Gorilla Handjobs, Pickled Heads and Edible Dildos

The poster photo of George Kuchar and
Marion Eaton makes it clear that this ain’t
Deep Throat.

2022 has no shortage of worthwhile Halloween viewing: X, Pearl, Nope, Barbarian, Fresh, Hellraiser, the news. Terrifier 2 is so extreme it reportedly has audiences vomiting.

But none of those movies leave audiences fearing where the cucumbers in their salads have been. So, this Halloween, let’s check out director Curt McDowell and screenwriter/star George Kuchar’s 1975 underground epic, THUNDERCRACK!

Six travelers are making their way across Nebraska on a proverbial dark and stormy night. There’s Bing (Kuchar), a high-strung circus employee driving a truckful of exotic animals, grumbling to himself about how much he hates the children in the audience—but not his beloved gorilla Medusa (“Gorillas are different than children. They have more hair.”)

Elsewhere, bisexual hitchhiker Toydy (Rick Johnson) gets a ride from Sash (Melinda McDowell, the director’s sister) and her sharp-tongued, perpetually horny girlfriend—and Brooklyn Community College Grad—Roo (Moira Benson). Roo asks—demands—to see what Toydy is working with. “Oh, honey, I’d give you the formula to the atomic bomb if I knew it,” she says when the hitchhiker takes out his cock. Toydy responds: “Didn’t they teach you that stuff at Brooklyn Community College?” But then an argument erupts between Sash and Roo, and their tussling sends the car careening off the road, resulting in a fiery explosion.

Chandler feels up Bond.*

The fire is witnessed by two other travelers: another hitchhiker, Bond (Ken Scudder), and, at the wheel, Chandler (Mookie Blodgett, a.k.a. Phillip Heffernan), widower of the late Sarah Lou Phillips, the heiress to the House of Phillips Unlimited girdle empire. However, the two men have other things on their minds than the source of the fire. Chandler asks his passenger if his admiring glances at Bond’s “rather extravagant torso” have made him ill at ease. “Well, no,” Bond responds. “It’s just that all you’re doing is just looking.”

The guys are interrupted when they’re flagged down by another traveler, Willene Cassidy (Maggie Pyle), virgin wife of country rock star Simon Cassidy. She also saw the explosion in the distance, and she urges Chandler and Bond to go investigate its source. Chandler wants to keep going to Waco, where he plans to burn down the House of Phillips factory. “You scare me, Mister,” Willene says. “You’re talking like some kind of beatnik.”

“Supposing I am,” Chandler replies. “What have you got against beatniks?”

“Well, for one thing, their bongo drums.”

Bond ultimately convinces Chandler to go investigate the scene of the fire, suggesting he’ll let the bi-curious Chandler have full use of his body if he does. Willene then goes to a nearby farmhouse to call for help. 

Prairie Blossom: An artist's representation.

The lady of the house, Gert (Marion Eaton), may not be much help. When Willene pounds on the door and calls out, the inebriated Gert gasps: “My God, that was a human voice. A woman’s voice!” The shitfaced widow rushes to fix herself up before opening the door. Since she’s wearing only a slip and high heels, one would think she’d simply put a dress on, or maybe a robe, but instead Gert puts on a wig and draws on dark, asymmetrical eyebrows (a Kuchar trademark). Realizing she’s too drunk to receive visitors, Gert sticks her fingers down her throat, but, uh-oh, her wig falls in the toilet just as she’s blowing chunks. No worries. Gert just shakes the vomit off her wig, puts it back on her head and finally lets Willene into the house. 

 

Gert gets ready to receive visitors.

Willene helps Gert cum clean.

Willene politely listens to Gert stumble through the history of Prairie Blossom, the house she and her late husband Charlie Hammond built, before guiding the poor thing into the bathroom to bathe her. “Would you mind washin’ me a little lower, please?” Gert simperingly asks. The seemingly naïve wife of country rock star Simon Cassidy obliges, getting a grateful thank you from Gert when she gets the widow off with a vigorous scrubbing.

Bond and Chandler arrive with Roo, Toydy and Sash, who conveniently escaped their wrecked car before it exploded. Everyone is irritable, but Gert, revivified from her recent bath and orgasm (as well as being more than a little nuts) welcomes everyone with a bright smile and opens her closet to her cranky guests, urging them to help themselves to some dry clothes. They must change clothes in the bedroom at the far end of the hall and, she urges them, be patient as each person takes their turn.

Things Get Weirder. And Filthier.

Chandler prepares to fire up the penis pump...

From this point forward the movie gets delightfully dirty. The bedroom at the far end of the hall—once her son’s—is a veritable shrine to sex, with a large assortment of sex toys, tubes of KY and rubbers to choose from. Its walls are decorated with pages from skin mags; stills from hardcore porn movies, both gay and straight; and erotic art (including a cartoon by the director). One poster that stands out is a generic portrait of George Washington, yet because it’s so innocuous, no one bothers to inspect it too closely. If they did, they would discover Washington’s eyes are cut out, allowing Gert a clear view through two peepholes drilled into the kitchen wall.

... as Gert watches.

And Gert gets a lengthy show as her weary and horny travelers give in to erotic temptation. Chandler avails himself of a very loud penis pump (seriously, it sounds like a rotary rock tumbler), while Roo uses a vibrator with a dildo attachment. Toydy fucks an inflatable sex doll while jamming a dildo up his ass, with some difficulty (“Get up there, goddammit!”). Only Sash—who, remember, is played by the director’s sister—takes a partner while in Prairie Blossom’s X-rated bedroom, boning Bond, who wears a novelty rubber for the occasion. (In the documentary It Came from Kuchar, Melinda McDowell-Milk mentions that Curt always wanted to celebrate sex in his work yet frustratingly never mentions how she felt performing in Thundercrack!’s hardcore scenes while being filmed by her brother. She was instrumental in getting the film restored for a Blu-ray release, so she clearly wasn’t traumatized by the experience, but I still wanted to hear her account of filming.)

Willene enjoys a refreshing snack.

While she watches from the kitchen, Gert masturbates with a rather long peeled cucumber. She’s barely finished with the cuke when Willene enters the kitchen, looking for a snack. She plucks the well-lubricated cuke from the bowl of fruit where Gert tossed it (“This looks refreshing”) and takes a bite, because you just knew someone was going to eat it. According to this movie’s IMDb’s trivia page, actress Maggie Pyle was, unbeknownst to her, eating the actual cucumber that had been up Eaton’s cooch, as payback for being a pain in the ass (i.e., showing up for filming drunk or otherwise fucked up). Kind of makes you wonder how many suspicious salads these people have been served while on set.

There are quite few more sex scenes to get through (the movie is almost three hours long), including Toydy fucking Bond. There are also a lot more secrets, like who’s pickled head is that down in the basement? What’s behind that locked door in the living room? And what does Gert mean when she insists that her son is not dead, he simply “no longer exists”? 

Dinner is served!

But before any of those questions can be answered, the house is surrounded by circus animals. A frantic Bing is let inside, and he has some secrets of his own, mostly involving his complicated relationship with the gorilla, Medusa. “Don’t minimize the danger, Mac,” he tells Toydy. “Medusa didn’t get that name for nothin’. One look at those blazing, red eyes surrounded by that black, matted hair can freeze a man to a block of stone on the spot. She made me hard one night.”

Cue a flashback sequence featuring underground filmmaker George Kuchar getting a hand-job from a gorilla (or, rather, Curt MacDowell in a gorilla suit). At this point, though, we’d be surprised if someone didn’t have sex with a gorilla.

Hardcore, But Not Necessarily Porn

Thundercrack! was originally conceived as a porn cash-in by McDowell and composer Mark Ellinger (both credited with Thundercrack!’s story), but the script written by Kuchar, who had been making underground movies with his twin brother Mike since the late 1950s, took the project in a different and wonderful direction. “I knew it wouldn’t make any money, because anything I work on is a financial disaster,” says Kuchar in the It Came from Kuchar documentary.

And Thundercrack! wasn’t a cash cow, either, but that doesn’t make it any less of a masterpiece. Sure, it’s not the most polished movie, with iffy sound and scene compositions that are at times more stagey than cinematic. And, sure, it doesn’t need to be nearly 3 hours long, but it’s not a problem that it is. You won’t be bored, no matter how many times you watch it. I’ve watched it several times and I always discover something I missed from previous viewings. Kuchar’s script has so many great lines that to include them all in this post would mean transcribing the movie’s entire script.

Chandler enjoys the show.

Eaton’s tour de force performance as Gert is another reason to seek this one out. Eaton was already an accomplished stage actress when, in her 40s, she decided to enter the world of adult films. The first adult movie she made, Sip the Wine, was produced by Heffernan, who told her about the auditions for Thundercrack! McDowell reportedly interrupted her during her audition to tell her the part was hers. And it’s hard to imagine anyone else in the role (though Georgina Spelvin would’ve been a good second choice). Eaton’s performance is at once sincere and a drag parody. Gert is an outrageous character, but Eaton doesn’t let us forget her humanity.

Kuchar gives the movie’s other standout performance, though after watching the documentary about him I’m not entirely sure he was acting. Scudder, who appeared in numerous porn films from the mid-1970s to the mid ’80s, one-and-done Johnson, and Heffernan, are all better than average, and Pyle is effective as Willene (not sure if her being drunk/stoned helped, but it didn’t hurt). The weakest performances are from Benson and (sorry!) Melinda McDowell, who, bless her heart, struggles the hardest to get out the mouthfuls of dialog required of her.

Thundercrack! is hard to categorize. It’s a send-up of old, dark house and hag horror tropes, but it’s not exactly a horror comedy (though it is very funny), and it’s certainly not a porn parody. In fact, though it has a lot of hardcore sex scenes, I don’t really consider it a porno at all. In the context of Kuchar’s script, the intention of the sex scenes is to shock rather than titillate. Thundercrack! is its own glorious thing. You may not be turned on, and you definitely won’t be scared, but you won’t fucking forget it.

*Don’t judge the movie’s cinematography by the quality of the stills in this post, which were photographed from my computer screen while the Blu-ray was paused. 

Double Takes: ‘The House of Usher’ (1989) ★★ / (2006) ★

OK, I was wrong.

A couple years ago, when I reviewed a selection of David DeCoteau movies, I advised readers to skip DeCoteau’s very gay and very bad Edgar Allen Poe’s The House of Usher and try their luck with two other schlocky versions, one from 1989, the other from 2006, speculating that both movies look “like they deliver the fun kind of bad DeCoteau didn’t.”

They do not, though director Alan Birkinshaw’s The House of Usher (1989), comes close. In this one, Molly (Romy Walthall, billed as Romy Windsor) and her fiancée Ryan (Rufus Swart) are vacationing in London when they get an invitation to visit Ryan’s heretofore unknown uncle, Roderick Usher. But on the way to visit Uncle Rod, Ryan swerves into a tree to avoid two children in the middle of the road (why, yes, they are ghosts; how did you ever guess?) Ryan’s injured, so Molly goes to get help, by chance stumbling up to the Usher mansion, where Clive the asshole butler (Norman Coombes) assures her that he’ll make sure Ryan gets the medical assistance he needs. Meanwhile, why doesn’t she have a cup of tea and a lie down upstairs before dinner with the master of the house?

When Molly finally meets Roderick (Oliver Reed), she’s assured that Ryan is in the hospital but unable to receive visitors just yet. Though Molly has her doubts, she agrees to stay put. However, it seems no amount of drugged tea—served regularly by Clive’s miserable wife (Anne Stradi)—will keep Molly in her room. As she explores the titular House of Usher, discovering, among other things, another member of the Usher clan (Donald Pleasence) kept locked away in the attic, Molly begins to suspect Uncle Rod might have sinister intentions.

This version of Usher has some things going for it. There are a few—very few—noteworthy set pieces, including a hand forced into a meat grinder fake-out and a character getting his dick gnawed-off by a rat; plus, Reed and, especially, Pleasence raise the bar considerably. Unfortunately, we spend most of our time with Walthall, whose performance seems better suited for a movie entitled Sorority Beach Party than a Gothic horror. In fact, the movie’s whole tone is off, like Birkinshaw and screenwriter Michael J. Murray had initially conceived this adaption of Poe’s story as a horror comedy but couldn’t think up any jokes—good or bad—before filming began. Yet, the movie is still filmed like a comedy, as brightly lit as a Disney Channel sit-com and with tacky sets that look as if they were hastily painted for a haunted house attraction at a high school Halloween fair. And the less said about the ending, which is as infuriating as it is nonsensical, the better.

But at least 1989’s Usher has some entertainment value. Not so director Hayley Cloake’s 2006 adaptation, which clocks in at a mere 81 minutes yet feels twice as long. This time out, our doomed heroine is Roderick Usher’s ex-girlfriend from college, Jill (pouty blonde Izabella Miko), who travels to the Usher estate upon learning of the death of Roderick’s sister—and Jill’s best friend—Madeline. Though the stern, Mrs. Danvers-esque housekeeper Mrs. Thatcher (Beth Grant) is less than welcoming, Jill sticks around after Maddy’s funeral, rekindling her romance with the charmless Roderick (a monotone Austin Nichols). Jill puts up with Mrs. Thatcher’s cock-blocking and her beau’s nightly sessions in a sensory deprivation tank to treat his neurasthenia, but it’s only upon discovering that the Usher family tree is a straight line that she begins to reconsider her relationship to the brooding Roderick.

Cloake’s movie may be a bit more competently made than DeCoteau’s Usher, but it isn’t any better; it’s just straighter. The movie’s most inspired elements—mixing in bits of Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca into the story; the incest twist—are wasted, as are most of the actors. Miko makes the best impression, though I’m not sure if that’s testament to her acting skill so much as she’s just given more of a character to play than her co-stars. An actor who should have stolen this movie was Grant, a prolific character actor who usually makes a big impression in small roles. Grant frequently appears in comedies, so I was looking forward to seeing what she did with a more serious role. Not much, it turns out. It’s not her fault, though; it’s screenwriter Collin Chang’s. And if you’re thinking of checking this one out to ogle Miko or Nichols, don’t bother. Though rated R, this Usher only offers a few shots of Miko in panties and skimpy top and a near-subliminal shot of Nichols’ pubes. At least DeCoteau had the courtesy to appeal his audience’s prurient interests, albeit clumsily. Despite the curb appeal of her movie’s cast, Cloake’s The House of Usher is strictly a teardown property.

Short Takes: ‘Someone Behind the Door’ (1971) ★★ 1/2

Somehow, I managed to live half my life without checking out the works of Charles Bronson. I remember seeing promos for TV matinee showings his 1970s classics—Mr. Majestyk, The Mechanic, Telefon—when I was in junior high, but those movies aired while I was in school, and I likely wouldn’t have watched them had I been home. I could’ve easily watched his movies in the 1980s, when Cannon Films could be counted on to dump a Bronson movie in multiplexes every year, but at that time I had no interest in watching an old man with a gun take out younger guys with guns. I was more excited about the release of Yentl. It was a lonely time.

But tastes and times change, and over the past few years I’ve been steadily working my way through Bronson’s filmography. I like his action shit, but I’m particularly fond of some of the European thrillers he made in the early 1970s, including Someone Behind the Door (or Quelqu’un derrière la porte if you’re fancy), directed by Nicolas Gessner.

Bronson plays an amnesiac, brought into a British hospital by a good Samaritan who found him wandering a nearby beach road. A neurosurgeon, Dr. Jeffries (Anthony Perkins), takes an interest in Bronson’s case and, after a brief examination, offers to take Bronson back to his home where he says he can observe Bronson more closely. “You know what hospitals are like,” Jeffries says. “They’ll just put you in a ward and forget about you.”

But the doctor has ulterior motives, but we already knew that as he’s played by Anthony Perkins. Jeffries has no interest in curing Bronson. He wants to manipulate him into murdering his cheating wife Frances (Bronson’s then real-life wife Jill Ireland) and her lover, played by Henri Garcin.

Someone Behind the Door isn’t the best of Bronson’s European films that I’ve seen (for my money, that would be Rider on the Rain, with Violent City a close second), but it’s an intriguing psychological thriller, nonetheless. Gessner, who directed 1976’s The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane, doesn’t inject much style into his film and his screenplay, co-written by Marc Behm, is at times a bit too dry, yet the two leads make it an interesting watch. Bronson didn’t have the most expansive range as an actor, but he’s up to the challenge in this role that casts him against type. Perkins is better, even though his casting immediately tips the character’s hand. Garcin is merely serviceable, in a part that’s little more than a cameo. As for Ireland, she’s OK, though her performance does little to dissuade me from thinking most of Bronson’s movies from the 1970s would’ve been at least ten percent better had he been married to someone else.

Toxic Relationships Build Self-Confidence And Other Unhealthy Life Lessons

Trigger warnings: This post includes references to sexual assault and abusive relationships. It also features photos of men kissing and Charisma Carpenter nude, but I can’t believe either of those things is a problem for readers of this blog.

Goddammit! I thought I had a good six months before I’d have to review the third 365 Days movie, but that was, like a lower subscription price or fewer transphobic comedy specials, just too fucking much to ask of Netflix. So, on August 19 the streamer dropped The Next 365 Days, and now, because I hopped on the bandwagon of reviewers shitting on this softcore sludge, I feel duty-bound to review it.

But first, let’s check out one of the first Fifty Shades of Grey knockoffs, 2015’s BOUND, from the studio that brought us the Sharknado franchise.

The Asylum was so eager to capitalize on the Fifty Shades sensation buzzing between pop cultures’ trembling thighs that it not only released the first Fifty Shades-inspired knockoff, the studio released it a full month before the first movie adaptation of E.L. James’ tragically popular porno books hit theaters.

Now, just because a movie is released by the Asylum doesn’t automatically mean it will be bad. They did give us Stuart Gordon’s King of the Ants, which is actually good, and the company has put out a few Christmas-themed movies that have a gotten five-out-of-ten stars or (slightly) higher on IMDb. The fact that Bound’s story did not include any supernatural elements also gave me hope as it would not be hindered by any shitty CGI. Plus, Bound stars Charisma Carpenter of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and its spinoff Angel. That’s a good sign, isn’t it? After all, she was quoted in 2003 as saying, “I’m not going to just do anything simply because the money is good. If I can't love a project, then I’m not interested.”

This is likely the expression Charisma had
when she got to page 5 of the script.

Then I watched the movie. Charisma lied. Or, maybe she agreed to take the part only knowing the movie’s title, thinking she’d be appearing in a remake of Lana and Lily Wachowski’s acclaimed lesbian thriller, only to realize too late that she’d been duped. But, most likely, her position changed as the years went by and the career momentum from Buffy and Angel began to wane. The only reason anyone appeared in Bound is the only the only reason the movie was made to begin with: to make a quick buck.

But while Bound is a cash-in on Fifty Shades, director and co-screenwriter Jason Cohn has done what he can to ensure that it isn’t a total rip-off. Michelle Mulan (Carpenter) is no naïve college student but a single mother with a daughter about to start college and a boyfriend, George (Mark McClain Wilson), who can’t make her cum.

Though maybe don’t feel too sorry for Michelle. Sure, she may have to use a vibrator to get off, but she also lives in a house the size of a Comfort Inn.

This is Michelle’s house. I call bullshit.

Daniel Baldwin, delivering the performance
you’d expect of him.

How is Michelle able to afford a mansion, and in Southern California, no less? She’s an executive for a real estate development company run by her father Walter, played by Daniel Baldwin (OK, you can go back to feeling sorry for her). But the company is not doing so well, and Walter’s right hand man Preston (“that guy” Michael Monks, cranking it up to 11) is pushing Walter to accept a bid to be bought out by a rival. Michelle is opposed to the sale, but she doesn’t yet have an alternative idea and is immediately dismissed by Preston, who’s an asshole. Lest you think Michelle has her father’s ear, Walter says he’s “inclined” to take Preston’s recommendation. “You said you wanted to sit at the table with the big kids,” Walter tells his frustrated daughter. It should be noted that all the other “big kids” are men.

So, Michelle might live in a mansion (yes, I’m going to keep harping on it, because it’s fucking  ridiculous), but she’s not respected at work, and she’s got daddy issues. And George can’t find her clit to save his life!

Ryan hopes Michelle will overlook his Big
Rapist Energy.

Then she meets Ryan (the late Bryce Draper, no stranger to Z-grade material), who makes eyes at her from the bar while she and her daughter Dara (Morgan Obenreder) are having dinner at what looks like a nightclub repurposed as a restaurant. Michelle ignores him at first, but only because she’s in the company of her daughter. After they get back home, she realizes she “forgot” her credit card and returns to the restaurant. Ryan’s waiting for her. After introductions, he invites her to have a cigarette with him. Michelle tells him she doesn’t smoke, to which Ryan responds: “Yeah, you do.”

Let’s discuss Ryan for a moment. I get that the character is supposed to be self-confident and arrogant, with an air of danger—all qualities someone with a shaky self-esteem and a hankering for excitement might respond to. But Bound has the same problem as Darker Shades of Elise: its male lead immediately comes off as creepy and repellent rather than sexy and mysterious. Draper isn’t bad looking, but he doesn’t project the sexual magnetism his role requires. He’s not so fuckable that one would overlook Ryan’s charmless personality. I can see the desire to fuck Jamie Dornan or even Michele Morrone (were his character not a kidnapper, that is) being so strong one would ignore the warning signs, for one night at least; Draper is easier to resist.

Michelle doesn’t resist, however, and is soon letting Ryan go down on her atop her father’s desk…

“I can’t wait for him to ask where all the snail trails came from!”

… and accompanying him to a BDSM sex club, exposing her to the mild side of kink (no fisting, piss play or CBT here).

Cordelia discovers the Bronze is under new management.

Ryan’s attempt to fuck her in the alley outside the club, in full view of a guy in a leather face cage, gets a hard no from Michelle. Ryan shows he’s open to compromise and takes Michelle back to his place, which looks like they just re-arranged the sex club set. Though Michelle is cuffed to a chair and blindfolded, the BDSM trappings do little to raise the temp of this lukewarm sex scene. At least Michelle liked it, and soon thereafter she’s ditching boring, stable George for a man who gives strong serial rapist energy.

You just know the Asylum wanted to put a starburst on the
DVD cover, urging people to “See Angel’s Charisma Carpenter
nude!” Too bad Carpenter beat them to the punch by posing for
Playboy a decade earlier.

But Michelle’s improved sex life negatively impacts her career. She blew off an important meeting with the head of Elliot and Associates, one that could possibly stave off the sale of her father’s company, to take a tour of the wild side (“wild” if you think French vanilla is daring). A day or so later, she brings Ryan along to a company-sponsored fundraiser. Though the event appears to be held in the entranceway of Michelle’s home, they hire a chauffeur to take them there, and during the ride Ryan gives Michelle a clit vibrator that’s remote controlled, and guess who has the remote? 

“Oh, shit. This movie isn’t going to get any
better, is it?”

Ryan wastes little time abusing his privilege, revving up the sex toy during Walter’s speech about finding a cure for Alzheimer’s. Ryan later pulls her into a bathroom for a quickie, then insists she not fix her makeup before they rejoin the party, so she steps out of the bathroom with her lipstick smeared down one side of her face like “a messy whore.” And who should be standing in front of the bathroom door but fucking Preston, who introduces Michelle to Jesse (Noel Arthur), the head of Elliot Associates! It should be noted that Preston enjoys Michelle’s humiliation more than Ryan does.

Less amused is Walter, who chastises her for bringing a “drug dealing car thief” to the fundraiser (like Daniel Baldwin can talk). This is not only the first the audience learns of Ryan’s criminal past; it’s also the first time Michelle learns of it, and yet she never comments on this revelation or in any way seems concerned by her lover’s alleged criminal history.

This is Michelle and Ryan, two scenes later.

What ultimately brings an end to this toxic relationship is Michelle suggesting some role reversal. How about if she spanked Ryan? Ryan coldly tells Michelle to leave, then goes after someone even more vulnerable: Michelle’s daughter Dara.

Bound is neither as terrible as I thought it would be nor as fun as I’d hoped. Carpenter does what she can, but her performance seems less committed as the movie goes along, as if she realized midway through that there’s no polishing this turd, so why bother? Even with the f-bombs and nudity, it feels like a Lifetime movie, and not a particularly well-made one. The movie seems to have a particularly hard time grasping how time works: it’s nighttime when Michelle arrives home from work, but once inside her house the mid-day sun is shining through her kitchen window. Later in the movie, the camera shows the clock on Michelle’s office wall moving from 1:50 to 4:20 p.m., right before Michelle makes 2 p.m. lunch appointment for that same day. Michelle travels further back in time to drop by a Terrell Owens-hosted pool party (sure, why not) to see Ryan on her way to this 2 p.m. appointment, telling him she can only stay a minute because the restaurant where she has her meeting is 30 minutes away. It’s like a math word problem that only has wrong answers.

The nipple clamps of vengeance.

To the movie’s credit, it doesn’t pretend its story is a romance, acknowledging that Ryan and Michelle’s relationship is abusive. In a scene in which Michelle returns to the sex club for some independent research, a dominatrix warns her that Ryan isn’t in for the kink; he’s a predator. “People like Ryan give people like us a bad name.” Bound’s messaging is still a bit dicey, suggesting that abusive relationships are merely character-building. Nevertheless, it was fun to see Michelle finally beat shithead Ryan with his own cat o’nine tails, though I still felt she was a little too merciful. It’s a scene that would’ve benefitted with the addition of a crocosaurus.

Torn Between Two Kidnappers

Bad as Bound is, it at least has a story to tell, with a beginning, middle and end within a compact 90 minutes. There are now three movies in the 365 Days franchise and there’s not a complete, cohesive narrative among them. THE NEXT 365 DAYS is like trying to fuck while drunk: it never gets good, and it never finishes.

In This Day’s climactic gun battle, Laura (Anna-Maria Sieklucka) was shot by her husband/kidnapper’s ex-girlfriend Anna, whereupon Nacho (Simone Sussina)—not a gardener but the son of a rival Mafia family—shot and killed Anna. Massimo (Michele Marrone), a.k.a. Scowly, then shoots his twin brother Adriano (also Marrone), a.k.a. Twitchy. At the beginning of The Next 365 Days, it’s revealed that Adriano, who took a bullet in his shoulder, is dead, while Laura, whose liver was aerosolized, survived, suffering only a barely perceptible scar and a bad dye job. When Scowly checks on her, she wakes up and immediately she wants to fuck. 

Americans struggle to get insurance coverage
for insulin but Laura is provided false eyelashes
while recovering from a near-fatal wound. Healthcare
really is so much better in Europe.

Remarkably, Massimo urges Laura to cool it; she’s still recovering, after all. Laura storms out of the bedroom in a snit and joins her pal Olga (Magdalena Lamparska, even more annoying this time out) on the patio, because I guess Olga now lives with them permanently (for those who give a shit, Olga has “changed her mind” about marrying Domenico, though I don’t know if that means she is or isn’t marrying him and the movie never clarifies the matter). Olga tells Laura they were all afraid of losing her and Laura says she’s grateful to have a second chance. Then Olga says what I was thinking: “More alcohol! I can’t look at that hair sober.”

In stunning turn of events, a makeover montage does not follow. Instead, the movie cuts immediately to the after, when Laura, hair done and wearing a sexy black dress, interrupts Scowly’s meeting with his fellow gangsters and asks her beloved kidnapper to see her when he’s done. Though Scowly was just hours earlier refusing to give Laura a hot meat injection for fear it might put her back in the ICU, he immediately excuses himself from his meeting to go fuck the bejesus out of his horny wife (time code 10:20, but it’s not really worth it).

What’s up with that tarp? Are Scowly’s loads so huge
the walls need protecting?

But just when it looks like the couple are about to rekindle that moment in Laura’s initial captivity when she said, “Fuck it, he’s hot,” she gets a call from Nacho, who, interestingly, also kidnapped Laura, albeit in a friendlier fashion. Laura later spots Nacho at a nightclub but is intercepted by Scowly before she can say hello. Later, Scowly accuses Laura of cheating on him with Nacho, plus he’s pissed that she didn’t tell him about being pregnant. Laura snaps that she lost their baby because of his enemies. It’s so sad to see a criminal and his victim fighting. 

Laura Torricelli: Businesswoman.

There’s an attempt at make-up cunnilingus later, but Scowly intuits (through taste?) that her thoughts are elsewhere, and he’s correct: Laura is fantasizing about Nacho eating her pussy. And so begins the cold war between the Torricellis. Since the lives of these “characters” revolve almost exclusively around fucking, Laura and Scowly must find other ways to pass the time while giving each other the silent treatment. Laura, remembering she was given a fashion house for Christmas in This Day, decides to throw herself into her business, while Scowly pursues other interests: jacking off in the shower and snorting cocaine.

The rest of the movie is devoted to Laura trying to decide between two kidnappers. Since those are the only two options (the third, more sensible option of escape, followed by intense therapy, is never on the table), it should be a no-brainer: Nacho. Sure, he kidnapped her, but he at least made it appear like he was rescuing her, and he’s way more pleasant, besides. Also, in all the sex scenes in which Nacho appears (three in fantasy, one real), he seems to be a more giving lover (Scowly fucks like he’s late for an appointment). Alas, The Next 365 Days can’t make it that easy, or that final. I’m saddened to report that this one also ends on a cliffhanger, meaning there could be fourth one of these things.

Massimo Torricelli: Pud pounder.

That the possibility of a fourth installment of this supposed erotic franchise fills my heart with dread should tell you all you need to know. The Next 365 Days isn’t quite as offensive as its predecessors, but only because the movie brushes the circumstances of Laura and Scowly’s first meeting in 365 Days under a cum-stained rug and never acknowledges them. Plus, this franchise gets less and less engaging each time out so by this point I couldn’t even work up the energy to be mildly annoyed by its fucked-up sexual politics.

If you think getting drunk and screaming a lot
is funny, then you’re in for a treat: The Next
365 Days features 30% more Olga.

About the only thing The Next 365 Days has going for it is featuring more Nacho—or rather, more nude scenes from Sussina. If you were to just watch the scenes with him and Sieklucka together, you might even mistake this movie for being the erotic romance it’s pretending to be. It’s a good thing, too, because Marrone has noped out of doing any nude scenes for this one, and Sieklucka gets naked less frequently. Had directors Barbara Bialowas and Tomasz Mandes (really, it took two directors?) not included some sex scenes involving superfluous characters and/or extras the movie would be in danger of having a whole 20 minutes go by without any simulated humping. If you think that’s a complaint, it’s not. I’ll take gratuitous sex scenes over pointless montages—or “comic relief” from Olga—any day. Unfortunately, whether people are bumping uglies or slow walking into a restaurant, it’s going to be soundtracked to irritating Europop with godawful lyrics like: “Kiss me like a stranger/Come and taste my flavor/You don’t need no chaser/Just vibe on my danger.” There are no fewer than 27(!) songs featured on the soundtrack. The original cast recording of Evita only had 23, and that’s a fucking musical.

The “Good Parts”

Psych! This is as far as they go.

22:30: In the VIP room of a nightclub, Laura fondles Scowly’s crotch while an exotic dancer performs. She then joins the dancer on stage, acting like she’s about to treat Scowly—and the audience—to some girl-on-girl action, only to dismiss the dancer so she and Scowly can have some hard-pounding (but fully-clothed) sex.

A box lunch with Nacho.

30:19: Laura dreams of Nacho going down on her, and the scene really does Sussina’s ass justice. The scene transitions into Scowly eating out Laura for “real”, but Marrone keeps his pants on for the scene.

Scowly suspects this meal isn’t for him.

“Quack like a duck!”

39:00: Scowly goes with some of his Mafioso colleagues to a fetish club where lines of coke are served on trays like hors d’oeuvres. He makes out with a silicone-inflated club girl but can’t bring himself to cheat on Laura. The camera instead turns its attention to another guy in Scowly’s booth having a three-way with two latex- and leather-clad women.

41:35: Laura walks in on Emily, the lead designer at her fashion house, getting rammed from behind by a hunky model.

Emily and her boy toy pad the run time.

52:10: More fantasy sex with Nacho, this time featuring a full menu of positions: rear entry, missionary and cowgirl, all performed in smoke-filled studio under a tent of bamboo garden netting and lit by a flashlight.

Laura fantasizes of Nacho while the audience has fantasies
of the producers of The Next365 Days hiring a
lighting technician.

1:08:23: Real sex with Nacho. You know Laura is really with Nacho because you can actually see what’s going on.

Laura about to get covered in hot Nacho sauce.

1:19:08: Laura in the shower. No sex, just titties. (You’re welcome, straight male and lesbian readers.)

1:27:57: Laura is in a ménage à trois with Scowly and Nacho. The guys work their way down Laura’s body, then pause to look into each other’s eyes…and kiss! To the actors’ credit, they fucking go for it. Yes, there is tongue, and not just a little bit. Alas, just as the scene is getting interesting, Laura wakes up, because of course it’s just a dream. 

OK, now I’m interested.

If there is in fact going to be a fourth movie, I can only hope Scowly and Nacho will make my dreams come true by going all the way. But this is the 365 Days universe; nothing that interesting would be allowed to happen.

The end? That’s about as likely as Sussina and Marrone fucking
on camera.

Short Takes: ‘All Day and a Night’ (2020) ★★ 1/2

Writer-director Joe Robert Cole’s All Day and a Night starts off strong, with its lead character Jahkor (Ashton Sanders from Moonlight) sneaking into a house and confronting a man and his girlfriend with a pair of Glocks pointed at their heads. “Jah” is seething with rage, but he’s also scared, and you sense he’s just as likely to turn and run as pull the triggers. It’s that moment of apprehension that makes the violence shocking, even as you see it coming.

But All Day and a Night’s weakest moment immediately follows. During Jah’s sentencing hearing, the mother of one of his victims makes her statement, demanding to know why Jah did what he did. It should be a heart-wrenching scene, but it instead comes off like it was lifted from an episode of Law & Order. And then the voice overs start. “People say they wanna know why,” says Jah, “but they really don’t.” Cue the flashbacks.

Just as I was beginning to fear I was in for a two-hour PSA against gang violence, the movie corrects course. Cole’s script and direction remain kind of wobbly, however, as the Black Panther screenwriter not only shows us why Jah ended up behind bars, also tells us, just to make sure we get it. Jahkor’s harrowing childhood—getting bullied in elementary school; getting abused at home by his father, JD (Jeffrey Wright), who beats Jah for allowing himself to be bullied—really doesn’t require the extra explanation. It’s not a surprise that by the time Jah is in his late teens he and his friend TQ (Isaiah John) are holding up guys in their East Oakland neighborhood. TQ embraces this outlaw existence, idolizing local celebrity Thug’ish Trex (James Earl), who very much lives the gangsta life he raps about. Jah merely tolerates Trex, not wanting anything to do with his drug dealing but hoping that Trex will help Jah launch his own rap career. Jah then leans that his girlfriend Shantaye (Shakira Ja’nai Payne) is pregnant. Surprisingly, he’s happy about the news and, after hitting a series of brick walls, gets a job working at a faux Foot Locker.

But a low-level retail job doesn’t pay enough to support one person, let alone a family. It’s practically inevitable that Jah would end up working for gang boss and criminally underdeveloped character Big Stunna (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II), yet Cole still feels the need to explicitly tell us that this choice is no choice at all. “There’s whole neighborhoods that know more about life inside prison than out,” says Jah in yet another V.O. “Generations of men and women, brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, uncles, aunties, cousins, all of us, all part of the same fuckin’ story on fuckin’ repeat. Makin’ this into a life while everybody on the outside looks in, pretending they could do better.”

All Day and a Night features some solid acting, especially from Sanders, Wright and, as Jah’s mother, Kelly Jenrette, as well as some vibrant cinematography. But while the movie is compelling, it never quite hits as hard as you expect it to, mostly because while Cole has decided on the central theme of the school-to-prison pipeline that traps so many young Black men, he never lands on a central story. Much of All Day and a Night is about Jah’s being doomed to a life of crime (i.e., “the same fuckin’ story”), until suddenly it’s about his mending his relationship with his father when he ends up in the same prison as JD. By the end I felt as if I’d watched two B-stories that never quite added up to a single, satisfying film.