What if ‘Hellraiser’ was Gay(er) and DTF?

Are men with giant bird heads scary? Moreover, are they hot?

Kinda? (Photo from BJ’s Gay Porno-Crazed Ramblings)

Those are but two of the questions you’ll ask yourself while watching the late Michael Zen’s 1976 gay porn horror film FALCONHEAD and its mid-1980s sequel, FALCONHEAD II: THE MANEATERS. Both films are considered classics of the gay porn genre, even likened to Clive Barker’s Hellraiser, writer-director Zen telling dark erotic stories—often abstractly—through dreamy imagery, effective, if unlicensed, music, lots of smoke, and, of course, lots of cum-drenched sex scenes.

However, while both movies are classics, they aren’t exactly scary.

Though both movies they have their moments.

What the Falconhead movies lack in genuine scares is made up for with mood, which is decidedly unsettling, somewhat creepy, often disorienting and just a wee bit pretentious. The first Falconhead is the more cryptic of the two films, with a barely-there storyline that waits a good thirty minutes to present itself. More immediate is the movie’s theme, narcissism, making it perfect for the age of social media.

Vince Perilli’s good side.

The titular Falconhead—a tall imposing man with, yes, a falcon head—descends a long outdoor staircase (UCLA’s Janss Steps in fact) to where a naked Vince Perilli waits, spread-eagle and ass-up. After Perilli licks the Falconhead’s leather boots, he is presented with a mirror. Suddenly, Perilli is licking and caressing his own reflection. A title card appears onscreen, reading: “He gazed into a mirror and was consumed by it.” Falconhead’s storytelling may be surreal, but its messaging isn’t subtle.

From there, we are dropped into a scene featuring one of the mirror’s earlier victims, a bearded man with a slim athletic build (“a slim athletic build” pretty much describes everyone who has a sexual role in the film). This is Adrian Wade, who was a member of the leather drag group the Cycle Sluts. His furry body is oiled and glistens in a red light. When I listened to the podcast Ask Any Buddy for background on the Falconhead films (and you can too), one of the hosts brought up that the combo of the oil and red light made it appear as if Wade was covered in blood. I guess, if you want to go there. I did not. Besides, there was more than enough bloodletting for me in the sequel (don’t worry, we’ll get to it soon enough).

Anyway, back to Wade pleasuring himself. Much of the scene is in extreme closeup, making it difficult to tell what part of his body Wade is rubbing.

Though some parts are less ambiguous than others.

A second well-hung man enters the frame; the scene is shot in such a way as to render him practically anonymous. Smoke further helps obscure his identity (Zen loves his smoke machines). There’s no mistaking what the guys are doing, however, as they kiss, the camera so close to their mouths that the scene almost becomes an endoscopy, and stroke each other, until Wade’s partner kneels to blow him. At the scene’s juicy conclusion, they kiss. The mystery man disappears, and Wade is left staring at his own bearded visage.

Next, we’re in the woods, where a heavy-set hippie dude in a black caftan is doing some sort of Wiccan shit. Suddenly his face fills the screen, and it’s one of the movie’s few jump scares. This hippie warlock who does his eyeliner with a Sharpie is Buddha Jon (a.k.a. John Parker, Brigid Berlin’s ex-husband), and what’s got him turning to the camera so startingly is his tenant, Anthony Lee (whom I think was Wade’s partner in the previous scene). Lee, tromping through the woods looking like he’s returning from a night at the Outcast, is carrying the mirror. In one of the movie’s two scenes with dialog, B.J. asks Anthony—his character name is Cat, but I’ll stick with the performer’s name—about the rent he’s owed, then asks about the mirror, accusing him of stealing it from “some trick.”

Lee ignores B.J. and retreats to his apartment. Staring at his own reflection, he fishes his cock out of a conveniently located hole in his jeans, then thinks better of it and stuffs it back in his pants, figuring it will be easier to just finish unbuttoning his fly. His stroke session becomes more intense, Lee ripping up his wifebeater and swallowing his own fist.

Gulp.

Mark David’s hot pants.

His hand isn’t all Lee swallows, as we soon see after he spews his copious load all over the mirror. It’s a moment that could easily be featured in this particular cumpilation [the whole goddamn post is NSFW, so you do the math regarding the links]. The scene segues into Lee’s post-nut fantasy (um, aren’t the fantasies before and during a stroke sesh?) A blond dude appears, his dick dangling out of a pair of crotchless leather shorts. Per Ask Any Buddy, it’s Mark David (a.k.a. Mike Daniels), one of the few members of this cast of one ’n’ dones to have a had a career in gay porn, albeit a short one. It’s at this point the movie moves beyond beating off and blowjobs to feature some rimming and fucking. The scene concludes with Lee, naked and asleep, his head resting on the mirror, while Buddha Jon looks through the window.

Next, fluffy-haired blond Joe Deitrich, wearing aviator sunglasses and black muscle tee, steps into an antiques store to browse. Deitrich is immediately drawn to the mirrors on display. Deitrich inquires about a mirror behind the counter—the mirror—and is told it’s $85. When he says he’ll take it, the manager (artist SabatoFiorello) hands it to him. “It’s yours,” he says with a knowing smile (I think it’s given to him free of charge, but the movie doesn’t clarify).

Mise en schlong.

Back at his ‘70s AF apartment, complete with mirrored walls and shaggy orange bedspread, a naked and glistening Deitrich snaps on a cock ring in preparation for some self-gratification (all the guys in this movie take their masturbation very seriously). However, Deitrich isn’t so serious that he can’t enjoy a joint with his wank. It’s at this point that another pair of hands slide up around his torso. The hands belong to a beefy stud wearing a leather hood, not credited but according to Ask Any Buddy it’s Glenn Robinson, also in Wakefield Poole’s Take One. It’s a pretty hot scene, with one of the more artfully shot rim jobs you’re likely to see in gay porn (as opposed to, I don’t know, the MCU).

The Falconhead gets some head.

The Falconhead and Vince Perilli reappear in the film’s last act. After artist Perilli, tellingly sketching falcons, finds the mirror in the woods (though I think it’s clear at this point that the mirror finds those who deserve it), he takes it home and—you guessed it—starts jacking off in front of it. In fact, he seems to be performing for the mirror. Just as he’s recovering from his orgasm, Perilli is seized by the Falconhead. This is where the movie goes in more of a BDSM direction, with Perilli’s arms suddenly bound behind his back by leather cuffs than chains. Perilli sucks the Falconhead’s dick, which is covered with a black condom. It’s an unexpected twist, given this movie pre-dates safe sex by a decade. Perilli gradually works the condom off the falcon cock. I wondered if he’d actually swallowed it, but then the Falconhead sticks his gloved hand into Perilli’s mouth and retrieves the rubber, which he then stretches over his hand, breaking it, then rubbing it all over Perilli’s face.

Just when it looks like Perilli is going to get fucked by the Falconhead, he finds himself atop black sheets, in a black room. In the room are Deitrich, wearing nothing but a metal-studded belt with matching cuffs, and Lee, with only a leather collar around his neck. They pounce on Perilli like tigers thrown a slab of raw meat. Perilli seems into it at first—I can certainly think of worse fates than getting my ass eaten by Lee while Deitrich feeds me his cock—but then the sex becomes rough; Lee and Deitrich become violent. Perilli’s pleasure means nothing. He’s there to be used. Worse, there’s no escape. He, like them, is now trapped in the mirror.

Doomed to be fucked by Joe Deitrich for an eternity.

While Perilli presses his face against the mirror’s glass, there are some shots of Buddha Jon laughing maniacally and shaking burning smudge sticks, and Sabato Fiorelli gazing mysteriously into a fishbowl, suggesting the two men are behind the fate of the men trapped in the mirror. This kind of makes sense. B.J. and Sabato would likely be rejected by men like Lee, Deitrich and Perilli, and would therefore want to see them punished by their own narcissism. People punished for their narcissism. This is a fantasy!

According to the hosts of the Ask Any Buddy podcast, Elizabeth Purchell and Tyler Thomas, Falconhead is considered the Hellraiser of gay porn, which I hadn’t heard before, but I can see the connection. The puzzle box functions the same as the mirror, after all, though being trapped in a mirror to have rough sex for eternity doesn’t quite have the same stakes as being ripped apart by Cenobites—or forced to watch Hellraiser: Relevations.

Falconhead and his pet.

Making the Most of a Backyard Pool,
a Smoke Machine and Saran Wrap

After directing a couple of porn movies for the heterosexuals (Reflections; The Filthy Rich), Zen returned to the Falconhead myth, releasing Falconhead II: The Maneaters in 1984. Though just as dreamlike (and pretentious) as the original, the sequel has something of a plot.

Manimal after dark.

Derek (bleached blond Rick Taylor) dreams of the Falconhead, now in the muscle bear form of Paul Barresi (girl, there are stories…), and showing more skin because of that fact. The Falconhead is in what at first appears to be a lush tropical garden but is more than likely the landscaped surroundings of someone’s backyard pool. After appearing to roar as falcons do (I write “appearing to” because the soundtrack is largely electronic music and narration), the Falconhead pulls his dick out and jacks off. This backyard is that nice.

The end of the dream is cut in such a way that it appears the Falconhead’s load lands on Derek, but then as Derek rubs it onto his chest lather appears. He is in the shower. In V.O., he talks of being haunted by the dream, though he’s clearly very turned on by it. Let’s just say his privates are thoroughly lathered during this shower. Still, he’d rather get off to memories of a recent tryst in “the mountains” (but the same backyard pool setting as the Falconhead dream). I get it. It’s like when you click on a porno video that has acts/themes you’re not comfortable responding to (I can’t be into stepdad-stepson piss play, can I?) and jump to something more familiar. Derek just isn’t cool with being aroused by falcon/muscle bear hybrids.

Paul Baressi has a proposition for Rick Taylor.

As Derek is rinsing off his splooge a man decked out in full leather gear (also Baressi) enters his home, careful to take the phone off the hook as he approaches the bathroom. This sequence is quite effective, actually, and one of the few moments in either of the Falconhead films that feels like a conventional horror movie. Derek, however, seems more annoyed than threatened (“Who the fuck are you?” he asks in a distinctly British accent). The leather man ignores his protests, informing Derek in a slow, gruff whisper, that he is perfect (i.e., a total narcissist) for the assignment, which is to find the Falconhead and “rescue” the leather man’s slave. All Derek has to do is enter the mirror and resist the temptations he finds there. Derek agrees, but only after the leather man promises to set him up “for the rest of [his] goddamned life.” As for the identity of the leather man’s “boy,” Derek is only told that he’ll know him when he sees him.

Sabato Fiorelli (right) wonders what the hell is that
on Rick Taylor’s head.

The leather man disappears and suddenly Derek is at a costume party, wearing some sort of horse headdress constructed of leather and chains. This is like Hellraiser, albeit one of its lesser sequels. It is here that he’s presented with various temptations, the first being two young men with “identical” cocks. “Now they can masturbate and be fucked at the same time by the same cock,” explains a narrator, who just might be Derek. These two men are Paul Monroe and, sporting a ’stache and tattoos, Brad Mason, and their scene together is quite intense. I was also surprised to see it features an instance of a performer spitting in another’s mouth (Monroe into Mason’s, specifically), which I thought was more of a 1990s thing—especially in the videos by TitanMedia.com—as sort of a safe sex workaround to guys taking loads in the mouth. To be clear, Falconhead II was made just ahead of gay porn incorporating safer sex precautions, so the spitting here is just to spice things up.

Rose-y Palmer

But Monroe and Mason’s scene is merely a warm-up. Derek still must find the mirror, which he discovers in a bedroom that’s surprisingly free of any horny party guests. It is the same mirror from the original film, and when he dons the leather man’s glove that has been left in front of it, he is transported into the “hall of mirrors”—so, mirrors within a mirror. The first mirror he gazes into is presented by Sabato Fiorelli, the only performer from the original, dressed as a white-faced nun. Derek gazes into a white room inhabited by straight performer Blake Palmer, back when he was young and cute, dressed in a loose white shirt and tight white pants. Palmer gradually strips while posing with a rose. As he does so, a narrator recites a piece about the “rape of humiliation,” which includes this passage: “I dreamed a Nazi tried to rape me in an alley, but I bit his tongue and the blood dripped swastikas.” Palmer ultimately jerks off with the rose, piercing his bottle-shaped dick with its thorns and using the blood as lube. Um, no thank you.

Derek next encounters a middle-aged drag queen in a wedding dress. The queen bride presents a mirror that shows a master-slave scenario. Steve Collins, dressed much as he was in Gayracula, sans cape, summons his servant, who appears wearing a mask/headdress and little else, proffering a tray with an apéritif. Collins removes the servant’s mask to reveal we’re getting a second and welcome appearance by Brad Mason. Mason immediately drops to his knees. Here Zen uses a Vangelis track, the jaunty electronica working especially well when Collins fucks Mason, almost in time to the music.

“Nothing saves like Saran Wrap®.”

The master then becomes the slave. Mason strips Collins, then wraps him in Saran Wrap (“I must be wrapped as a package to make my body conform”). Though I found the plastic wrap business a little silly, the two performers make it hot. After Mason gets off (and helps himself to a taste) he dresses in Collins’ discarded tux. When he rings the bell for the servant, Collins appears, wearing the same mask/headdress that Mason wore at the scene’s beginning.

Paul Monroe goes down on a motorcycle.

We’re not done with Mason yet, or Paul Monroe, as they both return for the penultimate sex scene, which involves Monroe jerking off on a motorcycle while recalling a grungy encounter with Mason. I’m all for another helping of Mason and Monroe, but I’ve seldom seen the sex-with-a-motorcycle motif not look dumb. Fortunately, Zen focuses more on Monroe than the bike, but Monroe still incorporates the bike into his jack-off session. Then again, I drive a Kia Soul, so what do I know about being sexually aroused by vehicles.

Having successfully resisted the temptations along the way (never mind that only one drag queen offered), Derek is granted access into the Falconhead’s smoky garden lair, the same backyard with the tropical landscaping seen earlier. The Falconhead hands Derek a sword, which makes the leather man’s trussed-up slave appear, somehow. Naturally, Derek can’t resist the temptation of the leather man’s “boy.” The slave is played by Danny Combs, who’s got a sweet ass and big dick, so it’s understandable why Derek would want him for himself. This doesn’t sit well with the leather man, however: “You…mother…fucking…bastard. He’s mine. Mine!” The leather man vows revenge, teasing a third movie that never happened.

As is its custom, Bijou features
photos from a completely
 different movie on its DVD
 cover for Falconhead.

Comparing the two movies, the quality is about equal, though according to the hosts of Ask Any Buddy Falconhead II is the more popular movie, probably because it does have more of a narrative. While I thought Falconhead II was good overall, with Zen making the most of a backyard pool, a smoke machine and Saran Wrap, I prefer the aesthetics and the cast of the first film. Not only that, I also found the action of the first Falconhead to be hotter. I might’ve gotten into the second film a bit more if Zen had cast someone other than Rick Taylor as the lead narcissist. I just didn’t find Taylor that compelling. Worse, he looks like a former frustrating co-worker, and once I made that comparison in my head, I could never see Taylor as sexy, even when he had Combs’ dick buried in his ass. I could’ve done without the bloody rose J/O scene as well.

If you want to check out Falconhead II, be aware that the versions available on adult streaming sites are severely edited, removing the Saran Wrap scene and the final scene, though it looks like “the rose scene” is mostly left intact, at least it is on GayHotMovies.com. Fortunately, there are full 80-minute versions floating around, you just need to know where to look, like here. The first Falconhead appears to be uncut, and can viewed on PinkLabel.tv, GayHotMovies.com and BijouWorld.com. Just remember if you watch either film: “Ejaculation is the final denial of death.”

Whaaa?

‘I Don’t Understand…This Free Love’

There’s something horribly
wrong with Morgan
Royce’s neck!

The 1970 film SONG OF THE LOON has nothing to do with Thanksgiving beyond depicting a fantasy of how settlers in the New World interacted with Native Americans. Instead of celebrating bountiful harvests/colonization/enslavement of natives, however, Song of the Loon celebrates free love among white men and white men in redface. So…better?

The movie’s central romance is actually between two white dudes in the Old West. We meet one of those dudes at the film’s opening, Cyrus (Jon Iverson, looking like he stepped out of a Winston cigarette ad). The handsome settler, sporting a mustache that’s been sprayed gray, is walking through the woods when he happens upon two nude men on a blanket in a clearing, one white, the other also white but wearing a black wig so, “Native American.” But faux indigenous people aren’t the movie’s biggest break from reality. The Native American knows Cyrus and goes over to greet the older man. Cyrus then turns his attention to the young white guy, Luke (John Drake). “How do you like my partner?” he asks.

“You’re partner?”

“Well, lover if you like.”

Luke apologizes, but Cyrus assures him it’s cool, because in Song of the Loon, life in the 1870s western frontier was like living in the 1970s Castro District. Back at Cyrus’ cabin, while the guys sit around a fire eating stew, the older man tells Luke that he reminds him of a man he once knew, who had blue eyes and “corn-colored hair” (never mind that Luke’s hair is brown).

They’re practically twins: Luke (left) and Ephraim.

The movie then segues into a flashback that makes up the rest of the film, when the young man with corn-colored hair, Ephraim (Morgan Royce, who is indeed blond), arrived in the western frontier. “Ephraim was different….He knew nothing,” observes Cyrus in a voice over, adding: “Ephraim wanted to learn, and I wanted to teach him.”

Huh?

We have a pretty good idea of what’s included on Cyrus’ syllabus, but it’ll be a minute before he can begin instructing Ephraim in Penis Appreciation and Rectal Relaxation 101. When Ephraim paddles his canoe into the wilderness of the West (Big Pines, Calif., specifically), he is greeted by Singing Heron (John Kalfas). Singing Heron offers the blond himbo a meal and a place to rest, listening as Ephraim tells him about how his friend and traveling partner Montgomery fell for a Mr. Calvin, a spiteful preacher who turned Montgomery against Ephraim. Not that Montgomery was much of a friend/fuck buddy to begin with. “Whenever he wanted to sleep with me, he’d get drunk and say I’d forced him into it,” Ephraim says.

The Redface Tribe of Song of the Loon.

“I would show you happiness,” Singing Heron offers helpfully. Alas, despite the scene being shot like it’s for a porno film, with lots of close-up shots of Kalfas gazing seductively at Royce, nothing dirty happens.

Jon Iverson’s au naturale nature walk.

Cyrus (Jon Iverson) getting wet for Ephraim.

Nothing dirty happens when Ephraim finally meets Cyrus, either, even though the older man, now clean shaven, wastes little time encouraging Ephraim to bathe in a nearby lake (Ephraim may be cute, but he stanky), telling him he’ll join him later. Despite the set-up, the men do nothing more daring than go skinny dipping. It’s here that I should break the news that despite its original X-rating, despite its copious nudity, and despite the fact the movie is usually streaming on adult sites (I rented it through GayHotMovies.com), Song of the Loon is not pornographic. It has more in common with a genre from the previous decade, the Nudie Cutie, except the Nudie Cuties usually tip-toed around the existence of sex. Song of the Loon does include a couple sex scenes, but they’re shot in such a way as to show fuck all of the fucking.

Hot.

The romance between Cyrus and Ephraim is kind of sweet if superficial. It’s also not exclusive, but that’s just the Old West way. Singing Heron has already chided Ephraim about his puritanical adherence to monogamy, telling him he suffers from “the white man’s disease. It’s called jealousy, sometimes selfishness.” During a tender campfire conversation with Cyrus, Ephraim says: “I don’t understand, about you, and Singing Heron, and this…free love.”

Cyrus explains free love to Ephraim.

“What free love means to you and me, it’s different to these people. It’s more of a spiritual nature. For instance, if I love someone, that doesn’t mean I can’t be with someone else,” explains Cyrus. “You have to forget your fears and jealousies.”

Cyrus silences Ephraim’s questions
about polyamory.

It’s a pitch familiar to anyone whose partner suggests opening a relationship, though I think Cyrus might be the first to attribute it to the wisdom of Native Americans (a.k.a. “these people”). To his credit, Ephraim, who is not a greenhorn so much as just plain dumb, doesn’t immediately buy into this reasoning. Cyrus’ rebuttal: “Would it make any sense if I said I was in love with you?” This brings a glycerin tear to Ephraim’s eyes—and some painful attempts at emoting to Royce’s face—and the two men kiss.

Ephraim isn’t quite ready to settle down just yet, however. He’s still on a journey, and next on the itinerary is a meeting with Bear-Who-Dreams (Lucky Manning), another member of the Redface Tribe. BWD gives Ephraim a magic mushroom and sends him naked into the woods to experience his “medicine dream” and become enlightened to the concept of free love. Stumbling around in the woods, tripping balls and with bugs biting your dick doesn’t seem like it would persuade anyone to embrace polyamory, but I’ve never done ’shooms so what do I know?

Though Ephraim is tripping solo, his mind conjures up plenty of company: Singing Heron, Cyrus and some random hot bodied Native American (possibly BWD, or maybe Iverson in a wig). Ephraim and the “Native American” get busy on the rocky shore of a river, and while this sex scene is more explicit, it’s also filmed in boner killing negative.

Artsy.

Better! Also, uncomfortable! Seriously, on the rocks? Ouch.

Jon Evans as Montgomery, strategically posed.

Another man Ephraim encounters during his medicine dream is Montgomery (beefy Jon Evans, also in Vixen!), sitting naked on rock in a position that carefully hides the good parts, pointing a gun at him. “I’m gonna kill you, you damn queer,” Montgomery snarls. But not-real Cyrus shoots an arrow into not-real Montgomery’s chest before the hirsute hunk can pull the trigger. Ephraim then wraps his arms around a tree and sobs. “You have seen many things a white man would see only in the Indian way,” BWD later pronounces, before urging the air-headed twunk to “go walk in beauty and happiness.” That walk, unsurprisingly, leads Ephraim right back to Cyrus.

Tree fucker.

A Landmark in Queer Cinema. Also, Kinda’ Boring.

Richard Amory’s gay pastoral
novel became a classic.

Song of the Loon was adapted from Richard Amory’s 1966 novel of the same name. The closest I’ve come to reading the book was attempting to buy an original paperback copy from an online queer bookseller a decade ago, only to get the disappointing news that the book had already been sold. Since then, the price of the original paperback has only gone up (it was reprinted with a don’t-give-a-shit cover design by Arsenal PulpPress in 2005). I did find this review on the Speak Its Name blog, which reports that despite the book including some cringe poetry (My hardened penis downward dips / Into your asshole darkly tight / Warmly endlessly lost from sight), it has “a tone of earnest sweetness that overcomes the camp factor.”

I found two contradictory stories regarding Amory’s involvement in the movie adaptation. According to one source, Amory wrote the movie’s screenplay (there is no screenwriter credit given in the movie, but Amory’s name is prominently featured in the opening credits as the author of the source novel). The more common story I found, and the one I more inclined to believe, is the author had nothing to do with the movie adaptation and was in fact disgusted by the film. All that said, the movie does strive to evoke the same “earnest sweetness” of Amory’s novel, and it often overcomes that camp factor. Unfortunately, what that means is the movie is often too inane to be taken seriously yet too well-meaning to laugh at. Also, it’s kinda’ boring.

Song of the Loon has not yet been
 released on Blu-ray, but if you have
a high tolerance of low-resolution
penises you can get a DVD
from BijouWorld.com

Though filmmaking is more competent than expected, Song of the Loon suffers the same issues of many low budget productions: the pacing is sluggish, the script unengaging, the performances community theater level—though that’s better than one would expect for a movie where the cast’s physical appearance and willingness to get naked on camera were likely given more weight than acting talent. Iverson gives the movie’s best performance while Royce gives the worst, though to be fair, I completely believed him as a man who knew nothing.

All these shortcomings might’ve been forgiven had the movie been at least titillating, yet Song of the Loon: The Movie is almost devoid of eroticism. Supposedly the novel is much more graphic (I just might have to get over my graphic design snobbery and buy that Arsenal Pulp reprint…), but the sexy content was significantly watered down for the film. One might blame this on the movie being filmed in 1969, but even at that time exploitation movies were pushing the envelope. Though Song of the Loon was lauded for being the first softcore film to portray gay love, harder fare was becoming more common when it was released in 1970. Naked men paying lip service to free love in a fantasy gay western is all well and good but personally, I prefer Tom DeSimone’s show-don’t-tell approach in Dust Unto Dust (if only the bearded blond settler could maintain wood…).

According to IMDb, Scott Hanson and Joe Tiffenbach* were hired as Song of the Loon’s director and cinematographer, respectively, but were fired when filming was nearly complete. Directing credit was given to editor Andrew Herbert, who assembled Hanson and Tiffanbach’s footage into a releasable movie. This might account for the movie’s unsatisfying conclusion, wrapping up with a montage of previous scenes and a title card summarizing “What happened to Ephraim?” The answer: he left Cyrus after a while to continue his journey. It’s a toss-up as to whether this was intended as sequel bait (Amory did write two sequels to Song of the Loon) or the filmmakers simply running out of ideas, though I’m leaning towards the latter. It might have been better if they instead ended it with some poetry about butt fucking.

Asses up!

*FUN FACT: Joe Tiffenbach went on to direct gay porn movies throughout the 1980s before his death in 1992.

The Horrors of Tacky Jewelry

Well, this was supposed to be my Halloween post, but alas, I have minimal control over how my time is prioritized and bosses usually aren’t sympathetic to employees taking a half day off for, well, anything, but especially for finishing a blog entry. But that’s fine, because in the U.S., November 2024 is way more terrifying than Halloween ever thought about being. So, consider these porno horrors a respite from the terrors of real life.

I first learned about the 1975 movie SEX DEMON from an episode of the Ask Any Buddy podcast I’d listened to a couple years ago. Host Elizabeth Purchell’s excitement at having found a print of director J.C. Cricket’s long-lost film was infectious. I immediately wanted to see it, but it turned out I’d need to book a flight—on a time machine. The podcast dropped on October 8, 2021, and it was largely focused on promoting upcoming screenings of the film in New York and Los Angeles. So, like my wanting to look like Jake Gyllenhaal, I had to accept that viewing Sex Demon was another thing that wasn’t going to happen for me.

Vintage newspaper ad via 
Dirty Looks.

Fast forward to this year. I’m still no closer to looking like Jake Gyllenhaal (apparently that requires more than prayer), but Sex Demon did get released on Blu-ray by AGFA and is now sold through Vinegar Syndrome’s sister site, Mélusine.

Lovers Jim (Steve Spahn, left) and John (Jeff Fuller) begin
their second (or third) year together.

A traditional gay anniversary gift.

At the movie’s opening, Jim (Steve Spahn, who looks like Heather Matarazzo cosplaying as a young John Travolta) awakens his older lover to announce it’s their third anniversary (referenced later in the movie as their second because Sex Demon has more important concerns than continuity). Jim then presents a tube of KY to his boyfriend John (Jeff Fuller, who sort of looks like Chris O’Dowd if you’re not wearing your glasses). John forgot their anniversary, but Jim sucks him off anyway. Even so, John rushes to a Christopher Street antiques store for “something special for someone special.” The special something he buys is a godawful gold medallion that Flava Flav would find a little much, overpriced at $20. Jim loves it, though, and refuses to take it off, even wearing it while he and John finally get around to using that KY.

The curse of bad taste.

But, as we learn via an unpacking flashback scene at the antique shop, complete with a Vaudeville-style voice over, “THIS MEDALLION IS CURSED!” The first sign of the curse occurs while Jim is doing dishes. He breaks a glass, then cuts his hand trying to pick it up. He promptly passes out, which isn’t surprising as he spills enough blood to make one wonder if he severed an artery. Then the cabinet doors fly open, and a box of cake mix falls to the counter and a colander falls to the floor. Scary! Later, though, John asks about why all the dishes were on the floor, suggesting that director Cricket initially had something more spectacular in mind than the ejection of a single box of cake mix.

Considering the city’s rat problem, I’m sure most New
Yorkers would prefer a kitchen poltergeist instead.

Jim dreams of an occult orgy, the participants of which are all wearing white eye shadow and gold glitter face paint. The sucking, fucking and fisting (yikes!) all takes place around a small altar displaying that cursed medallion front and center, along with a ceramic skull and a bunch of candles for extra spookiness. John awakens early in the morning to hear animal like grunting coming from the kitchen and goes to investigate, losing his tighty whities along the way. He discovers his lover sitting in front of the open fridge, eating raw meat.

Caught.

Foreshadowing.

An unhappy ending.

Now fully possessed by the sex demon, Jim goes to the nearest gay theater, the Gaiety Male Burlesk, which was managed by Cricket at the time. In the theater’s restroom Jim forces a guy to blow him (never mind that the guy pretty much offered to do so willingly). Jim then bends the guy over a sink and fucks him, breaking his neck and killing him the moment he cums. Another trick gets taken back to the apartment, and after another forceful fuck (“Cum, you bitch!”), Jim stabs the guy in the ass with a screwdriver. Upon discovering the scene, a horrified John can no longer deny that his lover is possessed.

A scruffily attractive Good Samaritan, who had come to John’s aid earlier when Jim assaulted him on the street and who remains by his side for the rest of the movie, has remarkable insight on the situation, even knowing from which antiques store John bought the cursed medallion. John and Scruffy immediately go searching for a priest to exorcise Jim. Panama Johnson is the unfortunate man of the cloth tasked with casting the demon out of young Jim’s body, getting a mouthful of piss for his trouble. God’s one weakness! But it turns out what God can’t fix, a flight of stairs can.

Not even an exorcist can help: Panama attempts to cast out Jim’s
demon while John and a scruffy Good Samaritan look on.

So, was Sex Demon worth the wait? Yes and no. If you approach it as a grimy gay indie, Sex Demon can be a lot of fun, especially if watched with other people (those New York and L.A. screenings must’ve been a blast). It’s over the top in the best way, a cult movie in need of a cult. Cricket may be spoofing The Exorcist, but he wisely plays it straight, as it were. Fuller gives a more believable performance, but it’s Spahn who steals the show, never letting his non-existent acting skills stop him from just fucking going for it.

John hopes using the anniversary KY will vanquish
 Jim’s medallion demon.

Sex Demon is less successful as porn, with only Spahn’s flair for sucking cock and that occult orgy saving it from being a total erotic failure. Put another way, only those turned on by that scene in Pink Flamingos where Divine blows Danny Mills will need to have tissues and Jergens (and maybe a therapist’s phone number) handy while watching Sex Demon.

Sex, Murder and Crisco

Though I was glad to finally have a chance to see Sex Demon, I’d feel kind of cheated if I’d paid almost $30 for one hour-long movie. However, I paid almost $30 for three hour-long movies (the disc’s full title is Sex Demon…and Other Hauntings). Plus, you get trailers for other vintage gay porn titles. What a value!

Possibly the former lady of the house.

The homo horror continues with 1971’s DEADLY BLOWS, directed by Max Blue. Our lead is a young, overall-clad man who kind of resembles an extremely stoned Elijah Wood. (Though performers are listed, their roles aren’t. Stoned Elijah may be the performer credited as Stewart Morrison, but I could find no confirmation). Anyway, Stoned Elijah spends his days at his (?) large, Spanish colonial house, working in the garden or just chilling in his tree house. He doesn’t seem to get out much, but he does get a fair number of visitors. “Many people come to my house. Each one comes for his own reasons. None of them were invited,” says a narrator who sounds better suited for a film warning teens about the dangers of drugs than a gay porno. He certainly doesn’t sound like the sleepy-eyed, curly-haired stud we see on screen.

Stoned face.

Among those visiting Stoned Elijah are a handsome dark-haired artist and a friendly looking, bearded hitchhiker. Stoned Elijah seems welcoming at first. The artist initially wanted to draw Stoned Elijah’s house, but suspecting there might be more going on beneath those overalls asks to draw Stoned Elijah instead (“I could feel his eyes stripping away my clothes and my defenses,” intones our narrator with all the passion of a loan officer explaining the terms of your mortgage). The hitchhiker is treated to a bowl of broth and some bread (“I was in one of those paternal moods,” explains the narrator), then offered use of the shower, which he is more than happy to share with his host.

Stoned Elijah does indeed have a beautiful body, so it’s easy to understand why his visitors are so taken with him. But Stoned Elijah also has a big sexual hang-up: he can’t finish without finishing off the guy he’s fucking. The artist he beats to death with a hammer. Fittingly, the artist appears to have red paint running through his veins. Using that red paint as lube, Stoned Elijah strokes his cock in time to a Johan Sabastian Bach composition (Invention 4, maybe?). Sexy.

This is one way to avoid an awkward encounter with a trick afterward.

At least the artist got to cum first. Stoned Elijah strangles the hitchhiker mid-fuck, which is just plain rude.

The fine line between erotic asphyxia and murder is about to be crossed.

Murder is wrong, but the hair of Stoned Elijah’s
visitor is a crime.

Our homicidal hunk worries that his next unexpected visitor is a policeman even though he’s driving a green muscle car (“Maybe it was the police, and they were using a special trick car that didn’t look like a police car,” wonders our increasingly unhinged narrator). But it’s the artist’s roommate, who’s got too much sideburns and not enough mustache. Also, he might be wearing a wig. Stoned Elijah is at first evasive, then invites Sideburns inside. The artist is quickly forgotten, the two guys making out as Toccata & Fugue in D minor blares on the soundtrack. (“The whole thing was not what I was going to do, but I knew I was going to do it,” says the narrator, now sounding like he’s reading the transcript of a Sarah Palin press conference). Sideburns is extended the courtesy nutting before Stoned Elijah attempts strangling him. Things don’t go as planned, though, and Sideburns gets away. Stoned Elijah realizes there’s only one way his story can end, and that way ain’t prison.

Deadly Blows kind of has as similar vibe as Tom DeSimone’s Sons of Satan, which isn’t a surprise. Max Blue was a nom du porn of Nicholas Grippo, who produced many of DeSimone’s films before becoming a caterer to the stars. Deadly Blows is better than Sons of Satan in many ways, with a simple but slightly elliptical storyline, lush cinematography and a better-looking cast. Unfortunately, with the exception of our main character using red paint blood for lube, the sex scenes are as bland as those in Sons of Satan. There is little variation in the action and, apart from Stoned Elijah and the hitchhiker, little heat generated by the performances. 

Only the third feature, 10:30 P.M. MONDAY (1975), directed by Lucas Severin, really delivers as porn, albeit porn aimed at specific tastes. With its black and white wrap-around and overall surreal narrative, it’s also the most artsy movie on this disc if not the most original (it’s basically a grittier rip-off of/homage to Wakefield Poole’s Bijou). The main characters are a couple in their mid-to-late 30s. One of the men—tall, lanky and bearded Jeremy Wheat—is still very much in love, but his boyfriend—stocky Jeff Staller, with a thick mustache and dick—is growing bored. Staller openly cruises other guys in front of his lover and ignores Wheat’s attempts to initiate sex, preferring to jack off instead.

Marriage.

Getting ready for his big night.

The next day Staller puts a letter in their mailbox before he leaves for work. Wheat opens it later, and all it says—spelled out in letters cut from a magazine—is “10:30 p.m. Monday.” Wheat doesn’t know what it means but gets ready for whatever it is when the hour nears, taking a shower, blow-drying his hair (and balls) and donning his freshest denim ensemble. At 10:29 a Rolls-Royce pulls into the driveway and, voila, 10:30 p.m. Monday is now in color. The car delivers Wheat to a warehouse, where he’s greeted by a sexy bartender in leather chaps (Sextool’s Val Martin), who gives him a beer. Other men arrive, all of them wearing strategically ripped jeans. The men stand around talking and drinking beer, then hands begin to wander. One man bends over the table, offering his ass up as a snack to the guy next to him. Others follow suit

Let’s get this party started.

A sensual moment before breaking out the Crisco.

Weeeeee!

So far, so good. A cast of rugged guys, all into what they’re doing and enjoying doing it. Then the fisting started. A whole bunch of it, and not the comparatively reserved ass play seen in Sex Demon and Left-Handed, but full-on, Crisco-up-to-the-elbows, let-me-see-if-I-can-reach-your-esophagus-from-here handballing. For me, this is when 10:30 p.m. Monday became a horror film. The cast, however, appears to be having a good time. Per Elizabeth Purchell’s commentary track, the cast features men from L.A.’s leather scene, so all this fisting was, well, just another Monday night for them. It’s the cast’s excitement for what they’re doing that really sells 10:30 p.m., making it the hottest of the three movies on this disc, though only if you’re into fisting. Like, really into it.

Another relationship saved by group sex and fisting.

All in all, Sex Demon…and Other Hauntings is best enjoyed as a time capsule, a journey back to when, as Purchell has noted, there was no distinction between gay porn and gay cinema. Consequently, the sex in these movies often seems incidental to the filmmaking, rough though it may be. But regardless of erotic impact, Sex Demon is worth the investment. There are certainly worse gay takes on The Exorcist you could watch.