A Horny Vampire

  Directed by Joe Gage *** Handys across America. An atmospheric mood piece about jacking off. Very dark and raunchy in places, the medium of the dirty phone call leading to some bizarre and almost free associative erotic fantasies. Interestingly some of the spoken fantasies blur the lines of gay/straight desire, men talking about being turned on by men engaged in sex acts with women. Jacking off leads to a kind of more extreme and unusual sexual fantasy than can take place in reality so it's interesting to see an erotic film try to capture that. There's something strangely offputting about this film, the excellent Man Parrish soundtrack new wavey but also ominous. One sequence in a car in the middle of the woods feels exactly like a slasher movie, whispered voyeurism, really dark cinematography and threatening moments. In the Ask Any Buddy podcast, Evan and Tyler argue the mood of the scene shifts, but I was still highly unnerved by it. As a film, it is fairly erotic, but also...

Directed by Arthur J. Bressan Jr. ***** Been trying to think of the right words to talk about Forbidden Letters for a couple days now. After seeing the new restoration on PinkLabel.tv, I was blown away. Each scene has complex thematic exploration and is visually stunning. Forbidden Letters is a film about distance, longing and being closeted even when you're out and proud. Richard has been in prison for a year, while his boyfriend Larry waits and remembers. Today is the day Richard is released. They've had little communication, the letters they've so desperately wanted to write never sent for fear of outing Richard and increasing his jail time. So they wait in their pain, the ache getting stronger and stronger. The film opens on a strange avant-garde montage of a lawyer explaining the situation, which is later revealed to be Larry's dream. He is woken by a call from his friend, Iris, the rare female character in a gay porn film. She's a fun presence, but her role be...

  Directed by David Allen * Godawful slice of 70s gay erotica. The first hour contains 6 sex scenes all of which are pretty bad, the second contains 1.5 which are better but the whole film feels strangely paced and dull. David Allen wrote, directed, produced and starred in this film and it feels like a vanity project, lacking in many of the things that make gay erotica from this period interesting. A bit of a mess, but sadly not a very fun one. The attempt to make a Hollywood expose in the vein of All About Eve with the scale of Gone With The Wind is a flawed exercise from the start. The corresponding episode of Ask Any Buddy is helpful as ever, detailing how much of this was connected to the works of Pat Rocco and his fan club, SPREE (Society Of Pat Rocco Enlightened Enthusiasts). I also love their description of David L. Allen as "the world's oldest twink" who never gets a hard-on.

Directed by Jack Deveau **** The gay porn equivalent of a midnight movie. The lead character, Arachne, feels like Divine's distant cousin who just stepped out of a Warhol movie. She's a masterwork of camp, first appearing in a gorilla suit, riffing on Marlene Deitrich, and later giving a surprisingly moving monologue. Her goals are clearly defined and motivated, unlike the cheating James Bond-esque man trying to defeat her but constantly getting distracted by sex. It's hard not to be disappointed by the ending which as well as being very unsatisfying falls prey to some lazy gender politics. The sex here is notably unerotic, overlaid with strange animal sounds and chaotically edited. Also, has an insane fisting jump scare which has to be seen to be believed. I've often wondered, as I've been watching the Ilsa films, what a gay version of them would look like. The final third kinda answers that; irresponsibly horny and ending in a giant orgy. One of the tortures is ki...

Directed by Wakefield Poole ****1/2 I decided to watch Take One because of Evan Purchell's Ask Any Buddy podcast. I've been following him and his film for a little while, desperate to see it and to seek out some of the films used to create it. Gay erotica is an interest of mine, especially this vintage stuff which I think can tell stories about sex in a way that mainstream cinema and even porn nowadays refuses to do. So, I was delighted to see that he was releasing a podcast where he would discuss each of the 186 films he used at length. I'll be trying to watch and listen at roughly his pace. WARNING: For your enjoyment, do not try to understand this film: there is nothing to understand. It is only real people doing reel things and making them reel together. Poole's delightful, dreamy Take One feels distinctly un-porn like. Yes, there are the requisite sex scenes, but structurally, Poole plays with levels of reality and fantasy, the two constantly intermingling and unde...

Directed by Arthur J. Bressan, Jr. ***** Incredible. Bressan's debut feature is a remarkable work of erotic cinema that feels unlike anything else I've seen. It's less interested in fucking than it is about romantic connection, bridging the gap between experience and coming out and the yearning to be with someone. The first half is a beautiful but quietly devastating portrait of loneliness, the black-and-white cinematography just making their sadness more stark. Yet, there are moments of light and passion. The sex is hot and the artistic flourishes Bressan uses are delightful. A dreamy bubble sequence is full of intense close-ups and joy. In the film's second half our two lovers meet and the world bursts into gorgeous colour. What struck me most about this wasn't that it was some fantasia. That beach date and subsequent sex are rooted in reality. Flying a kite together is stupid and silly but it's also so so sweet. It kinda reminded me of my first dat...

Directed by Bruce LaBruce **** To watch a Bruce LaBruce film is to wait patiently for it to exhaust itself or to give up and get intensely frustrated. It's why they tend to work better when you're thinking about them afterwards. The Raspberry Reich is this at it's most extreme. LaBruce's provocations are incredibly overbearing here. Not just in sexually explicit material, but in the style of performance and visual appearance, splashing text all over screen to deliberately challenge and subvert the visuals, most often during those sex scenes. So, there'll be two guys fucking while CORNFLAKES ARE CAPITALISM flashes on the screen like a hyper socially conscious Noe. And that gets exhausting after a while. But as I sat in bed, trying to go to sleep, I couldn't shake the idea that The Raspberry Reich had something more important to say. And then it hit me, this is perhaps the only film I've seen that comes close to examining the overwhelming s...

Directed by Bruce LaBruce ***1/2 Is it weird that this is the LaBruce film I've liked the most? It helps that he's not on screen. Watching one of his films is so frustrating. Underneath all the lazy, empty provactions (skinhead cumming to Hitler = eye roll), there are some interesting ideas about different ways to live as M/M (gay homophobic bullies vs domestic middle-class gays). Extended porn version is a better, smarter film (no joke, I promise).

Directed by Wakefield Poole **** The first half contains some of the most beautiful imagery I've seen in erotic cinema. Gorgeously colourful and psychedelic visuals have an abstract meaning but are always visually arresting. The second half featuring a looooong orgy scene goes forever. While it's interesting to see how each guy's kink manifests itself with different depictions of gay sexual activity, I craved for something more tangible. Still, Wakefield Poole remains a smart pornographer whose work is seriously underrated. Highly recommend the Vinegar Syndrome DVD which features a stunning restoration and a fun little interview with Linda Williams. Her book, Screening Sex, has shot straight to the top of my purchase list.

Directed by Bruce LaBruce * A completely pointless infuriating follow up to Otto . While that film demonstrated that LaBruce has ideas backing up his provocations, this is nothing but gross sex. Wound fucking, mindless sex and a confusing narrative that never coalesces into something meaningful. Especially frustrating given there are moments that stumble towards something poignant. The aching loneliness that pervaded Otto is here, hiding just out of sight, giving this awfully dull film an air of melancholy. LaBruce is just interested in grossing out by shoving a weird penis in an open chest wound for no reason other than to shock. Shock works best when paired with narrative or thematic value and that has none. As a porn film (I watched the hardcore director's cut version), this also fails. The sex, after it gets past the gross bit, is formulaic and predictable. The orgy scene that ends the film doesn't even feature Sagat and feels like time wasting. One posi...

Directed by Hisayasu Sato ***1/2 Exists in the strange place between desire and horror. Most of the sex acts we see here are extremely arousing, focussing on parts of gay desire we do not often see on screen (licking bulges, kinky underwear, BDSM play) but the rape angle is incredibly distressing. Everyone uses this boy for sexual gratification and Sato ensures that we are also on that list. Hot but also not.

Directed by Fred Halsted ***** As one of the first gay porn films ever made, this seems to be less about deconstruction than it is about an alternative route. Very few adult films are as incomprehensible and avant-garde as this one, yet it remains arousing by focussing on areas apart from the traditional (close-ups on stomachs, thighs, butts) and through juxtaposing the fucking with the landscapes. Absolutely fascinating.

Directed by Toby Ross *** Fascinating but emotionally empty example of early gay porn. The story is engrossing, but is too simple to be as powerful as those themes should be. Main character is an absolute asshole but still don't think he deserves the tragic downfall. Big problem with the music which never seems to fit the scene (and not in a cool atonal way) and the fact that the best sex is crosscut with a small boy staring which is uncomfortable.

Directed by Toby Ross **** Less of a narrative (despite an odd framing device that never gets any kind of explanation) means there is more of a focus on the action. Most of which is heavily stylised, like the naked dance that opens the film or the fantasy fireside sex at the end. Uses pop music in a hilarious way that adds to the mood. One scene, featuring a vaguely bored boy, is set to Emerson, Lake & Palmer's 'C'est La Vie', giving the scene a touch of bitterweet melancholy that actuallly works, even if I doubt it's what Ross intended. But the best scene in the film is a lengthy solo session where a naked guy walks around the house vaguely horny. Unlike many solos in modern gay porn, climax isn't the point, more of an erotic exploration. It feels unlike anything else I've seen in erotic cinema because it doesn't feel performative, but merely an expression of this guy feeling himself.

Viewed September 14 2019 Directed by Jonas Middleton ***** Ever since I watched it a few nights ago, I can't stop thinking about Jonas Middleton's masterpiece of erotic cinema Through The Looking Glass. But even that categorisation seems overly simplistic because this is a weird porn film because all of it's (still very explicit) sex scenes are deliberately, almost perversely unappealing. Having a horror score (by Arlon Ober and Harry Manfredini of Friday The 13th fame) certainly helps but it's more in the performances. The sexual bacchanalia and free for all of the garden party scenes brings to mind Pasolini's trilogy of life but it's all too much, so far beyond limits that it more closely resembles Sweet Movie or Pink Flamingos. Deliberately unerotic. The same goes for the famous sequence where a camera goes inside Catherine's vagina. It's not sexy, just invasive, gross and disturbing. As Catherine recalls being sexually abused by her fat...

Viewed October 28 2019 Directed by Wakefield Poole **** Groundbreaking example of pornography predates Deep Throat but no-one remembers that. Works as a kind of lazy, horny summer day film where Casey Donovan can't keep his clothes on and with a gay paradise like Fire Island and a beautiful pool why would you? New life goal: move to a house with high fences and a pool so I can lounge around naked with my boyfriend all day. Nothing super outrageous but it is relatively arousing, especially the final sequence which is stunningly beautiful. One shot of a cock dripping precum with Donovan's face slowly moving into shot to swallow it is awe inspiring. Pick your fave 70s detail: all the dudes are wearing cock rings or they all have untanned lily white butts.

Viewed January 6 2020 Directed by Gerard Damiano ***1/2 Well, this is certainly one of the weirdest things I've ever had the pleasure to witness. A puppet porno comedy musical that has a lot of what the fuck imagery. During the first half, it's like the filmmakers decided to indulge in their most disturbed fantasies, turning out a dog/woman scene, a BLOWfish, a gross audition and Pinocchio using his nose as a dick (which later goes in a woman's ear). Goes on too long, but this is certainly SOMETHING. It makes you wonder who it was for. Muppet fetishists? This seems unlikely as this CAME OUT THE SAME YEAR AS THE MUPPET SHOW STARTED. Apparently, it was inspired by an erotic puppet show on the stage. Stage shows of weird funny sex shit work better because it seems more permissable. Here, it seems likely that this would've played in the same adult theatres that had screened Damiano's Deep Throat and Devil In Miss Jones. It's hard to imagine the moviegoe...

Viewed January 13 2020 Directed by Bud Townsend ***** My first 5 star film of the year. Don't hate me y'all. This is the most I've been entertained by a movie in ages. A silly porno musical parody of Alice In Wonderland should definitely not work and yet... It helps that Kristine DeBell is actually a good actress, but there's some surprisingly smart thematic work going on. Alice is a woman who believes she needs to grow up, to become more sexually active to keep her boyfriend on the line. While this suggests a very simplistic sex = maturity dichotomy, the film suggests that it's actually more complicated. Alice at one point states "If it feels good, it's usually bad." Another character gently tells her, "Trust yourself, if it feels good, it is good." That kind of instinctual understanding of sex and maturity is not something we often hear. Later, Alice has the revelation that growing up is not just having sex or doing adult thi...