Like Frankenstein’s Monster, Only Fuckable

The folly of men playing God has been a favorite trope in sci-fi and horror films, as far back as James Whale’s 1931 adaptation of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. We probably have more to fear from God’s self-appointed enforcers (Google it; one link won’t do the subject justice), but our suspicions are more easily riled by those geeks in their labs, believing in evolution and telling us to wear masks, possibly because we all harbor memories of them ruining the grading curve in advanced biology back in high school. What other sinister things are the nerds up to, beside wrecking our GPAs and telling us to vaccinate our kids?

Hollywood knows: the scientists are building killer sex monsters!

Of course, that’s never the stated goal. In director Frank Nelson’s 1976 movie EMBRYO (a.k.a. Created to Kill), Dr. Paul Holliston (Rock Hudson) is just trying to save babies. He gets to put his research to the test after he hits a pregnant Doberman pinscher while racing home one rainy night. The mother isn’t likely to survive, but Holliston thinks he can save her puppies, transferring them to his handy artificial womb and injecting them with “Placentolactogen,” the growth hormone he and his late wife were developing before she was killed in a car accident.

Fetal Puppy Syndrome

Only one of the pups survives, but it’s enough to convince the doctor he’s made a major breakthrough. What’s more, the puppy grows at an accelerated rate. In mere days, Holliston has a full-grown Doberman—named Number One—that can get its own food out of the refrigerator and put the bowl in the sink when he’s done. Number One can also let himself out of a parked car and kill a stuffed dog barking terrier, but the doctor, inside a hospital convincing a colleague to surrender any spare fetuses he might have lying around, isn’t around to witness his experiment’s sudden violent aggression.

Rock Hudson is astonished that his career has come to this.

Holliston’s pal at the hospital comes through, donating the fetus of a pregnant woman who committed suicide (hey, she’ll never miss it). The doctor quickly gets to work, pumping the baby so full of Placentolactogen that, in less than five weeks, he has a full-grown Barbara Carrera, who presents herself wearing nothing but her hair, Lady Godiva-style. The softcore Muzak on the soundtrack hammers home the message that she’s now down to fuck. The doctor names her Victoria, because her survival is a victory for both of them.

Like Number One, Victoria is a super-fast learner, going from basic math to reading the entire Bible (“An interesting story, but not very logical”). The doctor takes Victoria’s distinct Latin accent in stride. Were the movie to address this I’m sure it would explain away Victoria’s accent with a reference to her deceased mother being of Latin descent, as if accents are genetic. Instead, we’ll just assume that all humans injected with Placentolactogen sound like they come from Nicaragua.

The doctor, by the way, does not live alone. His sister-in-law Martha (Diane Ladd) stays with him as a housekeeper, and it’s implied she might aspire to take her late sister’s place as Holliston’s second wife. Yet the movie wants us to believe that not once during the weeks that Holliston was experimenting on a fetus, and then a human child, did Martha wonder what he was up to. Did Martha ever hear a baby cry or wonder about the dirty diapers in the laundry? Nope, not one fucking time. There’s one close call, when Martha enters the lab with the adult Victoria hiding behind the door, knife in hand, but otherwise, she is oblivious to her new housemate.

Martha finally meets Victoria weeks later at a party thrown by Holliston’s son Gordon and his pregnant wife Helen (John Elerick and Anne Schedeen, doing her best Brenda Vacarro impression), Holliston introducing her as his new live-in lab assistant. Martha is less than pleased, all but muttering “bitch” under her breath when Victoria walks away. Roddy McDowall, as a snooty chess player (“Chess is one of the last bastions of male chauvinism,” he huffs) whom Victoria almost bests in a game, isn’t a huge fan of Holliston’s “assistant” either. It’s to the movie’s detriment that there is no scene of Roddy and Martha huddling in the kitchen talking shit about Victoria. Everyone else—including Dr. Joyce Brothers in a WTF? cameo—finds Holliston’s hot new assistant absolutely charming.

A party in serious need of cocaine.

Barbara Carrera is ready to learn.

After the party, Victoria surprises Holliston in his bedroom, letting him know she wants her experiences with intercourse to extend beyond the social kind. “I want to learn,” she says breathily, her nipples showing plainly through a sheer gown (Embryo may be rated PG, but it’s a ’70s PG). The popping of Victoria’s cherry is the beginning of the end, however, as one orgasm is all it takes for her to start experiencing some painful side effects. Now she’ll stop at nothing to get the 70ml of “pituitary gland extract” from an unborn fetus she needs to stay young and hot, even if it means endangering the lives of a pregnant hooker and Helen. Basically, she turns into [insert name of celebrity addicted to plastic surgery here] on the eve of his/her 40th birthday.

Embryo is basically a 1970s take on a 1950s mad scientist movie. (MoriaReviews.com sources an even earlier—and uncredited—inspiration, the 1928 German film Alraune.) Though he’s phoning it in, Hudson makes the movie watchable, but even his star power can’t keep Embryo from looking like a made-for-TV movie (only Carrerra’s bare breasts assure us it isn’t). Ladd has been in worse movies, but she’s wasted here, asked to do little more than look annoyed and serve coffee. Carrera does OK despite being is miscast, though her nude scenes will make more of an impression than her performance.

Penis Slugs and an Exciting Fetish

Nearly 33 years later Embryo’s plot was revived in 2009’s SPLICE. (Or, 81 years later Alraune’s basic plot was again recycled, but I’m henceforth sticking to my Embryo/Splice comparison. Let’s just accept there’s nothing new under the sun.) Though it is a rehash of an old story, director Vincenzo Natali was allowed to do what so many studios are now afraid to do: avail himself of an R-rating, making a movie reminiscent of the earlier work of fellow Canadian David Cronenberg. Guess it helps to have Guillermo del Toro as an executive producer.

Our protagonists are Clive and Elsa (Adrian Brody and Sarah Polley, respectively), genetic engineers at Nucleic Exchange Research & Development, or NERD (groan-inducing wordplay like that just re-enforces the Cronenberg comparisons). In the opening scene we see the couple, who are also romantic partners, birth something that looks like a cross between a slug and a malformed penis. It’s introduced to a previously birthed, much smaller-but-who’s-judging penis slug, the female. The two penis slugs—named Fred and Ginger—immediately extend long, petal-tipped tongues from their urethra-like mouths, swirling them around each other in such a way that they form a pink flower between them. It’s almost pretty. “They’re imprinting,” says an awestruck Elsa.

When penis slugs meet.

Fred and Ginger are the result of splicing DNA from multiple species, and they can be used to produce medicinal proteins. Clive and Elsa are eager to move on to the next phase of their research, incorporating human DNA, but the corporation funding their work—represented by a somewhat sinister Simona Maicanescu—wants to get Fred and Ginger on the market as soon as possible. The lab’s ass-kissing boss, William Barlow (David Hewlett of Stargate: Atlantis, as well as Natali’s earlier film, Cube), readily concurs.

Clive and Elsa aren’t so accepting of the decision and immediately head to the lab for an experimentation montage. The end result is something that resembles a sentient testicle, but that’s only the placenta. What bursts out kind of resembles a shaved, earless cat with two digitigrade legs. It’s kind of cute, actually. Like Holliston’s experiment in Embryo, Clive and Elsa’s “baby” develops rapidly, taking on more humanoid characteristics but still distinctly alien. She looks nothing like Barbara Carrera. They name her Dren, nerd spelled backwards (Natali and his co-screenwriters Antoinette Terry Bryant and Doug Taylor might have reconsidered that name had they watched Farscape).

Sarah Polley lures her creation with her tasty, tasty fingers.

Dren’s existence begins to put a strain on the scientists’ relationship. Earlier they discuss having a baby. Clive wants to start a family; Elsa, who had a miserable childhood, does not. Yet it’s Elsa who is eager to bond with Dren, though she seems to treat her more like a pet than a child (some of her teaching techniques are reminiscent of Dr. Joan Crawford’s in Trog). Clive, feeling the strain of having to keep Dren secret, wants her out of their lives. He discovers Dren has amphibious lungs when he holds her head under water. “How did you know?” Elsa asks. “You did know, right?” Clive says yes, but his eyes say something else.

Separated at birth: Delphine Chanéac as Dren; Björk in the video for “Hunter.”

Because their co-workers at NERD are more curious than Diane Ladd, and because they can’t exactly stick a wig on Dren and introduce her as a new lab assistant (she does sort of look like Björk; Icelanders have tails, right?), the renegade scientists need to get Dren away from the lab. Fortunately, Elsa just happens to own a plot convenience: a farm that she inherited from her mother. It’s at this farm that we begin to see Elsa exhibit behavior that invites more Joan Crawford comparisons. Elsa is a perfectly loving parent when Dren is docile and compliant, but she loses her shit when Dren acts out. Then again, what are we to expect when it’s revealed Elsa’s childhood bedroom was more like a cell in a Turkish prison. Elsa’s was not a happy childhood, and yet she held on to this farm, a place that was a living hell for her, paying the taxes and utility bills instead of putting it up for sale before her mother’s body was cold? This strains credulity more than the creation of Dren...

...or the idea that anyone would choose to drive a Gremlin in the 2000s.

Clive isn’t exactly Father of the Year. Like Holliston, he crosses some boundaries, but Clive also brings an exciting fetish into the mainstream [link very NSFW]. There’s also a key tonal difference in how the two movies handle the sex between scientist and, um, subject that makes Splice a bit more disturbing. Because Embryo treats the adult Victoria as a sex object from the get-go, the movie and the audience can bypass any pesky questions about the morality of this relationship (not that anyone watching Embryo is going to think about it that hard). In Splice, however, Dren, besides being a unique species, is presented as being like Clive and Elsa’s daughter, adding an extra layer of “eww!” (or “ahh!,” if that’s your fantasy). Regardless of whether or not you think Clive has committed incest, he’s definitely cheated on Elsa. 

Adrian Brody’s O (I-fucked-up) face.

Things soon take a more tragic—and rapey—turn in the final act, as the movie abandons psychological nuance in favor of straight-up horror, winding down to a sequel-bait ending—or so it would seem. According to Natali, he just liked the idea of leaving things open-ended; he never intended for there to be a sequel. (That Splice under-performed at the box office probably ensured the studio didn’t try to persuade him to change his plans.) With Hollywood being more interested in creating franchises than telling stories, even way back in 2009, I simply forgot that ending movies on a question mark was still a thing.

I had wanted to see Splice when it first came out, but the film was released in the U.S. in June 2010, when I, along with much of the rest of the world, was struggling to stay afloat during a global recession. Dropping $10 on a matinee ticket just seemed irresponsible. Thankfully Splice is currently on Netflix in the U.S.*, during another economic downturn, no less (this movie just might be cursed). Despite its link to financial catastrofucks, Splice is still worth checking out, especially if you like your sci-fi horror to  have a few extra I.Q. points, are nostalgic for Cronenberg’s 1980s horror movies, or just enjoy watching sex scenes featuring human/animal hybrids. Those who enjoy ’70s schlock can find Embryo streaming on various sites, with the version on Tubi being the least shitty looking of the bunch.

*This is a prime sponsorship opportunity, NordVPN. Just sayin’.

Even Ten Minutes is Too Long

Our sexual fantasies and our public selves don’t always match up. Incest doesn’t become any less icky with the “between consenting adults” or “the incestuous couple is hot” qualifiers, yet it was the fastest growing trend in pornography in 2018. I have, delicately put, responded to porn videos that I otherwise find disgusting (I have a complicated relationship with the work of Aarin Asker). It’s the taboo that’s exciting. So, the idea that women, even those identifying themselves as feminists, would have rape fantasies or fantasies in which they’re dominated by men, isn’t that far-fetched. It’s when these taboo sex fantasies are inflated into romances that #MeToo becomes #WTF?

One of the earliest mainstream movies to give life to this uneasy coupling of rough muffin buttering fantasy and gauzy romance was the 1986 film adaptation of Elizabeth McNeill’s novel, 9 ½ WEEKS.

From one angle, it reads like the outline for a by-the-numbers Playgirl short story: An attractive woman, successful in her professional life but unfulfilled sexually, meets a handsome, wealthy man who treats her to sumptuous dinners, shopping sprees with no spending limits, and thrusts her into sexual realms no other man had ever dared to, consequently giving her some of the best—perhaps the only—orgasms she’s ever experienced.

Sounds hot! But this is also the outline for a typical Lifetime thriller: A successful career woman meets a handsome, wealthy man who showers her with compliments, woos her with fancy dinners and expensive gifts, and pleasures her with mind-blowing sex. But her prince soon reveals himself to be less charming, treating her like a child, isolating her from her friends and family, demanding she wear what he wants her to wear, punishing her if she disobeys his instructions. The sex games become less playful and more uncomfortable. He is her master and she, his willing slave. Will she come to her senses before it’s too late?

A still from 9 1/2 Weeks, or
a 1980s perfume ad?

The two outlines don’t exactly mesh, do they? I haven’t read McNeill’s novel (there are only so many hours in the day), but based on what I’ve read about it, the Lifetime thriller outline better describes it. The novel was significantly darker, playing out more like a psychosexual horror story than kinky erotica. But “psychosexual horror story” just wasn’t the sort of shit studios were willing to risk financing in the 1980s, so a twisted romance is what we got.

Kim Basinger is Elizabeth, the aforementioned attractive woman. Elizabeth owns a successful gallery, but she’s been adrift in her personal life since her divorce. It’s established right away that Liz is sexually unadventurous, something conveyed by costuming (Elizabeth has a penchant for baggy sweaters) and more directly in dialog, such as when she accuses her roommate and business partner Molly (Margaret Whitton) of being “gross” and “perverted” for suggesting Liz owns a vibrator. That all changes when Liz meets John (Mickey Rourke), a handsome Wall Street broker who arouses her dirty tickle*.

Younger readers might be wondering what “Mickey Rourke” and “handsome” are doing in the same sentence. Hard to believe now, but before he fucked up his face with boxing and plastic surgery, and well before time took its toll, Rourke was actually kind of hot. He didn’t exactly do it for me, but, yeah, I could see why he was cast as the male lead of an erotic romance. Of course, 9 ½ Weeks could just as well starred present-day Mickey Rourke given that it is just one of many, many examples of movies that purport to appeal to the desires of female audiences yet only showcases the bodies women (you ladies just want to see tits, right?).

This is as naked Mickey gets for the entirety of 9 1/2 Weeks.

Looks aside, it’s not entirely clear why Liz puts up with John beyond a couple of dates. As played by Rourke—whose performance falls somewhere between Ben Affleck at the height of his early 2000s douchey-ness and a late-caree,r not-giving-a-shit Bruce Willis—John radiates more smarm than charm. Even if Elizabeth can see past John’s personality, and even if he’s found her G-spot, I still wondered why she didn’t break things off after he pays a carnival worker to leave her parked atop a Ferris wheel while the worker takes a coffee break. She at least responds appropriately when John tells her to face the wall and raise her skirt for a spanking: “Who the fuck do you think you are!?” Alas, she stays, persuaded by John’s phenomenal cunnilingual skills. It’s not until he subjects her to the roving hands of a Latina hooker that Liz loses her shit and runs away, hiding out at a Times Square sex show (no, really).

 Yentl for Protestants: Gentl.

I remember 9 ½ Weeks being hyped prior to its release as pushing the boundaries of what could be shown in an R-rated film. Indeed, the movie had to be cut to avoid an X (and appease fucking test audiences). Now, no one was expecting to see Kim’s split Basinger or Rourke’s erect Mickey, but when the film was finally released it was hard not to find its sex scenes… underwhelming. To director Adrian Lyne’s credit, the sex scenes are quite stylish, but of course they are. Style over substance is Lyne’s thing. (Lyne’s on set emotional manipulation of Basinger is less praiseworthy, even though it worked to the film’s benefit.) The scene where John teases a blindfolded Elizabeth with an ice cube is effective, and Elizabeth masturbating while reviewing art slides as Eurythmics’ “This City Never Sleeps” plays on the soundtrack is another standout scene. Other scenes, like the “sploshing” scene in which John feeds a blindfolded Elizabeth, or when Elizabeth cross dresses, are just silly. But more often than not, 9 ½ Weeks pulls its punches. It’s a movie that shows John and Liz purchasing a riding crop but never shows the couple using it.

No Means No—Unless He’s Hot, Hung and Rich

9 ½ Weeks doesn’t quite succeed as erotica, but it’s not a terrible film, just a tedious one. Screenwriters Patricia Knop, Sarah Kernochan and the late Zalman King (yes, he of The Red Shoe Diaries) don’t sidestep the toxicity of the Elizabeth and John’s relationship, even if they don’t quite sell their attraction beyond she’s pretty and he buys her things and makes her come. Elizabeth has agency, gradually surrendering her free will for love until she realizes that this relationship is costing her soul.

Poland’s answer to E.L. James.

Such character arcs are beyond the grasp of 365 DAYS, a Polish-made Fifty Shades of Grey knockoff currently streaming on Netflix. (I know Fifty Shades would be the more obvious companion to 9 ½ Weeks, complete with a Kim Basinger connection were I to review the whole series, but to do so would require renting the Fifty Shades movies, something I refuse to do. Besides, other people have done a more thorough exploration of both the books and the movies. You can experience one man’s pain for your pleasure here.)

In fact, I’d go so far as to say that most of the basics of storytelling, such as character development and plot, are beyond the grasp of 365 Days, a 114-minute rape fantasy that asks its viewers to accept a woman’s abduction and subsequent captivity by hot-tempered gangster as the springboard for a steamy romance.

“Imagine a strong alpha male who always knows what he wants. He is your caretaker and your defender. When you are with him you feel like a little girl. He makes all your sexual fantasies come true. What’s more, he’s one meter, 90 centimeters tall, has absolutely no body fat, and has been molded by God himself,” our heroine, Laura (Anna Maria Sieklucka), tells her girlfriend.

“Did God mold his dick, too?” the girlfriend asks.

“The devil did,” replies Laura.

Laura fails to bring up that the “strong alpha male” in question, Massimo (Michele Morrone, who can also be blamed for some songs on the soundtrack), also kidnapped her while she was vacationing in Sicily, held her prisoner, tied her up and molested her on a plane (“Sometimes fighting is futile.”), and repeatedly threatened her with physical violence. Also, he’s a Mafia boss who traffics drugs and kills people (but it’s OK, the man he kills is a sex trafficker). Then again, he got her away from her worthless boyfriend and he’s got that devilish dick. All is forgiven!

What makes 365 Days and its inspiration, Fifty Shades, especially repugnant is they conflate abuse with BDSM, rape with rapture.

You would be forgiven for thinking 365 Days was written by a 45-year-old incel while he was under house arrest for violating a restraining order, but no, it was written by a woman. Polish cosmetologist-cum-author Blanka Lipińska, perhaps realizing she could never be the next Olga Tokarczuk, decided to became Poland’s answer to E.L. James instead, writing her own trilogy of dirty books with regressive/offensive sexual politics. I haven’t read any of Lipińska’s novels as they have yet to be translated into English (also, I don’t want to), so I can’t speak to their quality or how close the movie adaptation follows the book. However, Lipińska is credited as a “screenwriting associate” and even has a small cameo in the movie, so I’m going to assume the author is at least OK with how the movie turned out. I’m also going to assume that, based on 365 Days, that Lipińska is the sort of woman who would respond to a friend asking for help out of an abusive relationship by asking what the friend did to provoke the beatings.

Queer Eye for the Stockholm Gal.

There is a small kernel in the existing story that could have, had the screenwriters seized upon it, made 365 Days a lot less problematic. One of Massimo’s henchmen, Domenico (Otar Saralidze), befriends Laura, kind of (this is a movie where shopping montages set to annoying Europop are used in place of character and story development). Had Laura and Domenico formed a romantic bond, with the plot hinging on Domenico helping Laura escape, then 365 Days could have been a palatable romantic thriller. It would definitely be a more exciting one. Instead, the Domenico character is little more than Laura’s occasional chaperone. Guess he didn’t have that satanic cock that Laura craves.

What makes 365 Days and its inspiration, Fifty Shades, especially repugnant is they conflate abuse with BDSM, rape with rapture. If imagining a swarthy, God-built Italian stud ripping your designer panties off against your protests and pile-driving you into multiple transcendent orgasms is what it takes to paddle your pink canoe down river, more power to you. But don’t try to convince us his threatening violence, confiscating your phone and holding you prisoner is romantic. A good rule of thumb: if your story requires a trigger warning for survivors of sexual abuse, your story is not a romance.

There is a sequel for 365 Days planned — Lipińska crapped out a trilogy, after all — so maybe the narrative redeems itself as it goes along, but I doubt it (reportedly, the other books in the series are just more of the same). The one positive thing about this movie compared to its American counterparts is it doesn’t hold back on the explicitness of its sex scenes (no backlit, fully clothed humping here). There’s nothing hardcore, as some reviewers have implied, but it’s definitely in NC-17 territory, unlike some other movies I could mention. And, while their characters display no discernibly human traits, Sieklucka and Morrone are easy on the eyes. So, out of a desire to cater to readers’ prurient interests while also sparing them the chore of watching this piece of shit, here are the time codes for movie’s “good parts”:

10:45 – Laura pleasures herself with a pink vibrator intercut with a scene of Massimo getting blown by a flight attendant. (Warning: even out of context, it’s impossible to pretend the B.J. is consensual.)

43:30 – Laura takes a shower, and Massimo joins her. No sex, just nudity, including some full-frontal flashes from both actors.

51:40 – Laura sexually teases Massimo, then tries to leave the room before closing the deal. Massimo responds by shackling her to the bed and then summoning another woman. The other woman, dressed in generic dominatrix gear, slinks into the room and proceeds to suck off Massimo while a bound Laura watches.

An ass molded by God himself.

1:06:53 – Laura wakes up and smells the Stockholm Syndrome, finally “consenting” to sex with Massimo, the pair going at it for six-plus minutes, a sequence that’s as sleazy as hardcore porn without actually being hardcore.

1:17:30 – A quickie in the bathroom.

1:32:10 – Rear entry while overlooking Warsaw.

You’re welcome.

But, seriously, you’re better off just watching a hardcore porn flick than this glorification of date rape.

Here’s a link to go to in case you or someone you know is a victim of domestic violence: thehotline.org

*I owe Georgina Spelvin a dollar for the phrase “dirty tickle.”

The Reality, Fiction and Fantasy of Fire Island

Cherry Grove Stories is
currently streaming on Tubi.

Though we got a welcome—and, frankly, surprising—Supreme Court ruling this month that extends federal workplace protections to the LGBTQ community, there’s been very little about this June to remind you it’s Gay Pride Month. Given the ongoing Dumpster fire that is America 2020, you’d be forgiven for just wanting to get away from it all. Unfortunately, the only traveling we should be doing is vicariously (though some remain unconcerned). Luckily, that’s also the cheapest way to travel. So, let’s go to Fire Island, specifically, Fire Island of the past.

I was aware of Fire Island being a popular vacation destination for gay New Yorkers as far back as my freshman year of high school, well before I ever came out. I’m not sure how I knew this. My best guess is it was referenced in some sleazy bestseller I read, or possibly it was mentioned in one of the two books by Fran Lebowitz that I read. Regardless, the reputation of this island off Long Island’s south shore was great enough that it even reached me, a teenager in Mississippi (or maybe I was still in California; my family moved around a lot).

Michael Fisher’s 2018 documentary CHERRY GROVE STORIES provides a good overview of life on Fire Island’s gay beach. Using home movies, archival news footage and interviews with frequent vacationers and longtime residents, Fisher not only provides the audience with an informal history of Cherry Grove, but of gay life as well.

“We arrived at the dock and I looked down and I saw all of these beautiful men in high heels and Speedos, and I thought I had died and gone to heaven,” says one of the interviewees. Another describes the island as a “gay Shangri La.” Some of the people interviewed remember vacationing on the island as far back as the late 1940s, when the houses didn’t have running water and were lit by kerosene lanterns (the island didn’t get electricity until 1960s; “I can’t imagine putting on a drag show with a generator,” quips one of the interview subjects).

Photos from the documentary Cherry Grove Stories.

The documentary never delves into exactly when or why Cherry Grove became a gay destination. Even interviewees who vacationed on the island as children with their families only refer to Cherry Grove as this wonderful oasis that was just there for discovery. “I knew it was a queer community,” says one. Another says he learned of Cherry Grove in high school when he saw a picture of two guys holding hands on its beach.

Cherry Grove draws a gay crowd but not
a diverse one. This is one of the few people of
color shown in Cherry Grove Stories.

As one would expect, especially in the decades pre-dating AIDS, sex was very easy to come by in Cherry Grove, especially for the men. “Coming out here with a boyfriend was like going to a whorehouse with your wife,” says an interviewee who first came to the island in 1957. (By the way, interview subjects not being named isn’t laziness on my part; it’s because Fisher doesn’t identify any of them onscreen.) I remember being aware of the island’s cruising grounds—the Meat Rack, a.k.a. the Rack—shortly after learning about the island’s existence, before I even knew what cruising meant. There is a rumored spot for lesbians, a so-called Donut Rack, but no one interviewed believed it existed. “There were maybe 24 lesbians when we were there,” says one woman. There are even fewer people of color. One of the men interviewed is of Asian descent, and there are a couple Black men shown in the home movies, but otherwise Cherry Grove is an all-white community, a fact I wish Fisher had touched on.

Once Cherry Grove Stories got on the subject of the Meat Rack I thought the documentary would devolve into a litany of people recounting how they did rails of cocaine and sucked a mile of cocks, but more is made about how the Rack was targeted by police. One bartender even kept a reserve of cash on hand to bail out anyone unfortunate to be caught in a police raid. Of course, by the time a man was bailed out of jail the damage had been done as the man’s name, address and telephone number (holy shit!) would have already been published in the newspaper.

Cherry Grove still retains its status as a prime “gaycation” spot today, though it’s changed considerably. AIDS, understandably, hit the island hard. “We invited some straight relatives out here,” recounts an interviewee, “and they came home thinking it was sort of a leper’s colony.” Yet the AIDS crisis led to an even greater sense of community on the island. It also changed the Meat Rack, which is still there but not the “free-for-all” it once was, a fact not only attributed to AIDS, but the Internet as well. “With all the gay apps, no one needs to go out and see each other anymore,” remarks one of the younger men interviewed.

These changes aren’t necessarily seen as being for the better, with several people remarking that for all the freedoms gained by the LGBTQ community over the past two decades, the island has become less free, with the police more vigilant about ticketing people for public nudity and loitering. Says an island old timer: “We’re going right back to the way things were 50 years ago.” Yet the affection Fisher’s subjects have for the island remains as strong today as when they first got off the ferry. As one puts it: “If I could never return to Cherry Grove, then I would die.”

‘The Biggest Camp of the Season’

The 1970 movie STICKS AND STONES also provides a snapshot of life in Cherry Grove, albeit a fictional one. The central characters in this ensemble piece are Buddy (J. Will Deane, a.k.a. Jesse Deane), a playwright who’s retreated to the island with his young “English” boyfriend, Peter (Craig Dudley) to drink away the memories of his failed play. He also might be cheating on Peter, but then, as we get to know Peter, who can blame him? Peter is a whining nag who’s got a stick so firmly planted in his ass that he likely can't bottom anymore. Dudley’s attempt at an English accent, which lands somewhere between Joan Fontaine in Rebecca and Baltimore, doesn’t help Peter’s cause. Conversely, though Buddy’s a cad, Deane’s talent for dry sarcasm makes him a more enjoyable screen presence.

“George is dressed differently
than we are.”

It’s clear within minutes of being introduced to Buddy and Peter that the couple has no future and needs to break up pronto. But since there would be no movie if they did, the couple goes ahead with their planned Fourth of July party, the “biggest camp of the season.” On the guest list are George, a middle-aged leather queen who’s bought a new leather vest for the occasion (“George is dressed differently than we are,” warns a mutual friend); Bobby, a newly out man making his “virgin trip” to the island (“I wish you’d call it something else”); Jimmy, a dizzy queen with a mop of blonde hair who, along with his mustachioed friend, makes homosexuality appear classifiable as a mental disability (watching these two attempt to change a flat tire is like the set-up to a homophobic joke); the Lavender Guru, a cute caftan-wearing hippie who only shuts up when he’s got a dick in his mouth (sample dialog: “I’m not sure some days whether the world that I live in is a world I created, psychologically, or whether it’s a world everyone else has created”); and June (adult film actress Kim Pope), the femme to butch Lou, though she’s about as staunch a lesbian as Anne Heche.

Before the party George gives Bobby a brief tour of Cherry Grove, noting that every house has a name, like Lust and Found and Olay, a house which was actually referenced in Cherry Grove Stories. Bobby is overwhelmed by it all, but mostly he’s just creeped out by George. They are joined by Jimmy and his friend, whereupon Jimmy, claws extended, starts making bitchy jokes at George’s expense (“You’ll never live to be as old as you look, dahling”). I got the idea the two may have had a fling that turned sour, though that’s strictly conjecture on my part (this movie isn’t big on backstory). What I couldn’t excuse was Bobby acting like Jimmy was rescuing him from a serial killer’s basement, his only reason for not liking George, who had been perfectly nice if a tad flirtatious, was Bobby found his being into leather weird. Well, fuck you, Bobby!

Peter (left) has the better body but Buddy has the better line delivery—
and the bigger bulge.

Meanwhile, back at Buddy and Peter’s house, the Lavender Guru goes on and on (and on) about some existential bullshit for the benefit of his handsome acolyte Gary, a sequence that would’ve been unwatchable had it not been intercut with the two having some spirited softcore sex. As for Buddy and Peter, they’re walking around the island in their Speedos, first to greet their guests at the dock, then to buy supplies for the party, though they’re never shown shopping for any. Of course, Peter has a lot to say, making it clear why Buddy always has a drink in hand. A favorite exchange during this banana hammock walkabout: Peter whines that Buddy just doesn’t understand the social pressures he’s under, to which Buddy, after waiting a beat, deadpans: “I’ve got to go to the bathroom.”

Kim Pope is sick of the Lavender Guru’s shit.

The party itself is a bit underwhelming. A dark-haired hunk in flowered pants sings and strums a guitar, and later deflects a pass from Buddy. Outside on the deck the Lavender Guru lectures a group too polite to flee (Kim Pope’s expression during this scene is priceless). George is wearing a pair of fishnet bell bottoms, commando, but he's upstaged by another leather queen, Fernando, showing off his Prince Albert. Jimmy sings a show tune, then tries to get Peter, sulking in the bedroom, to return to the party, a good deed that is sufficiently punished. “You’re nothing but a goddamned queen!” Peter screams (can’t say I disagree). Peter quickly begs forgiveness, then tells Jimmy about killing his pet dog when he lived in London (“I loved that dog”). Back in the living room, June dances nude with Fernando because why hire Kim Pope if she’s not going to get naked? Buddy, not to be outdone, then strips so his guests can appreciate his skinny, leathery body and, I must say, decent-sized cock. The fireworks for this Fourth of July bash don’t go off until after the party, however, when the hosts fight, possibly to the end of their relationship.

Sticks and Stones was written by Tom O’Keefe, but its loose structure and the rambling nature of the dialog suggests much of the movie was improvised. If that’s the case, director Stan Lopresto did a commendable job of getting something approximating The Boys in the Band Go to the Beach, which is to say Sticks and Stones, while not a good movie, isn’t the total piece of shit it could have been. The characters are all types—the leather queen, the swish, the nervous Nelly—rather than fully formed people, and the acting is strictly amateur hour (Pope and Deane, who also appeared in a couple hardcore films, deliver the best performances). On the plus side, the movie is leagues above the crap Jeff London cranks out. The gratuitous nudity, some of which is quite nice, also helped.

‘I Should’ve Known I was in the Wrong Place’

The last movie on our tour of Fire Island is nothing but gratuitous nudity, though I guess the nudity isn’t exactly gratuitous when said movie is a porno, namely director Jack Deveau’s 1978 film DUNE BUDDIES. Bet you thought I was going to write about Wakefield Poole’s Boys in the Sand, didn’t you? I’ll get to Wakefield, but not today. Besides, Dune Buddies has something that makes it just as noteworthy in the annals (yes, with two n’s; just because it’s a porn movie doesn’t mean our minds have to stay in the gutter) of gay porn: a connection to Brian DePalma’s Scarface.

Dune Buddies’ main character is a guy named Paul Hazzard (Malo), a dramatic arts professor who’s wanting to escape New York because he can’t walk three feet in the city without tripping over a hot guy begging for Paul’s hot beef injection. (“It got so crazy, in fact, that I stopped enjoying it.”) So, yeah, our hearts bleed for him. Anyway, to get away from all those beckoning dicks in the city, he heads to Fire Island. If you think that’s a stupid vacation destination for a man seeking solitude, Paul agrees with you, but his real estate pal Ed got him a good deal on a rental in the Pines so, what’re you gonna do?

Paul’s plans for a quiet vacation-for-one are dashed the moment he enters the bedroom of his rented beach house and finds one of his students, Dennis (Larry Page), passed out and pants-less on the bed. When Dennis comes-to, he explains Paul’s secretary revealed his itinerary when Dennis bribed her with three Quaaludes (this movie is very 1978). Paul quickly forgives his student (you would, too, if you saw Page’s ass), but they’ve barely gotten into foreplay when Paul’s friend Gordon (Hugh Allen) cock blocks him with a phone call. I wouldn’t have answered, personally, but Paul does, learning that Gordon’s at the ferry landing, waiting for him. (“If you meet me at the dock in the Grove in 45 minutes, I’ll let you buy me a drink at the Monster.”)

Maybe it’s just me, but Larry Page looks a lot like a young Thomas Haden Church.
(No, I’m not suggesting THC has a secret.)

And so begins what is supposed to be a comedy of errors. Paul heads out for Cherry Grove, leaving Dennis to juggle tennis balls and jack off in an outdoor shower. But Gordon, who’s a bit of an asshole, gets cruised by hunky John (Will Seagers, billed as Matt Harper here) and decides he’d rather ride in John’s boat—and on John’s cock—than wait for Paul. Paul, annoyed at having missed Gordon, heads back home, only to be intercepted by his real estate friend Ed (Gary Hunt), who needs a voyeur if the two cute young exhibitionists back at his house (Pepe Brazil and D. Paolo Gorsky) are to perform. No, seriously. Paul’s resistant, but Ed pours liquor down his throat until he agrees to stay. Despite being recruited to watch and having downed three glasses of vodka, Paul is an active participant in the scene, at least for a while. By nightfall he’s stumbling over the dunes and into the camp of another one of those hot, horny men Paul’s always running into. The camper is Ed Wiley (billed as Myles Longue), though given the scene’s minimal lighting and iffy focus it could be Tom Selleck for all we know.

Gordon (Hugh Allen) spreads for Will Seagers.

Meanwhile, Gordon finds his way to Paul’s pad. Dennis isn’t too enamored by Paul’s new guest, however: “After giving it some thought, I’ve come to the conclusion that you, Gordon, are an inconsiderate fuck.” Gordon counters with, yeah, but you know we’re going to make it anyway. And this argument works, because of course it does. But Gordon is just something to keep him occupied until the movie’s (mild) surprise ending.

Dune Buddies doesn’t come close to matching Boys in the Sand’s artsy erotica, but it’s very close to matching the Fire Island of my fantasies, including the royalty-free disco. And unlike the previous gay porn film I reviewed, almost all the men of the cast have a sexiness that stands the test of time, provided you have a high tolerance for ’70s hairstyles—and really, by now you should because, honey, we all have ’70s hair at this point. I just wish some scenes were better lit. The scene between Malo and Wiley is like watching two shadow puppets fucking.

About that Scarface connection: Dune Buddies’ star, Malo, later found some mainstream success as Arnaldo Santana, appearing in two Al Pacino movies, Cruising and Scarface. He also had a small part in the 1983 TV movie Rage of Angels and was a regular cast member in the failed Norman Lear sitcom a.k.a. Pablo. Amusingly, the trivia section on Santana’s IMDb page states that it was the actor’s weight gain—hey, maintaining that Dune Buddies physique had to be exhausting—that prevented him from landing bigger roles, not his gay porn past. Santana passed away in 1987 at age 37. No cause of death was given, and I found nothing online to confirm my suspicions, so I won’t speculate here.

From Dune Buddies to Scarface, from Malo to Arnaldo Santana.

An actor’s death is a sad conclusion to a blog post, but, then again, who isn’t at least a little sad at the end of a vacation, even a vicarious one? Especially when we know we have to return to 2020. <sigh>

‘Life is Not Always a Basket of Meat’

June is Pride month, so what better way to celebrate than with classic gay porn? Actually, there are a lot of better ways to celebrate Pride, but I watched an old gay porno film and it’s June, so…Happy Pride!

But the old classic gay porno I watched isn’t just some compilation of Nova loops. No, this is a movie, one about the moral compromises one young man makes in his pursuit of Hollywood stardom, a story brought to life by drag queens, cumshots and clowns. This is THE LIGHT FROM THE SECOND STORY WINDOW, the 1973 showcase for its writer-director-star, David Allen.

Lee Jones (Allen) is “an innocent little boy from out of town,” who has taken a job with a mysterious Mr. Cury in Los Angeles. Meeting him at the bus station are Mr. Cury’s assistants, Karl (Winston Kramer), a perpetually annoyed soul brother, and Mother (Richard Lindstrom), a perpetually annoying drag queen. I’m not sure if the character of Karl was supposed to always be in a bad mood or if that was the only way Winston Kramer was capable of playing him. He rocks a big-ass pendant and does justice to a pair of tight, white pants, however, so we’ll let his one-note acting slide. More intriguing is Lindstrom as Mother. Looking like a genetic experiment that combines the DNA of Ruth Buzzi, Linda Belcher and an arachnid, Lindstrom puts his entire spindly body into each syllable Mother utters, making her look like a marionette controlled by a palsied puppeteer. Even RuPaul would be telling this bitch to tone it down. Yet, while I found Mother as irritating as Karl does, I couldn’t take my eyes off her, the same way you can’t look away from a gruesome car wreck.

Lee meets Karl and oh, Mother-fuck, no!

But this isn’t Mother’s story, it’s Lee’s. After Mother flits off to buy a dress, Karl takes Lee back to a male whorehouse, where he has Lee wait outside (“You won’t run away, will you? You do, I’ll find you.”) while he goes off to do…something. Lee is left waiting with Alma, an older woman waiting for the titular light from the second story window that lets her know her manwhore is available. (“I’ve been waiting all day to get fucked,” she sniffs.) Alma is played by Ann Noble, writer and star of the 1972 movie Sins of Rachel, who is bit of a question mark. Her IMDb page simply states she was an actress and writer, but her mannerisms and her penchant for high, Adam’s apple-concealing collars scream drag queen. Either way, you go girl!

Ann Noble turns on her womanly charms.

That second story window finally lights up, but the available hustler is taken by a bewigged man appearing out of nowhere, pushing past Alma as he hurries up the stairs, rubbing his crotch and mumbling, “Gotta fuck.” This leads to the movie’s first sex scene. How hot is it? Well, if you’re into stilted twink-on-men-who-look-like-Linda Hunt action, prepare to paint the walls white. The rest of us are going to hit fast forward.

With apologies to the B-52’s.

Meanwhile, Lee gets broken in by Karl, and is then put to work by the still unseen Mr. Cury. His first clients are a father and son (“I guess their philosophy was that a family that plays together, stays together,” Lee titters in a voice-over). Next, he services a closeted movie star whose house is the epitome of ’70s décor, with dark paneling, orange shag carpet and chairs and tabletops suspended by chains from the ceiling. The movie star is played by muscular Rick Cassidy, billed here as Jim Cassidy, who was a more familiar presence in straight porn, including The Danish Connection and New Wave Hookers, the latter starring an underage Traci Lords. That he had done gay porn was a surprise to me (his other gay titles include Desires of the Devil and A Deep Compassion, which also starred Allen). Cassidy was certainly one of the better looking—and better built—men in straight porn, and he’s one of the best-looking men in Second Story. It’s Cassidy’s body that elevates his scene with Allen, though it’s clearly a gay-for-pay situation.

Rick Cassidy knows how to make an entrance.

Lee offers his body to another prominent Ric(k) from straight porn, Ric Lutze, billed as Richard Lauette. Lutze plays a cop who shows up at Mr. Cury’s place during a dizzying orgy sequence that has Lee, a gold-faced clown and Mother, her dick a danglin’, treating the crowd to some performance art before the fucking commences. There’s so much reverb during this unwelcome bit of political theater that it’s often hard to understand what they’re saying, though I clearly heard the clown say the N-word, quickly followed by Lee wailing, “Down with racism!” I preferred watching the orgy, even if Stu Drexl, credited with directing the sex scenes, employs camera tricks that make the scene more headache inducing than erection producing.

“Hello, whore.” (Actual dialogue)

Officer Lutze enjoyed pounding Lee’s tiny butt so much during that orgy that afterwards, when he meets with Mr. Cury (Stephen Lester, onscreen at last) to collect his protection fee, he pushes for a personal session with the young hustler. “I hate faggots,” the officer says, adding that Lee’s a “pretty lil’ shit, ain’t he?” The cop is thoroughly nasty in his treatment of Lee (“You don’t like cum in your face, huh? You love it! You love it!”), and while some fetishists [link NSFW] might consider such abuse foreplay, the mistreatment sends Lee over the edge. As Lee’s emotional breakdown scene edges toward Lonely Lady territory, Mr. Cury shows up to jab a syringe full of nerve-calming smack into the sobbing blonde’s ass.

Second Story spends its second half on Lee clawing his way up from the depths of despair. This is also when David Allen indulges his writerly side. A middle-aged snake breeder (!), played by William Lasky, who had a career as a second unit director in mainstream film and TV, finds a disheveled Lee wandering the streets of L.A. and takes him home. “You know, I’d really like to have sex with you,” says the man bluntly. Lee politely refuses (“I’m tired of being a whore”), and the man waxes philosophical about the compromises made by homosexuals:

“We conform to the world’s standards, to their laws, their ideas of right and wrong. … You know, we came to believe they knew best: homosexuals are evil creatures. And we swallowed it. Their destructive attitudes towards us made us destructive to ourselves, and then to each other. I always wanted a friend who accepted his homosexuality and who could help me accept mine. … That’s it, you know: to love without the need for darkness, without caring about them.”

Ray Todd demonstrates his mastery of
the huh? facial expression.

Pretty heavy for a dirty movie, though at this point the Second Story appears to forget it’s porn as forty minutes pass before the next sex scene. Lee, after making one more fuck flick for Mr. Cury (his porn films are referenced frequently in dialog, but Lee is never shown appearing in one), finally gets his big break in a legit movie, also courtesy of Mr. Cury. So, I guess in the world of Second Story, talent agents are also pimps? Sounds about right. Anyway, Lee becomes a huge star, and befriends Alma’s young cousin Chuck (sure), whom he meets during a celebratory gathering at the Sunseteast [sic] Showbar. “Careful, darling, he’s straight,” Alma warns.

Of course, Lee is immediately smitten, and it’s easy to see why. Chuck is played by Ray Todd, who vaguely resembles Warhol star Joe Dallesandro, and who can be counted among the best-looking performers in the movie. Unfortunately, though Todd has the sex appeal of Dallesandro, he possesses neither Dallesandro’s charisma nor his acting ability, limited though it may be. As portrayed by Todd, Chuck is not only straight as a board, he has the emotional range of one, too. So, as much as I want to ridicule the decision to have Chuck, over at Lee’s house for a swim, remove his Speedo because he’d “feel more free-er” [sic], I’ll instead praise Allen’s directorial choice for realizing where Todd’s talents lie and getting him naked as quickly as possible.

Lee’s attempts to help Chuck discover his inner bisexual fail, so the movie star hires a hustler, Big John (Joey Daniels). “Nice place you got here,” the blonde rent boy remarks upon entering Lee’s home, a comment that had me wondering what sort of shitholes his other clients lived in as Lee’s house is just a dowdy 1940s-era three-bedroom. The set for Mr. Cury’s whorehouse was more befitting a movie star. Anyway, after Lee asks his houseboy to bring drinks (beer for Big John, Champale for Lee), Big John gets down to business. “What do you like to do? Suck cock?” No, Lee couldn’t be that easy. He wants to talk. “Life is not always a basket of meat,” Lee explains. Undaunted, Big John strips so Lee can “inspect the merchandise” (for the record, he ain’t that big, but maybe he’s a grower, not a show-er), becoming indignant when Lee still shows no interest in sex. “When you’re in the fucking business and your body doesn’t sell, where do you go?” Big John asks. He storms off, leaving behind the $20 Lee paid him.

Lee returns to Mr. Cury’s brothel, this time as a client. He’s dismayed when Chuck arrives, wanting to work for Mr. Cury, but that doesn’t stop Lee from being Chuck’s first client. Allen clearly enjoys himself during this final sex scene, but Todd is as exciting a sexual performer as he is an actor, no doubt maintaining his hard-on thinking about how he’d spend his paycheck. He’s easy on the eyes, nevertheless.

During their post-fuck conversation, Lee makes one final plea for Chuck to be his lover, but Chuck resists. The movie ends with Lee, outside the theater premiering his latest movie, wondering if fame was worth the price he had to pay.

The Light from the Second Story Window is actually an adaptation of a 1972 novel of the same name—David Allen’s novel.  I can’t speak to Allen as a novelist (the cheapest copy of his book I could find was just shy of $90, so, no, I’m not reading it), but he could’ve used some guidance with his screenplay and, by extension, his directing. He clearly had a lot of ideas he wanted to express, and he was going to express every fucking one, tone, pacing and budget limitations be damned. With a nearly two-hour runtime, Second Story is half campy melodrama, half hardcore porn movie, and the two halves, unsurprisingly, don’t coexist easily. When you follow a facial with police brutality, a nervous breakdown and a monologue about the loneliness of being a homosexual, you’ve pretty much killed the mood. Though, too be fair, none of the sex scenes are particularly arousing. Between gay-for-pay performers going through the motions and performers who, politely put, are less than photogenic, it’s a porn film that defies masturbation. (Allen was too much of a twink for my tastes, but I will give him props for being appropriately enthusiastic in his sex scenes, though, interestingly, he never got hard in any of them. His scene with Lutze might have been the hottest in the whole movie had Lutze’s character not been so despicable.)

Which begs the question, why was Second Story a hardcore porn movie at all? Wouldn’t it have worked better as a softcore film? It would, but I suspect the decision to go hardcore was a commercial one. Allen was already in the porn biz, and a gay porn film was virtually guaranteed to at least break even in the early ’70s. A low-budget drama about a gay man trying to make it in Hollywood? Not so much.

Second Story is more of an adult film curiosity than porn classic, but it’s still worth checking out to get a glimpse into gay life of its era. I just wish I could find out more about the making of the movie. Unfortunately, most of the people connected with it have either died (Lutze, Cassidy, Lasky) or just disappeared. Second Story was Allen’s swan song, but if he’s still with us I’d love to hear about his experience making the movie and why he quit just as he was getting started.

ADDENDUM: I was tooling around the internet, researching for a Halloween 2021 post, when I stumbled upon what is now my new favorite podcast, Ask Any Buddy, hosted by film historian Elizabeth Purchell (who directed a film of the same name) and Tyler Thomas. In each episode the pair review and discuss gay porn movies made between 1968 and 1986, including The Light from the Second Story Window. It’s a fascinating listen, revealing that this movie’s original runtime was three hours (!), that Ann Noble was indeed a woman, that the cast was almost wholly comprised of members of the Society of Pat Rocco Enlightened Enthusiasts (SPREE), and that Stu Drexl was, in fact, Pat Rocco. I don’t necessarily agree with their assessment of Ray Todd as an actor and sexual performer (really, you thought he was good?), but we agree on the movie as a whole. Ask Any Buddy also discusses Tom De Simone’s The Idol, which I’ve also reviewed.

The Hot Promises of the NC-17 Rating Turn Cold — Again

The cover art for the Vinegar
 Syndrome release.

When the NC-17 rating was introduced in 1990 it was supposed to carry the weight of an X without any of the stigma associated with it. It was the rating that let moviegoers know that while a film was for adults only, it was not porn.

That’s all well and good, but that didn’t stop most of us from thinking that any movie slapped with an NC-17 must be chock full of explicit sex. Or was that just me?

I know it’s what I thought when I spotted the 1990 film IN THE COLD OF THE NIGHT on a Blockbuster shelf in the early ’90s. At the time, I was not aware that Blockbuster did not carry NC-17 films or that In the Cold of the Night had been cut to receive an R. All I knew was this movie was a trashy erotic thriller and, according to the VHS box on the Blockbuster shelf, it was rated NC-17, meaning it would be extra trashy. I eagerly grabbed that fucker and rented it.

The tacky VHS box that I
saw on the Blockbuster shelf in
the early 1990s.

Needless to say, my expectations were quickly dashed. It had plenty of titties and f-bombs, but nothing that made it dirtier than your standard R-rated movie. Of course, it was an R-rated movie, but would an uncut version really be much different? Very few NC-17 movies ever seem to live up to such a severe rating, the line between an R and NC-17 often so thin as to be undetectable. Usually it means a penis or two appears on screen, but, frustratingly, not always. A story with a lot of sex seems more likely to get an NC-17, but said sex wasn’t necessarily hardcore. It could, as Kirby Dick pointed out in his documentary This Film is Not Yet Rated, just come down to the actors thrusting one too many times. At least XXX porn is unambiguous. NC-17 is a sham.

And yet I fall for it every goddamned time. It’s why, when I discovered that Vinegar Syndrome released the original NC-17 cut of In the Cold of the Night on Bluray and DVD combo, I had to purchase a copy of this movie. Maybe this director’s cut would be the “good” version of the movie Blockbuster denied me back in 1990s. (Spoiler alert: this is a Nico Mastorakis film. There is no good version.)

In the Cold of the Night’s protagonist, Scott (blond n’ bland Jeff Lester), is a successful Los Angeles photographer, specializing in photos of scantily clad babes, some of whom will happily spend the night with him. After all, who can resist rolling around on that lighted-up waterbed of his? But Scott’s post-coital slumber is disrupted by a nightmare in which he creeps through a spacious single-story mansion, discovers a beautiful woman showering and then proceeds to strangle her. When Scott wakes up he’s in the middle of choking his real-life bed mate, Lena (Shannon Tweed). Lena is a surprisingly good sport about Scott’s sleep strangling, but then this shouldn’t be too surprising as her character is written essentially to be an inflatable sex doll come-to-life (“I’m a one-night kind of girl. Guys usually invite me to dinner before, not after,” she quips). His best friend (Brian Thompson) makes jokes about the dreams and a psychiatrist (David Soul) assures Scott his mental health is sound, but neither allay Scott's worries about the recurring nightmares.

A glowing waterbed may not promote a restful night’s sleep,
but fuck it, it looks cool.

Then come the hallucinations, Scott going into a trance during a photo shoot as he sees himself prowling the mystery woman’s home. Later, while at Venice Beach, he sees what appears to be a Ramones wannabe wearing a t-shirt with an airbrush portrait of the woman of his homicidal dreams. He chases Ramones Wannabe to get his shirt and find out where he got it (Ramones Wannabe ran because he stole the shirt, it not occurring to him he could’ve just lied and said a friend gave it to him). This sends Scott to one of those tacky beachside t-shirt shops, where he tries to get info about the woman’s identity from the proprietor (John Beck), but, as we all know, the relationship between a mediocre airbrush artist and his clientele is strictly confidential and cannot be breached. Scott leaves him his card, nonetheless.

The next day who should show up at his door but the woman of his nightmares, Kimberly (Adrianne Sachs), making this visit specifically to tell Scott to fuck off. Undaunted, Jeff turns up the charm and before you know it, Kimberly is parking her motorcycle (yes, she rides a motorcycle) in his studio and letting him drive her to a lunch date with her mother. Scott drives a restored classic Chevy, by the way, this being a movie where the lead characters are given unique vehicles in lieu of interesting personalities.

Adrianne Sachs’ nuanced portrayal of a stoned woman experiencing
a stroke while checking out a man’s package.

It’s not long after that that Kimberly’s stunt double is giving Scott’s stunt double a motorcycle ride through her house (yes, through her house). The boxy mansion she calls home is, unsurprisingly, the same mansion Scott has visited in his dreams. Though the motorcycle ride ends at the bedroom, the couple decides to keep their hands to themselves—until Scott barges in on Kimberly taking a shower (“What took you so long?” she asks). At this point the movie idles in Skinemax territory. Sachs’ breasts, which are just a little too firm and perfectly shaped to be true, get a lot of screen time, though I imagine the MPAA watchdogs were more troubled by the millisecond appearance of Lester’s flaccid penis, which most definitely was not in the R-rated cut. The two actors may have thrust and gyrated more times than the MPAA is comfortable with as well. Personally, I’d demand cutting a sequence in which Lester pours a bowl of marbles onto Sachs’ body and rubs them over her breasts, not to ensure an R rating but because it’s stupid. But was any of this hot enough to justify the NC-17 rating? No, not even for 1990.

Kimberly’s involvement with Scott is not coincidental, of course, and neither are Scott’s dreams. More surprising are the revelations of a mind control experiment and Marc Singer’s participation in this movie.

In the Cold of the Night could be described as Body Double crossed with Videodrome and not as good as either. Among its many problems is its being nearly two hours long, which is at least twenty minutes longer than the movie needs to be, and you’ll feel every excess minute. There’s a lot of extra fat in the movie’s first half, with scenes that exist for contrived reasons, like Scott fleeing his home to sleep among the homeless on the beach, just to set up his spotting the Ramones Wannabe the next morning. (He also treats the homeless guy on the neighboring bench to an all-you-can-eat pizza buffet, something I think was meant as comic relief, but the scene’s neither funny nor necessary.) Other scenes—interrogating John Beck’s t-shirt shop owner; that lunch with Kimberly’s mom, played by Tippi Hedren(!)—seem to exist solely to give some name actors screen time, actors who deserve a much better movie.

The lopsided casting is another one of the movie’s flaws, but it’s also what makes it such a curiosity. In the Cold of the Night is brimming with overqualified actors in small roles. Brian Thompson is married to Mastorakis’s daughter, so maybe he was just helping out his father-in-law, but how to explain David Soul, John Beck and Tippi fucking Hedren being in this thing? Even Beastmaster star Marc Singer and direct-to-video erotic thriller queen Shannon Tweed seem out of this movie’s league, especially when they’re acting opposite such uninspiring leads. Jeff Lester (a.k.a. Mr. Susan Anton) later went on to guest on Baywatch, and “Baywatch guest star” perfectly describes his talent level as an actor (he’s doing quite well as a director today, so good on him). Adrianne Sachs never landed a guest spot on Baywatch, though her talent for modeling swimwear was perfect for that show. She’s a less than ideal choice to play the femme fatale in an erotic thriller, although I guess her willingness to get naked early and often should count for something (Sachs later went on to appear in Alien Intruder, in a significantly smaller role 😕). Ultimately, I wish Mastorakis had spent less money on notable supporting players and splurged on more capable leads.

It’s clear Mastorakis was aiming for something a little more highbrow with In the Cold of the Night, but no amount of Miami Vice-inspired art direction (i.e., lots of neon decor) or notable B- and C-list names in the cast can completely cover up the director’s low-brow sensibilities. Just enough of Mastorakis’ signature tackiness bleeds through to make you wish he just gave up this attempt at being a half-priced DePalma and made the type of crass exploitation movie audiences expect from the director of Island of Death. In short, if he was going to make an NC-17 movie, he should’ve fucking made it count.