you pretty much get the gist of the originals story.

The film starts with boxer Rockey Laguna (Jerry Butler) bedridden after getting brutally beaten by Drax Spago (Buck Adams), loosing the title. Waking up from unconsciousness he is immediately told his beloved wife was killed in a car accident. Upon hearing this, Laguna instantly reminisces getting blown by her. However before all that we are introduced to this nemesis Drax Spago, who is dressed like a reject from Warriors with a rather flashy fishing lure hanging from his face. He’s busy growling at a poor woman to stop touching him, but instead simply bite his cock off. We can instantly get an idea of what kind of guy he is, a total dick.

“Shall I jack off on you like the slut you are?” inquires Drax.

After 6 weeks of lying around in bed everyone around Rockey (well his coach and nurse) is pushing for him to get back in to training and reclaim the title. After loosing his wife his motivation is at an all time low. He snaps at the nurse who is only trying to help. “You don’t know what its like!” to some extent he says. She fires back at him, telling him how much worse she’s had it. Her husband was shot when she fell pregnant and before that at aged 13 her father molested her because she had the biggest tits on the block (a claim which Rockey would later make light of). With his problems put in perceptive he calms down and apologises. He then tells her that her touch reminds him a lot of his deceased wife and asks if she wouldn’t mind holding him. She obliges and holds him tight in her arms. He feels comfort in her caring embrace. This of course leads to sex.

With the emotional healing process taken care of, Rockey is ready to get back in the ring. He gets back in to training which consists on mainly jogging. I’m no sports expert so I’m going to assume that is all that is required. Drax on the other hand is a bastard, so the only training he needs is to snort mountains of cocaine with the odd injection of steroids. He gives up on proper training when he couldn’t find the protein powder.

After a few more sex scenes including two featuring Mr Ron Jeremy, we’re in the ring! And he’s straight down! Rockey that is. But he gets up! …and he’s back down. This is not looking good. In fact it’s a bit embarrassing. Eventually he gets to throw a few punches himself. It now looks like he may have a chance. Drax sits down in his corner and demands a pick me up. His coach slips some sort white powder on his mouth guard with zero discretion. Even the commentators see it. Drax gets back up and is straight down! In fact he’s dead. Just like that. But my friends it wasn’t Rockey that killed the beast, no. It was the drugs.

And that’s it. But wait, it isn’t. Butler and Adams come back with something important to say. It turns that this feature was a cautionary tale about the dangers of drug abuse. “If you ever think about smoking cocaine, don’t!” they tell us. Though cocaine isn’t smoked in this film, so I’m not sure why they brought up this method. They then tell us that the industry recently lost a legend because of drug abuse, and that was John C Holmes. Who actually did appear in the first film as Drax’s coach. Although technically Holmes actually died because of the aids virus, though he was an addict for a lot of his later life. I’m not too sure why they said this. Perhaps to get the message across or perhaps it was purely speculation. Despite this I have no objections to the message they are trying to promote, however a porno is an odd place to put it. It kind of reminds of sitcoms aimed at teens from the 90s where there’s always that one episode that tries to tackle a serious subject and has the members of the cast come on at the end to explain everything. In fact I do remember an episode of Saved By The Bell that looked at the dangers of smoking. President Bill Clinton himself came on the at the end to tell us that “Smoking is not cool!” Anyway back to this porno.

Rockey X: The Final Round is a late 80s title that was shot on video. The editing is all over the place and a bit confusing at times. In one shot Rockey is lounging around outside when his coach tries to get him motivated and some what succeeds. This is then followed by Rockey in bed with his nurse complaining how he has been lying there for nearly 6 weeks. With the sex scenes the male/female ratio is 1:1. However the film feels very male dominated, with the all the women reduced to roles such as a girlfriend, nurse or prostitute. Mainly a prostitute. As a parody it can’t really stray to far from the the source material. The original sequels throughout are basically the same; Rocky faces a new challenger, looses, gets back into training and finally has a rematch. At least in Rockey X however we actually get to see the outcome of the fight and not have to wait until the next film.

Though I call this a parody it isn’t really in the sense of a comedy. It’s pretty serious throughout, yet it doesn’t seem to anymore hard hitting than your average soap opera of the time.

An Erotic Werewolf in London (Shot 2001, Released: 2008)

Warning: May Contain Spoilers!
Based on: An American Werewolf in London (1981)

An American Werewolf in London is not only one of my favourite horror films of all time, it’s one of my favourite films period. Two Americans decide to spend their summer hitchhiking across Europe before they go off to college. Unfortunately they don’t beware the moon enough and come into a slight altercation with a werewolf, leaving one dead with his soul in limbo whilst his buddy is lumped with the werewolf curse. Along the way he falls for a nurse played by the very very sexy Jenny Agutter.

Swoon

Seduction Cinema’s ‘parody’ doesn’t really follow the same story with the DVD case citing An Interview with a Vampire as a comparison (a film I’ve yet to see so I won’t bother bringing it up again). The film opens with what SC is famous for and that’s a softcore lesbian sex scene. Opening in a New Jersey bar we find out that it’s owned by the said couple (Misty Mundae and Ruby Larocca) and apparently it’s a bit of a quiet night. After having sex on the bar and just as they are about to shut for the night, in walks Polish girl Anoushka who needs to call a cab. It will arrive in just 15 minutes, which is plenty of time for Misty to get acquainted, seduce and screw the tourist. It then turns out that of course she is a(n erotic) werewolf. So once an appropriate amount of lovemaking has been done she dons a healthy coat of hair, gives Misty a good bite and slinks off into the night naked. It's unknown if the cab arrives but her girlfriend does manage to nap through the whole ordeal and herself have a sex dream featuring Anoushka.

Misty wakes up in a hospital whilst Anoushka somehow has zipped her way off to London where she has a great desire to tell her whole story to the papers, opting for The Daily Limey (a term which I don’t think anyone has really used since the 60’s). Telling how she would stalk her prey, make love to them and finally get her freak on and go for the kill. The exact thing that Misty is now doing in the hospital. The first of which is nurse Darian Caine who is specifically told by the Doctor to keep her ‘fingers out the pudding’. Which of course she immediately disobey’s in a sensual act of alternative healing that should of gotten her struck off long ago. So in the end we end up with two erotic werewolfs on he prowl both sides of the Atlantic. 

The film is directed by William Hellfire, most famous for directing the obviously offensive Duck! The Carbine High School Massacre, and is one of many softcore lesbian parodies that were made for the cable and video market in the early 2000’s. Other titles included were Erotic Witch Project and Lord of the G-Strings. And being of that era, the low budget production shows more so today, shot in a mix of standard def mini-dv and betacam. I was surprised to see some actual shots in London with some of the actresses (the usual landmarks; Big Ben, Parliament, red phone box). The dialogue and acting are at times terrible with lines such as; “I’ve traveled across the planet to see you,” and “I will always make love to you.” And there's some real goofball humour that at times just doesn't match up with the overall tone. But of course that’s not why we are interested in he film. It’s after all about the sex, the lesbian sex. Which there is plenty of. And at just 68 minutes the film doesn’t really feel too long or too short. The sex itself isn’t exactly outstanding, it’s pretty standard. The scene featuring Darian Caine however I felt had potential and definitely stands out personally. I should also talk about the makeup. Long lush arm and boob hair along with the a set of fangs and claws creates a minimalist illusion of a sapphic she-wolf. Its actually quite effective especially taking into account the budget.

In the end the Erotic Werewolf really has little to do with American Werewolf other than the title. And in fact the whole London shoots feel like a huge missed opportunity. But then we come to the ending. Misty has escaped the hospital and made it back to her girlfriends house, lusting for her. Ruby ties her to the bed and they have sex. The fully riled up Misty breaks free and goes for the kill. As the original erotic werewolf tells the reporter, silver and churches cannot harm them as myths would have you believe but as we soon find out regular bullets seem to do the job just fine. As Ruby stands over the woman she loves, now dead by her own hands, I couldn’t help but think of the ending to American Werewolf. How the one who must ultimately take responsibility for the beast is one who loves them most. Like putting down a beloved pet, or in this case a lover. A beloved lover... The film is heavily dated and is filled with flaws. However it’s still better than the originals sequel: An American Werewolf in Paris!