From the very bowels of Z-grade cinema filmmaking comes Lee Cooper's quasi-proto-slasher, al fresco porn curio, Wet Wilderness.

Starring: Daymon Gerard, Alice Hammer, Raymond North, Faye Little, and Gordon Freed.

I've read a few accounts from people stating that this could have been an inspiration for Friday the 13th (1980), and while that's a possibility (unless stated otherwise by Sean S. Cunningham and co.), I personally can't see it. Beside from the forest location and the enormous machete the killer uses, there's very little in the way of Friday the 13th about this. The mask choice is if anything closer to Sergio Martino's gruesome giallo, Torso / I corpi presentano tracce di violenza carnale (1973), and would better serve as potential inspiration for Dennis Donnelly's exploitation-slasher, The Toolbox Murders (1978). At least from my recollection Jason never wears a ski mask, doesn't even appear as an adult in the first movie, and doesn't get the trademark hockey mask until Friday the 13th Part III (1982)!

Distributed by VCX (Video Cassette X-Rated), Norm Arno's pioneering adult video distribution company. Arno had connections to the Perainos, the crime family that financed the ground-breaking Deep Throat (1972), but leave any preconceived notions of the "porn chic" ara, or anything really that may resemble production values thoroughly at the door, as this is pure grindhouse sleaze.

Top - VCX logo, circa 1978-1983
Bottom - VCX logo, circa 1983-1990s

The film is essentially a loosely connected series of loops and it appears as though it was shot in somebody's backyard, featuring a small cast of unknown mongrels, who after a little digging never seemed to appear in anything else, and judging by their performances in Wet Wilderness, it's highly likely that they wished to remain firmly unknown.

The plot; if you dare to call it that, has a mother, her two (fully grown adult) children, and their hippie friend visit a cabin in the woods for a weekend getaway, but their relaxation is rudely interrupted by the appearance of a masked intruder.

The hippie friend and the daughter go off by themselves and start to lez it up in a sequence that feels as though it's never going to end. Into the frame walks our villain, he's sporting a striped orange and black ski mask with LOVE written across the forehead in marker pen, carrying what can only be described as a laughably long machete. Using his other weapon he violates the two girls, with the daughter manages to get away before he turns the machete on the hippie friend. The death is very quick with a brief moment of gore.

Finding her ma and brother, the daughter tells them all about the masked nutcase with the machete and they decide to leave, only their exit is quickly cut-off by the redneck fiend. He forces the rest of the family to engage in sexual activity with him and each other. The rapist/murderer's dialogue frequently toes the line between the comical; given his redneck accent, and the appalling. Regularly commanding the women to "suck it!", taunting the mother and son with "Isn't that nice, I've heard of a son suckling his mother, but now we have a mother suckling her son", and the hilarious command to the son "Now sit down on that stump!"

The daughter flees in the forest again and randomly stumbles upon a black guy who's been tied to some trees; why he's there, or why he's held captive is never explained, and I'd assume the only reason for his existence in the film is so we can have an awkward interracial scene with the mother and daughter characters. I say awkward because I don't think I've ever seen somebody appear so apathetic when they're about to get it on with two gals.

It's around this part there's a really peculiar sequence where the killer grabs the mother by her hand and leads her through the forest, kind of like one of those holiday adverts. It's a confounding and bizarre sequence, with the camera flicking from the killer's perspective to the mother's. It's quite obvious that the actors are just jogging on the spot with somebody brushing their faces every so often with a palm frond, the sequence flagrantly changes day for night, with the following scene taking place in the day.

Long story short, black guy gets murdered by the machete psycho, and we're treated to some lovely splattering of the women with the red stuff. Because of the films choppy nonsensical editing the mother and daughter are suddenly inside the rapists cabin, where he orders them once again to "suck it!". Being distracted by the mother, the daughter reaches for the now discarded machete and hacks his pecker off. Three cheers for a morally and socially redeeming ending! Hip hip hooray!

The filmmakers shamelessly pilfer Bernard Herrmann's score from Psycho (1960), using it over the opening credits, during dramatic moments, and murder sequences. Psycho this ain't, Wet Wilderness is as inept as it is ugly and offensive. The sex is almost repulsive and far from titillating; not since the formative years of my own sexual awakening have I ever encountered such penile dysfunction and disinterested partners. The horror elements are a far cry from anything remotely suspenseful or scary, and apart from the creep in the ski mask, the rest of the cast appear to be utterly unenthusiastic about being in the movie.

There's something unnerving, almost captivating, about the way characters don't question or really put up a fight against their assailant, it's just a dead-stare acceptance, but I think that stems more from the incompetence of the cast than any creative decision making. The direction is atrocious; shots are poorly framed, the editing is nightmarish with abrupt cuts, jumps to scenes, and the character of the son completely disappearing after the seemingly never-ending incestuous orgy; I think it is briefly mentioned that he was killed, but you never see it happen, or see the actor on-screen again.

Wet Wilderness is haute couture garbage filmmaking. Ultra low-budget, in fact I'd love to know what the budget was, and yet after all I've said negatively about it, it still offers food for thought. I had originally planned to give this just one star, but the more I've thought about it and after re-watching a few scenes, it's actually grown on me. Enough for me to bump the rating up to a wholesome two stars. Given that the runtime is roughly 54 minutes, it is worth checking out, though perhaps only for the roughie completists, and for those who don't mind their porn horrific, or their horror pornographic. There's far worse ways to kill an hour.