Hey everybody. April was a hectic and terrible month for me. I had planned Troma month then had undergone even more personal problems with the family which kept me off the site for awhile. I was still online and such, but I was unable to keep the site updated. During the time I was gone, I received 4 DVDs in the mail from CAV Distributing. Three of them were late 70's/early 80's erotica films while the other was a documentary. I'll keep the erotica reviews noticeably shorter due to the genre not being my forte. I also won't rate the three Erotica films. All four films are in Italian with English subtitles and this is the first time all of these are for sale in the states.
Sex and Black Magic
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Plot: An aging couple journey to the Caribbean in hopes of assisting the intimacy in their love life. Unfortunately, they meet unruly natives and encounter a little black magic.
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My Thoughts: This was the first of the three I watched and I immediately became aware of the differences between these films and current day softcore porn that you would see on HBO or Cinemax. Erotica from the past actually seemed to want to develop story along with showing some skin, not just spurting out goofy phrases like "Stop your grinnin' and drop your linen!" (also a line from Aliens). Luckily for fans of the genre, this is a fine piece. It's shot very well, has a great soundtrack of soft music, and also stars the beautiful Lucia Ramirez in the lead. Thumbs up from me.
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Note: There are also extra hardcore inserts that were shot for an alternate release of the film. These shots are actually pretty steamy and also get a thumbs up, although there is the view through the guys legs from the back underneath the balls.
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Plot: An aging couple journey to the Caribbean in hopes of assisting the intimacy in their love life. Unfortunately, they meet unruly natives and encounter a little black magic.
----------------------------
My Thoughts: This was the first of the three I watched and I immediately became aware of the differences between these films and current day softcore porn that you would see on HBO or Cinemax. Erotica from the past actually seemed to want to develop story along with showing some skin, not just spurting out goofy phrases like "Stop your grinnin' and drop your linen!" (also a line from Aliens). Luckily for fans of the genre, this is a fine piece. It's shot very well, has a great soundtrack of soft music, and also stars the beautiful Lucia Ramirez in the lead. Thumbs up from me.
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Note: There are also extra hardcore inserts that were shot for an alternate release of the film. These shots are actually pretty steamy and also get a thumbs up, although there is the view through the guys legs from the back underneath the balls.
Sexy Pirates
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The Plot: The ambassador to King Charles II is on his way to Jamaica to sign a peace treaty with the French and gets captured by pirates before he can arrive. His wife is left with two options. She can give them what they want, or she can resist their threats.
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My Thoughts: This film, directed by Joe D' Amato (same director of Sex and Black Magic) , is almost as good as Sex and Black Magic. Both are just as entertaining as the other and both have beautiful women and both tienen muchos pechos grandes. In fact, if both movies toned down a tad of the sexual seduction and the nudity, you could probably pass both of these off as non-erotic material. This is another film for the genre fans.
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Note: No special features for this one.
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The Plot: The ambassador to King Charles II is on his way to Jamaica to sign a peace treaty with the French and gets captured by pirates before he can arrive. His wife is left with two options. She can give them what they want, or she can resist their threats.
------------------------
My Thoughts: This film, directed by Joe D' Amato (same director of Sex and Black Magic) , is almost as good as Sex and Black Magic. Both are just as entertaining as the other and both have beautiful women and both tienen muchos pechos grandes. In fact, if both movies toned down a tad of the sexual seduction and the nudity, you could probably pass both of these off as non-erotic material. This is another film for the genre fans.
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Note: No special features for this one.
Transgression
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The Plot: A stressed out college student takes some drugs to chill out and relieve some of his pressure. Unfortunately, he becomes overwhelmed with a new kind of stress as he hallucinates and imagines up a new lover that will teach him everything about sex.
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My Thoughts: Transgression - a noun meaning infringement or violation of a law, command, or duty. In other words, it's a sin and this movie is full of it. Being the first of the three that truely feels 100% like an erotic film, Transgression kicks it up a notch in the lust department. The story is a step down from the other two as this film seems clouded between the idea of glorifying sexual nature and disapproving the use of hallucinogenic drugs such as LSD. At some points it feels like Reefer Madness and others like Vamp Vixens. If you're a fan of erotica, you'll probably like it but if you aren't you won't.
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Note: Special features include Deleted scenes, a trailer, and a photo gallery.
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The Plot: A stressed out college student takes some drugs to chill out and relieve some of his pressure. Unfortunately, he becomes overwhelmed with a new kind of stress as he hallucinates and imagines up a new lover that will teach him everything about sex.
--------------
My Thoughts: Transgression - a noun meaning infringement or violation of a law, command, or duty. In other words, it's a sin and this movie is full of it. Being the first of the three that truely feels 100% like an erotic film, Transgression kicks it up a notch in the lust department. The story is a step down from the other two as this film seems clouded between the idea of glorifying sexual nature and disapproving the use of hallucinogenic drugs such as LSD. At some points it feels like Reefer Madness and others like Vamp Vixens. If you're a fan of erotica, you'll probably like it but if you aren't you won't.
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Note: Special features include Deleted scenes, a trailer, and a photo gallery.
The Real Cannibal Holocaust (1976)
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Plot: A movie crew go to Papua New Guinea to shoot a documentary for the British queen so that she can learn of the native culture of the newly independant land. The crew uncovered the, at the time, shocking and exotic (perhaps even barbaric) ways of the "savages".
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My Thoughts: Originally released under the title Nuova Guinea, l'isola dei cannibali (or New Guinea, Island of the Cannibals), this film was shot to help educate about this certain group. In the documentary/shockumentary/mondo film, you will observe funeral rituals, tattoo rituals, piercing rituals, how the natives perceive pride, and how they traditionally carry out their everyday activities which may happen to include eating the flesh of a dead loved one that's full of maggots, ripping apart a monkey, or having sex in the jungle.
By today's standards, this isn't nearly as shocking as it was back then. Of course now we have the Discovery channel, but back then it seemed that pieces such as this or Faces of Death sort of desensitized the audiences that viewed it. Nowadays you can go google decapitations for a gruesome time, but back in the 80s and 70s, the horror genre reenacted such acts for the viewers to see. Cannibal Holocaust shocked alot of people, but documentaries like this showed exactly how the people worked. I'm not saying that some tribes don't put people on pikes or castrate males, because alot of them probably do, but this shows the humanity that the people do possess. They don't just kill and eat people, they just have a separate way of thinking and different beliefs. The documentary is very good but there is one thing that bugs me. I don't know if it's real or if it's fake. Alot of it seems legit but during the ending it seems like it could've been set up. It could be like Faces of Death, just with less dramatized stuff filled in or it could be just like Cannibal Holocaust only turned down a step or two. Either way you'll enjoy watching it because I know I did.
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The Verdict: 9.5/10, Watch it!!!
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Note: No special features. :(
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Plot: A movie crew go to Papua New Guinea to shoot a documentary for the British queen so that she can learn of the native culture of the newly independant land. The crew uncovered the, at the time, shocking and exotic (perhaps even barbaric) ways of the "savages".
------------------------
My Thoughts: Originally released under the title Nuova Guinea, l'isola dei cannibali (or New Guinea, Island of the Cannibals), this film was shot to help educate about this certain group. In the documentary/shockumentary/mondo film, you will observe funeral rituals, tattoo rituals, piercing rituals, how the natives perceive pride, and how they traditionally carry out their everyday activities which may happen to include eating the flesh of a dead loved one that's full of maggots, ripping apart a monkey, or having sex in the jungle.
By today's standards, this isn't nearly as shocking as it was back then. Of course now we have the Discovery channel, but back then it seemed that pieces such as this or Faces of Death sort of desensitized the audiences that viewed it. Nowadays you can go google decapitations for a gruesome time, but back in the 80s and 70s, the horror genre reenacted such acts for the viewers to see. Cannibal Holocaust shocked alot of people, but documentaries like this showed exactly how the people worked. I'm not saying that some tribes don't put people on pikes or castrate males, because alot of them probably do, but this shows the humanity that the people do possess. They don't just kill and eat people, they just have a separate way of thinking and different beliefs. The documentary is very good but there is one thing that bugs me. I don't know if it's real or if it's fake. Alot of it seems legit but during the ending it seems like it could've been set up. It could be like Faces of Death, just with less dramatized stuff filled in or it could be just like Cannibal Holocaust only turned down a step or two. Either way you'll enjoy watching it because I know I did.
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The Verdict: 9.5/10, Watch it!!!
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Note: No special features. :(
I would like to thank CAV Distributing again for the DVDs. I'll also be keeping an eye out for more releases from One7 movies. You can purchase these titles and more from http://www.cavd.com/index.php or Amazon.com. Sexy Pirates wasn't on Amazon when I checked, but it could possibly be after this is posted. CD Universe also has them for sale.
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