All posts by Allan Mott

Documentary

Graphic Sexual Horror (2009)

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At the height of its popularity, the now-defunct Insex.com had 35,000 members, all of whom joined to indulge in graphic depictions of the sexual torture of beautiful women. The title of the documentary about the site, Graphic Sexual Horror, should be taken as a warning, not a sensationalistic come-on. This is not the naughty bondage-lite of Bettie Page; this is the stuff of Saw-inspired serial killers.

Co-directors Barbara Bell and Anna Lorentzon aren’t coy about the footage they include in the film, which is certainly brave of them, but also foolish. Unlike the similar Zoo, which only showed the briefest possible glimpse of the activity in question and still managed to remain highly effective, here the viewer is eventually numbed by the constant sadomasochistic imagery, making it difficult to focus on the points being raised.

Which is a shame because there are several interesting points raised in the film. Especially intriguing is the question of whether or not any act can be considered truly consensual once money is added into the equation. In one interview, a model admits a scene she took part in could be considered rape, but she let it to continue and appeared in several more after it, because the money she earned allowed her to go on frivolous shopping sprees.

How many people, I wonder, could share similar sentiments about the regular jobs (i.e. those that don’t involve undesired anal penetration) they go to every day? It’s too bad Graphic Sexual Horror gets too caught up in its own transgressive extremity to satisfactorily answer this and the other questions it raises. —Allan Mott

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Horror

Neighbor (2009)

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There’s a point midway through Neighbor where, after sucking for a long time, it convinces you it’s about to not only stop sucking, but might actually justify the previous sucking that took place. Then it yells, “Psych!” and starts sucking all over again, and continues on sucking until the credits finally roll.

The film follows a nameless maniac who is able to invade the homes of strangers and torture them to death, because she looks like America Olivo (Bitch Slap) and doesn’t fit the whole psychotic serial killer stereotype. After we see her torture and kill a bunch of people we don’t know (including John Waters regular Mink Stole), she moves on to a bunch of characters we do know, but still care very little about. After she has tortured and killed them, we find out someone else has been arrested for her crimes, and she’s free to go on her hot-chick homicidal ways.

The generous fool in me wants to believe writer/director Robert Angelo Masciantonio was going for an American Psycho-esque satire here, but without that film’s pedigree and deliberate stylization, Neighbor adds up to little more than a series of increasingly violent acts perpetrated on the human body, climaxing with a scene where Olivo (whose performance is the film’s sole highlight) inserts and breaks a glass tube in her main victim’s (obviously rubber) penis.

As graphic as this moment is, it lacks the authenticity required to be genuinely frightening, which is ultimately the problem with the entire movie: It never earns the disgust it tries so hard to invoke. —Allan Mott

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Comedy

The Gumball Rally (1976)

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If you were to check the leaderboard for comedies about illegal cross-country road races, you’d find that The Gumball Rally is firmly in the #2 spot. Trailing behind Paul Bartel’s Cannonball (which is even better if you imagine it as an unofficial prequel to Death Race 2000), it’s still miles ahead of Hal Needham’s The Cannonball Run series, which are classic examples of how movies that were obviously a lot of fun to film, usually aren’t a lot of fun to watch. (And if you’re wondering about Speed Zone, everyone involved in that fiasco died crashing into the wall or, at least, they wish they did).

Starring Michael Sarrazin as a wealthy businessman who relieves his existential boredom by running an annual underground race from New York City to Long Beach, Calif., the film follows the same loose, character-based structure of all those other films (a mold whose origins can be traced directly to Stanley Kramer’s It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World).

Although The Gumball Rally lacks the star power of Needham’s films, its lack of recognizable celebrities is mitigated by the fact that its cast actually made the effort to inhabit likable characters, rather than just mug shamelessly until the director announced it was time to get back to the hotel and par-tay.

Director/writer Charles Bail keeps the film light and slightly cartoony, and although some moments don’t quite work, the majority of the film moves as quickly as the vehicles it depicts right until the finish line. —Allan Mott

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Sex

The Happy Hooker Goes Hollywood (1980)

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At the risk of offending many, I’m going to chance controversy by just flat-out saying that The Happy Hooker Goes Hollywood is the best film in the entire Happy Hooker canon. Sleazier than The Happy Hooker, funnier than Goes to Washington and considerably better made than My Pleasure Is My Business (a Canadian movie that counts as an unofficial entry in the series if only because it stars Xaviera Hollander, the real “Happy Hooker,” as a contented courtesan), Hollywood is a bawdy, fun time that you should only be mildly ashamed for enjoying.

In Hollywood, Hollander is played by Hammer horror regular Martine Beswick, who was never a noted comedienne, but doesn’t have to be, since she’s the straight woman in this farce and is only required to frequently appear without her clothes on, which she does very well.

Drawn to Los Angeles to sell her life story to Phil Silvers’ troubled Warkoff Brothers Studios, she decides instead to go the independent route when she discovers that lover/Silvers’ lackey Adam West is an even bigger whore than she is. Naturally, in order to finance the film, the merry madam turns to her crew of pneumatic working girls, who bring in big profits and bigger comedic complications.

The Happy Hooker Goes Hollywood satisfies because it’s a well-made film that isn’t embarrassed to be exactly what it is: a 90-minute excuse to display some truly astonishing naked bodies. That you also get to see Batman in drag is simply icing on the cake. —Allan Mott

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Comedy

School Spirit (1985)

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Ask any priapic teenage boy with an ounce of imagination what he would do if he could become invisible, and chances are, he’d blush so hard he’d actually achieve an ironic moment of flaccidity.

It’s a shame, then, that the filmmakers responsible for School Spirit didn’t ask a teenage boy to write their script, since it is as impotent an example of the teen titty comedy as the ’80s ever produced.

Made by the same East Indian investors who gave us the insane Sho Kosugi fiasco Nine Deaths of the Ninja, the film tells the tale of Billy Batson (Tom Nolan), a college cut-up who becomes the titular spirit when an emergency-condom run leads to a seemingly fatal car crash. With just a few hours left before he has to follow his spirit guide uncle into the light, Billy’s tangible ghost makes a valiant effort to get laid one last time — first with the frosty Elizabeth Foxx (in a performance that is the very definition of “leggy”) and then with convent-raised, French girl Daniele Arnaud — while also making an effort to honor the sacred college tradition of “Hog Day.”

Sadly, the movie’s chief gimmick is little more than an afterthought and Billy spends far more time as a regular douchebag than an invisible voyeur. The boredom is occasionally relieved by a fun performance from Marta Kober, who seems to be channeling Tatum O’Neal in her role as the dean’s braless jailbait daughter, but she alone can’t overcome everyone else’s lethargic disinterest. —Allan Mott

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