Been a while since I kept this rolling, so here's the first one of year! An early Bill Lustig outing starring Sharon Mitchell & Jamie Gillis, and don't let the title fool ya, this ain't a roughie!

Philip Marshak's surprisingly faithful XXX adaptation / send-up of Bram Stoker's Dracula. I'm surprised, if not a little disappointed, that Marshak didn't opt for the nom de porn Bram "Stroker", perhaps fears of potential litigation far out-weighed the comedy potential.

Starring: Jamie Gillis, Annette Haven, John Leslie, Serena, Reggie Nalder, Kay Parker, John Holmes, Paul Thomas and Seka.

What a cast, eh? All the hardcore heavy-weights of the '70s (literally) came together to give Stoker's seminal vampire novel the XXX treatment. I must stress though this shouldn't be confused with Shaun Costello's Dracula Exotica (1980), a completely different movie that also stars Jamie Gillis as the bloodsuckin' Count.

One of the first, and dare I say, few genuine and sincere attempts at melding horror with pornography that isn't merely played for shocks like Come Deadly (1973), Hardgore (1974), Wet Wilderness (1975) , or anything from the demented mind of Zebedy Colt.

I also meant it when I said it's a faithful adaptation of the source material, serious attention to detail went into crafting Dracula Sucks and it might also be the only adaptation of Dracula where you'll hear Van Helsing utter a suggestion for "warm water enemas" as a treatment for Dr. Seward's patients.



Count Dracula (Gillis) purchases a gothic estate, that's actually name-dropped as Carfax Abbey, next door to Dr. Seward's (Leslie) sanatorium. At the same time Richard Renfield (Richard Bulik), a kind of odd young fellow who's suffering from insomnia, gets dropped off at Seward's mental institution by his Aunt Irene (Pat Manning). During one particularly restless night Renfield is drawn towards the Abbey and after battling his way through layers of cobwebs, discovers the Count's coffin. The next day Drac swings by the asylum and is introduced to the cast, where he takes an immediate shine to Mina (Haven) and not before long the patients and staff begin suffering from symptoms of vampirism. Van Helsing (Reggie Nalder) arrives and along with Seward they realise that Count Dracula is the cause of the sickness, armed with Van Helsing's extensive knowledge, experience, and a fistful of wolfsbane, they attempt to defeat Dracula and save the beautiful Mina.



The horror elements effectively highlight the bestial nature of Count Dracula, appearing more akin to animal than man. In Dracula Sucks, the Count possesses a ruthlessly primal sexual nature; in brief sequences that are shown as a kind of composite with fire underneath and negative-image effect overlaid, except that it's red not inverted, Dracula gives Lucy (Serena) a golden shower while she's in a trance-like state, mercilessly depicting the Count's total control over his victims. The incestuous scenes between the Seward siblings is interesting too, exhibiting human deviancy that's perfectly offset against the aberrant animalistic sexuality of Dracula.

Johnathan Harker (Paul Thomas) suffers a particularly savage and sexualised death at the fangs of a recently-vamped Mina with Dracula standing by. There's a sort of subtle and demeaning sexual assault on Harker perpetrated by Dracula in the lead-up to Mina tearing-out his throat, the moment feels like an act of extremely perverse foreplay for the two vamps, with them sharing a mutual climax of orgasmic delight in Harker's degradation and eventual exsanguination.



Dracula Sucks is a really fun and debauched adaptation of horror royalty. Shot on location at Castle Ranch in Lancaster, California; where Al Adamson shot Blood of Dracula's Castle (1969), its rough rock walls and moody interior exude a believable gothic splendour. That's right kids, the production values for this here fuck film are rich, and are further aided by moody lighting, crisp photography, credible set dressing & costumes. Reggie Nalder is fantastic as Van Helsing, his distinctively gnarled, crinkly features and Austrian accent go the extra mile to really sell it.

Unfortunately, it's not without a couple of drawbacks. It suffers from choppy, uneven editing; some scenes feel like they're cut too short and the ending is particularly abrupt, gimme more Gillis & Haven! Nevertheless, there's a good time to be had with Dracula Sucks, everyone brings their A game, nothing is taken too seriously; scenery is chewed, and everyone gets to have a go with the fake vampire teeth.

The final scenes of a fully-outfitted Count Gillis & the gorgeous Annette Haven bumpin' uglies in Dracula's cobweb-strewn love nest is an exercise in grand, expertly lensed erotica. If you're gonna do it right, it has to look like this.



And... for the primo sleazo crowd, there's an alternative version retitled as Lust At First Bite, it's a reordered edit using alternate footage and substituting storytelling, along with scenes of violence & death, for more hardcore footage and an alternate ending, so if that's your preference, that'll be version for you. Adding a smidge confusion to the mix, there's another film, Dracula's Bride (1980), that's believed to be put together by William Margold, I've not been able to successfully track this down so I can't comment for sure whether or not it's an original production or spliced together with footage from Dracula Sucks!

I'm back with more wild XXX action from the smutty heyday of 42nd Street and this article is a small selection of movies from Avon Production's most enigmatic filmmaker, Joe Davian. There's no rhyme or reason to any of these and I'm kind of keeping the possibility open for a potential follow-up at some point, so stay tuned.

Assault of Innocence (1975)

Starring: Marc Stevens, Anna Liva Plurabella, Sandi Foxx, Rican Devel and Todd Davis.

I wasn't able to find a poster, or any advertising material for Assault of Innocence, but it's a very early effort from Joe Davian and the first he helmed for NYC's grungy porno-purveyors, Avon. It's as unique as it is amateurish, a super cheap one day wonder that is kinda-maybe in roughie territory - given the plot, but is utterly lacking when it comes to style or flair, or even a glimmer of any real sense of talent. On top of that, the movie appears badly edited, whether or not that's down to the cut I'm watching, which appears to be sourced from VHS, but having said that if I did watch this in 4K, it wouldn't improve the quality of the work one iota.

The plot is a mere sketch and a pretty devious concoction at that; Mr. 10½ himself, Marc Stevens, has taken to cross-dressing and posing as an elderly woman on the mean streets of NYC, and preying upon the younger women who come to his aid. The majority of the runtime is filled with a series of vignettes, strung together, in-part, by a narration from "Todd Davis" - a self-proclaimed friend of the rapist, via a phone call he's having with the police, all the while being on the receiving end of a blowjob. Nice.

Assault of Innocence is not only the weakest in this selection but in Davian's career too, and to be honest it's only worth checkin' out for the sheer absurdity factor, as well as the Davian & Avon related film history.

The Night of Submission (1976)

Starring: Carter Stevens, Vanessa del Rio, Annie Sprinkle, C.J. Laing and Red Baron.

Kickings things off with the occult themed The Night of Submission and I must admit this one I dig quite a bit. The exotic sounds of tribal drums accompanying occult sexual rites performed by an underground voodoo cult, it ticks so many boxes for fans of offbeat cinema.

Though originally cast in the leading role, C.J. Laing had a falling out with Davian during the production of The Night of Submission resulting in her being replaced by Carter Stevens. As a result of the gender-switching of the main character the plot seems a smidge ham-fisted and awkward, you can kind of tell that the leading role wasn't meant for a man, so the on-screen events don't always make a whole lot of sense. One can only imagine how the film might have played out with C.J. remaining in the role and being at the forefront of the action, and one could argue further that it would certainly make the story a whole lot more interesting.

In any event, the movie opens with Stevens and Sprinkle engaging in an almost romantic fire-side bonk session on the floor, artfully reaching a climax just as a phone rings. For those of you still paying attention, the person on the other end of the phone is none other than C.J. Laing, and she's got the scoop on a voodoo sex cult, she wants the go-ahead to continue to investigate, Stevens obliges and unfortunately that's the last we see of Laing and arguably where any semblance of story ends. Granted, there is a brief wrap-up when the film draws to a close, but narrative wise, it isn't much of a cohesive story.

The fuck scenes have an eerily claustrophobic feel to them, I guess the injection of occult horror/black magic juices into a hardcore fuck film just hit differently in The Night of Submission. All hyperbole aside, I really dig this one.

Domination Blue (1976)

Starring: Vanessa del Rio, Sharon Mitchell, John Bush, Red Baron and Roger Caine.

I'm finally scratching the itch of wanting write-up some thoughts about Domination Blue, although it's no standout gem, it's nothing short of a thoroughly grim, yet enjoyable outing from Joe Davian and Vanessa del Rio, though precisely what Vanessa's involvement behind the camera is/was remains a mystery to me.

No doubt inspired by the deluge of W.I.P. movies that were doing the rounds (not to mention raking in plenty of dough), Domination Blue is an entertaining roughie scuzzfest, so long as one accepts the complete lack of plot and can happily go-along with the rampant demented sexual shenanigans. The atrocious quality of the transfer, it looks as though it's sourced from a VHS (cheers Alpha Blue Archives!), actually helps to give the flick a filthier, uglier, more depressing, and even meaner aesthetic than if it was sourced from a camera negative. Shot almost entirely indoors and utilising what appears to be the same set/location, the film achieves and maintains an intense and claustrophobic atmosphere, Oz (1997 - 2003) eat your heart out!

It's rare that I'm affected by things I see in movies, but there's one scene in Domination Blue that for some bizarre reason came close to making my stomach flip. In it, a prison guard brings dinner for the inmates, arriving at Sharon Mitchell 's cell, instead of giving her a plate, he ladles what appears to be Heinz Baked Beans across the length of his member and forces Sharon to eat it, she resits at first, but then begins to devour the beans, and his member, with a starved fervour. Grub up!

There's almost no end to the depravity in Domination Blue, including such sights as an inmate masturbating with a Barbie doll, routine beatings & whippings, a golden shower. Mitch blows and fucks two dudes next to a row of urinals and then mainlines heroin. Even the supervisor of the joint fucks a blowup doll, then gets abused by one of his own employees. Roger Caine hams it up in a rather unpleasant incest vignette, as a drunk and belligerent father. This is one has to be seen to be believed, a downright nasty flick folks and it comes thoroughly recommended!

House of de Sade (1977)

Starring: Vanessa del Rio, David Williams, Peter Andrews, Iris St. Denis and Crystal Sync (credited as Cara Mogul).

Another one I couldn't find a poster or ad for, bummer. House of de Sade is a kinda goofy, have-a-go-horror one day wonder, brimming with kink and sleaze.

So the premise, I say premise because let's face it there's not enough proverbial meat on the proverbial bones to call it a plot, concerns Lucille McLain (Vanessa del Rio) and her cohorts attending a seance at a haunted house. Things go awry and a dizzying event of carnal madness ensues for the group when they willingly summon the sexually-malevolent spirit of Marquis de Sade. There's a minor twist in the final moments, though nothing of any real intrigue or much value.

Scenes are frequently punctuated by several Pink Floyd tracks, namely 'Several Species of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together in a Cave and Grooving with a Pict'. It's an utterly bizarro racket, a mix of Casio keyboard noodling, blown-out psych-rock-ish stuff and moments of eerie repetitive whispering with almost tribal wailing.

There's little time wasted on exposition and we're straight back into the fucking which honestly feels like it goes on forever, and that's kinda because it does. There's a mind-bending bondage and cucumber play session with Vanessa del Rio and a guy who looks like Peter Sutcliffe - the Yorkshire Ripper, which includes a hilarious and somewhat questionable creative choice to start peeling the cucumber while it's still poking out of Vanessa, then using a switchblade to slice off a piece and feed it to her. Nom-nom-nom.

When the folks finally arrive at the haunted house, they shown around by a creepy degenerate-looking butler, portrayed by Peter Andrews, who carries a lamp and lacks the ability to form coherent words, so instead grunts and drools. Vanessa and her mates are shown to their rooms, the couple begin to get fresh while Vanessa is apparently haunted by the ghost of a mad Scotsman, given the ethereal Scottish accent warbling away on the soundtrack. She starts seeing things in the mirror, but when she turns around there's no one there; inquisitive, she opens a closet door and gets a faceful of sticky ectoplasm (phantom jit) from a ghostly pud. I must profess my innocence and admit to never having witnessed a spectral money shot before, but boy am I glad I have now.

Once the cast have finally finished (literally) fucking about and get around to performing the seance, what they neglected to mention is that it must be some kind of 'swinging' seance as certain individuals show up to the candlelit table in bondage gear and/or are half-naked. The final 8 minutes devolve into acts of abject debauchery, though I don't think any of it, at least for me, outshines the earlier sequence of del Rio and her co-starring cucumber.

Yeah, this one is pretty decent, funny, and utterly absurd. Worthy of checkin' for the BDSM sleazoids and casual fans of phantasmal splooge.

Manhattan Mistress (1981)

Starring: Juliet Anderson (credited as Judy Carr), Erica Boyer, Dave Ruby (credited as David Ruby), Robert Kerman (credited as Richard Bollo) and George Payne (credited as John Lance).

I think this is the last movie made by Davian and it's easily one of his most accessible. See, it's all a tad classier in Manhattan Mistress, or at least it is until the enema scene that comes slap-bang out of nowhere during the final stretch of the runtime. Guess Mr. Davian couldn't help himself and just had add something a "aberrant" into the mix.
Kidding aside, most of the fuck scenes in Mistress are pretty hot and do have a classier slant when it comes to depicting the goods, and I gotta add that this might be the most relaxed performance from George Payne I've ever seen - the guy appears to be sleep-walking.

Angel (Boyer) finds out her mother Georgia (Anderson) is a prostitute, distraught she leaves town for the Big Apple, where she meets Cash (Kerman) and becomes a prostitute herself.

The cast is fucking great with the likes of Aunt Peg herself (Juliet Anderson), the stunning Erica Boyer, and Merle Michaels. On the boys team there's the Avon regulars: Dave Ruby, George Payne and Ron Jeremy, along Robert Kerman and a young, 22 year old, ;Jerry Butler.

I think the problem with Manhattan Mistress is that it's too refined, it's almost too much like a real attempt at making a good fuck film. Gone, is the nasty shit that's prevalent in, or even the draw with other movies from Joe Davian, and to a larger extent anything from Avon Productions, and that's kind of a bummer. But, on the other hand, this is a fairly well crafted and put together, almost glitzy, effort from a director who started out making some of the cheapest, grungiest, and roughest pornography from the so-called Golden Age. I guess what I'm trying to say is that Joe Davian finally made a movie that even folks who aren't into the rough (or weird) stuff can thoroughly enjoy.

A psychotronic sleaze-noir-dcore roughie plucked from the mixed and varied oeuvre of exploitation lynchpin Lee Frost (Love Camp 7, Chrome and Hot Leather, Policewomen, The Black Gestapo).

I'm going out on a bit of a limb to presume Wes Bishop and Bob Cresse had some sort of involvement with the production as they both appear at different moments in uncredited roles.

Starring: I. William Quinn (credited as Jason Carns), Angela Carnon (credited as Gloria Jane Medford), Starlyn Simone (credited as Linda Harris), Betty Childs, Cindy Taylor (credited as Mary Tomkins), and Uschi Digard (credited as Sally Martin).

Eddie (Quinn/Carns) is a lowlife security guard and worse - a wannabe cop, who can't make the force because of his short stature. Instead, he spends his evenings sticking decals on his car and roaming the night pretending to be an LAPD officer, picking up and sexually abusing prostitutes. A real stand up guy and a credit to society - yeah right. Well, everything changes for Eddie one morning when he witnesses a woman (Carnon/Medford) shoot her husband and Eddie decides she must be met with his own brand of morally righteous punishment.



Enticed by the intriguing, though admittedly sleazy, noir-ish premise, I quickly found the character of Eddie to be singularly fascinating. He's tragic, but he's not a character you can entirely sympathise with; certainly not by way of Frank Zito in Maniac (1980), or Mark Lewis from Peeping Tom (1960), and observing his gradual unravelling throughout the run time is like watching a psychological study of a degenerate sex-maniac caught in a power struggle.

Interestingly, director Lee Frost employs the occasional use of an inner monologue/voiceover of Eddie dictating his gutter thoughts about the homicidal housewife, predating those of Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro) in Taxi Driver by two years. It's an effective way to engage the audience with Eddie, his growing psychopathy, and his consuming obsession with a woman spawned from an act of voyeurism.



Another example of the first hand audience-exposure to Eddie's id is through the use of dream sequences. Creatively shot and accompanied by colourful hues of red; David Lynch, this ain't, while they are artfully photographed, they're still oozing an aura of scuzz.
First seen when he coughs up for a $5 massage (11am to 5pm, or so the sign advertises). After an obligatory sex scene Eddie falls soundly asleep, but he begins to feverishly sweat as he's tormented by a dream-flashback, in sepia and slow-motion, of the fracas between the husband and wife. The dream then changes, supplanting the husband with Eddie in his cop uniform, disarming the wife he forcibly grabs her and attempts to sexually assault her, only for her to suddenly have the weapon again (hey dream logic!), levelling the revolver at him and pulling the trigger several times.

Eddie returns to the woman's home and watches, voyeuristically, through her window as she makes love to man in her living room. Visibly sexually frustrated he retreats to his apartment, sets up a projector, and starts jerking it to an anal sex-centered loop. This short scene precipitates another dream sequence in which the fantasy, now much more violent, sees Eddie handcuff the woman to his "squad car", giving her a lashing before violating, and strangling her.

Determining what one could interpret as Eddie's fixation on not just the housewife, but also on the danger she represents. A twisted dichotomy of power forms; the woman becomes more than an object of desire for Eddie, she becomes an obsession. But, as much as she excites him, he's troubled by her and appears afflicted with an overwhelming sense of angst and horror.
Perhaps then it's Eddie's unconscious self-preservation, or intuition, alerting him that his all-conusming sexual obsession with this mysterious woman may lead to his untimely death, exemplifying his internal combat and worsening mental decline.

Needless to say, Eddie eventually confronts the housewife, has a total breakdown, and attempts to keep the woman a prisoner in her own home, subjecting her to sexual violence, including a rather vicious whipping scene.



A Climax of Blue Power is a character-driven kinky thrill ride through the seedy underbelly of Los Angeles in the backseat of a phoney squad car, and I must confess I unabashedly dig this one.
I'd be tempted to say that this would slightly benefit from a soft cut, removing the hardcore scenes, as it deserves to be received by a wider audience and I know how much of a turnoff the porn stuff is for folks. Ironic, eh?

The movie looks brilliant, a credit to the Frost's cinematography; the colourful hues and sepia during the dreams and flashbacks are a really nice touch. The pacing is slick and the finale careers into full-tilt psychotronic nightmare territory with Eddie inexplicably dressing as a woman and giving the murderous housewife he's been menacing a bubblebath, prior to assaulting and attempting to despatch her. I don't know if it was a humorous creative choice, or if it's actually there to further emphasise Eddie's spiralling degeneracy/psychopathy, but the sheer unpredictability of it makes the ending thoroughly memorable and all the more entertaining.

Long considered to be lost, Necromania: A Tale of Weird Love is a bizarro horror-tinged hardcore outing written, produced, directed and edited by low-budget extraordinaire Ed Wood, under the pseudonym Don Miller.

Although the title might suggest a morbid tale about a degenerate sex cult with a predilection for lustmord, the sex is shockingly vanilla and the violence...well there isn't any. So don't go getting your hopes up creeps, this ain't no Avon production!

Starring LA sexploitation royalty, the gorgeous Rene Bond and her then-husband Ric Lutze as Shirley and Danny; a young couple experiencing marital problems. Danny, the poor bastard, suffers from erectile dysfunction consequently Shirley is seldom satisfied in the boudoir. The couple arrive at the residence of Madame Heles; a practitioner of what appears to be sex magick, seeking sexual healing.

Q: Surely an appointment with a highly qualified couples therapist would make more sense, right?
A: No dumbass, this is the 1970s!



The work is full of inexplicable details like why the couple even end up there in the first place. In two separate scenes characters are terrified by a badly taxidermied wolf that died of rabies - honestly, that's in the script - no doubt an attempt at injecting an air of humour into the shenanigans, and for some reason the couple are pretending to be married - a fact that's somehow divined by Tanya (Maria Arnold); an assistant of the elusive Madame Heles via an esoteric ritual in a scene I wish was longer, proclaiming their suspicions were correct, the couple aren't married and that's actually a good thing for whatever it is the practitioners have planned. It transpires that Madame Heles is a kind of sex-witch-vampire creature that resides in a coffin, a part that Wood desperately wanted Malia Nurmi, the original Vampiria, to play.

I couldn't really fathom what sort of evil machinations Madame Heles and Tanya were upto, or trying to accomplish. I'm sure there's a greater story underpinning what is shown, but the narrative takes a backseat in Necromania with the sex being the sole focus of the picture. Granted, the entire movie is predicated upon the unhappy sexual relationship of a couple, but there's no excuse for failing to convey a story along with it.



Clocking in at just under an hour Necromania doesn't outstay its welcome and although for the most part it's pretty poorly shot, the frames are often bursting with colour. I'm no self-professed Ed Wood aficionado, shit I've only seen this and Plan 9 From Outer Space (1957), so I really don't believe you need to be well versed in his filmography to have an appreciation for this. But, if you're keen about the Golden Age of Pornography however, given how early this sex film was released, it does have some historic merit and is worthy of the meagre 53 minutes of your time.

Necromania would make for a good double bill with another occult-themed sex film, The Rites of Uranus (1977), both are similarly claustrophobic in tone and suffer from a similarily dreadful framing.

Phil Prince's The Story of Prunella is a notoriously grim and ruthless affair, in fact most of Prince's output can be adequately described as "grim" among other unpleasant adjectives, combined they are a body of work that conclusively puts the "rough" in "roughie".

Starring: Ron Jeremy, Ambrosia Fox, George Payne, Cheri Champagne, Dixie Dew, David Christopher, Joey Karson and Martin Patton.

Unlike other porno directors who may exude an air of style, professionalism, care, or inject a little heart, class and tenderness into their fuck scenes, Phil Prince does not. He is the primo auteur of dirt, filth, and degeneracy with a distinct cavalier, devil may care approach to everything, from the shoot; usually shot within 72 hours, to the plots and characterisation; men are often borderline cro-magnon, grunting and huffing away whilst the women verbally complain, but don't really seem to mind all that much about being abused by them. He throws it all together on-screen without compunction and with an attitude that screams: well if that's what people are paying to see, that's exactly what you're gonna get.
To quote the man himself: "I'm not here to infect society, just to cater to needs."

The company behind such grotesqueries was Avon Productions, associated with the chain of New York grindhouse theatres; the Avon 42nd St, the Avon 7, and the Avon Love, all owned by Murray Offen, or as he was “affectionately” referred to - “Murray the Jew”. Produced on budgets that seldom exceeded $15,000, Avon Productions would crank out a plethora of NYC-grown smut from the mid '70s through to the early '80s from directors such as Carter Stevens, Joe Davian, Shaun Costello, and Phil Prince.

The Avon films were cited by the Meese Report - an investigation into pornography ordered by U.S. President Ronald Reagan and led by U.S. Attorney General Edwin Meese - as being “the most extreme examples of violent, disgusting pornography”. The movies are rich in sexual deviance; BDSM, incest, rape, and torture, they are in effect the cinematic antithesis of those lauded and esteemed productions from directors who managed to achieve a modest sense of critical acclaim and helped garner a semblance of acceptability from the mainstream.

I read that the script for The Story of Prunella was bought for something like $200 from the wife of the cinematographer Phil Gries and what I'd really like to know is when the fart sounds got added, but more on that later!

The film begins in earnest with Paul (Ron Jeremy), a seemingly honest cop who's set to marry his sweetheart, the pint-sized Prunella Kincade (Ambrosia Fox). Offset against this picturesque romance are three scumbags who've flown the coop, they're now on the lam with the leader's girlfriend, Vendette (Cheri Champagne), in tow. The film switches from sweet to sour to full on home invasion territory when the convicts hold-up a passing car that just so happens to be driven by the prison warden's wife, Denise (Dixie Dew).
The crooks crash the bride-to-be's wedding shower and begin to sexually assault the occupants. Jimmy (George Payne), the apparent leader of the convicts, decides to to strike back at the warden by sodomising his daughter. Paul visits the park where the cons stole the car and finds Denise's wallet alongside their prison clothes. Now, in a race against time Paul heads to the bridal shower to save his beloved Prunella. Shakespeare, eat your heart out.

The Story of Prunella benefits from a svelte runtime, clocking in at just under an hour, the plot moves along at a brisk pace. Granted, there's no convoluted narrative structure, but there is a sudden and bizarre daydream/fantasy sequence that Prunella's mum has. It comes out of nowhere and at first I wasn't too sure if it was a flashback or if I'd missed something. Basically, Denise daydreams about having it off with Paul, a scene in which Ron mugs for the camera and pulls some of the most ridiculous expressions I've ever witnessed in a porno and could have easily netted him first prize in any gurning championship.

It's worth pointing out that Cheri Champgne's character, Vendette first meets Jimmy (Payne) by responding to an ad in Screw Magazine - yeah really - they have a torrid session of kinky sex; clothes pegs on nipples and a bit of verbal degradation, and she's immediately enthralled by him. I really dug the scene between these two, it may be the only scene in The Story of Prunella with any genuine heart or feeling. I was surprised to learn that it wasn't actually shot for The Story of Prunella either. Its inclusion was born from the need to extend the original runtime of a meagre 50 minutes without stumping up any more cash for reshoots, so the footage was lifted from another Phil Prince movie, Tales of the Bizarre (1982).

The following excerpt is taken from Brian O'Hara's "Loose on the Deuce: The Prince of Porn", the accompanying article to his short documentary - The Prince of Porn (2002).

"I proposed to George that the movie could be lengthened by 10 minutes if Phil shot a scene in a jail cell with George mistreating and screwing one of those life-size inflatable love dolls. George’s eyes lit up and he told me a story about the very first thing he’d done on film – a loop where he fucked a love doll. This was kismet! Only he was wearing a sailor suit in the loop.

Unfortunately when I broached Phil with my brilliant idea he said forget about it, Murray would never pay for reshoots. But Phil was worried. He couldn’t tell Murray the movie was only 50 minutes long. So I came up with another brilliant idea. George and Cheri Champagne were both in Prunella and an earlier Avon production titled Tales of the Bizarre. So I’d use outtakes from a scene between them in Tales and insert it as a flashback in Prunella. The scene in question had Cheri playing a bored and horny unattached female who hires a call-boy played by George. He shows up, dominates Cheri, and makes her bark like a dog before he fucks her in the ass. This was mild abuse by Avon standards and at the end of the scene they almost seemed like a happy couple. In Prunella Cheri appeared as George’s girlfriend who helps him hijack a getaway car. So it made sense that she’d ended up as his gun moll. When I added the Tales flashback into Prunella it brought the movie up to 60 minutes. Then I cut a five minute slo-mo montage of dribbling dicks after they’d spewed their loads (also from outtakes). And voilà! The film was up to 65 minutes. Phil thought I was a genius. And I was beginning to think at the rate I was coming up with brilliant ideas I’d have the cure for cancer within a month."

An oddity or distinctive quirk I've noticed throughout a few of Phil Prince's movies is that some lines of dialogue are repeated on the soundtrack. It has an uncanny, confounding effect, how one is meant to interpret it? Is it just rough editing and the fact not enough lines of dialogue were recorded? or is it played for laughs? Personally, I can't tell which although I'm erring on the side of humour as throughout the film there are moments of genuine comedy. For instance, there's a brief scene in which Vendette comes to pick up the escaped convicts, only for her to tell them she got a bus.

To confuse matters again, are scenes that can be interpreted as funny that come totally out of left field. A prime example are the fart sounds, the seemingly impromptu farts noises on the soundtrack... The offbeat moment in question is a short scene where Ron Jeremy looks over at a fellow officer in the passenger seat and while the camera is on his partner there's a fart sound, it doesn't just happen once either. Jeremy then proclaims over the radio that "They're probably fuckin' the shit outta the girls right now", looks at his partner and he farts again. It's an outrageous juxtaposition of intense, urgent drama and absurdist toilet humour.

"Shut up bitch, take off your fuckin' clothes. We're gonna have a party!" - 'Quick' Jimmy Connors (George Payne)

Now, after a little digging I've actually got the answer to the bizarre inclusion of fart sounds present in The Story of Prunella and several other Phil Prince movies. I reached out to Brian O'Hara who edited most of Phil's work and later made the documentary, The Prince of Porn (2002) about the enigmatic figure behind some of the Deuce's scuzziest porno movies. Brian conclusively puts to rest the peculiar presence of flatulence...

As Brian writes in his accompanying article to the Prince of Porn documentary:

"Probably due to my antipathy towards Jeremy I decided to have a little fun when editing The Story of Prunella. In the film’s climax, Jeremy’s fiancée and the other sluts are being ravaged by the rapist convicts at the bachelorette party while Jeremy and his cop partner are racing to the rescue. You could cut the tension with a knife – more or less. So I added fart sound effects. This way every time Jeremy glanced over at his partner with anguish written on his face it appeared he was reacting to his sidekick’s excessive flatulence. Just a way for me to have fun mocking Jeremy’s acting chops. Funny, I thought. In fact, I couldn’t stop laughing as I played the scene back and forth on the Steenbeck.

After Murray and Phil screened the finished movie at the lab I got a phone call. Phil said Murray was ranting and raving about the farting in the car.

I played dumb: “Farts? Are you sure it isn’t just the tires screeching?”

“No! Jeremy’s partner is farting at him!”

I continued to play dumb, saying it must be a mistake made at the audio mix. Phil gave up, let me off the hook, somehow placated Murray. And the farts stayed in. Not that Murray was gonna put up the bread for a remix anyway."

According to O'Hara, the farts are "a continuing motif" and made it into several of Phil's movies that passed through his Steenbeck. The sound effects even made it into the "muck men" scene in Spookies (1986), the infamous cult horror movie produced by Michael Lee which Brian cut the sound effects for.

It could then be considered another quirk, or rather a calling card to know - definitively - that you're watching a Phil Prince movie, or at least one edited by Brian O'Hara! I asked Brian what the deal was with the repeated dialogue, citing the Jeremy line: "They're probably fuckin' the shit outta the girls right now" as an example; the same audio is played in two different scenes, his response was: "Well I can't say I actually remember - it was 40 years ago - but a line like "They're probably fuckin' the shit outta the girls right now"... It would be my sense of humor to repeat that every five minutes if I could get away it."

"Momma's gonna die!" - 'Quick' Jimmy Connors (George Payne)

Ron Jeremy does his thing, hedgehog pinch et al, along with an abundance of facial expressions in and out of the boudoir. However, Jeremy is greatly outshined and upstaged by the raw talent displayed by George Payne. The man is a powerhouse, stealing the show and bringing such an intensity by channeling an impressive amount of "wild man" energy in his scenes that's nigh on impossible to match.
It could be argued that Payne actually outdoes himself with the height of vehemence he reaches in The Taming of Rebecca (1982), another Prince outing and "sister" film to The Story of Prunella, an absolute dirtfest that stars Sharon Mitchell and features an excruciating scene where the business end of a safety pin meets a chicks' nipple. Yikes!
Oh and you can spot Phil in a blink and you'll miss it role as an idiotic newbie prison guard who informs the warden that the convicts have escaped.

There's an undeniable residual influence from the then emerged rape-revenge cycle that seeped into the plot, but it does away with convention and lacks a final act of revenge, perhaps imploring one to use their imagination for what could happen once the film fades to black. At times I felt reminded of Wes Craven's The Last House on the Left (1972), it may have something to do with a group of cons running amok and getting sick kicks from their perverse behaviour. Hell, even Last House was originally conceived to be a hardcore film, and I can't be the only one who would love to know how that would have turned out.

The final act and ending is notably bleak; watching Payne scream a string of obscenities at the diminutive Ambrosia Fox while the two other crooks and Vendette are engaged in their own acts of depravity in just about every corner of the room. The climax, so to speak, is devoid of a happy ending and there's no attempt at a pleasant resolution, or a morally justified act of retribution (spoiler: Prunella grabs a gun and blows her brains out in front of Paul), it goes a long way to truly cement the film as a work that pulls no punches. Phil was oft accused of "going too far" and The Story of Prunella is no exception. It's fast, grubby, nihilistic, cold, and irredeemably sordid.

For those who desire more insight into Avon Productions and the work of Phil Prince, check out Brian O'Hara's The Prince of Porn (2002) documentary, it features a Q&A with Phil as well as the players, and those involved behind the scenes. It also has invaluable and hilarious outtakes from several of his features, including The Story of Prunella. Click the title of the documentary for the link & the password is: letmesee