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Released by: After Hours Cinema
Released on: May 24, 2011.
Director: Various
Cast: John Holmes
Year: Various
The Movies:
Three early seventies obscurities starring the man, the myth, the legend Mr. John Curtis Holmes. While Johnny Wadd may have shuffled off this mortal coil some time ago, his legacy lives on thanks in no small part to the fact that his filmography is as big as his legendary wang. The smut peddlers at After Hours Cinema have dug deep into the well of filthy obscurity for this release, each one of these early efforts starring Holmes before he turned into a drug fueled walking nightmare and got messed up in that bad stuff that would eventually do him in. Here he's healthy, in his prime, and more often than not having fun with his work. Let's take a look, shall we?
SMOKIN' MARY JANE:
There's really no plot here at all and this one was obviously put together around a few loops that Holmes appeared in. We're told he's a pot dealer and that he's into chicks so it makes sense that we see him screwing a few ladies here but outside of those loops being spliced in, he had about as much to do with the making of this movie as I did. That said, there's enough bad dialogue and incoherent direction here to make it interesting on a bad movie level - and then there's the wart factor. Seriously, the male lead in this one (it isn't Holmes) has got mammoth warts on his junk so big they'd make Marc Shannon gag.
Outside of dick warts, there is a lot of sex here, so the stroke factor is high if that's what you're after. Story-wise though? Yeah, this one is not exactly going to rank up there on anybody's top ten list.
MASKED MISCHIEF:
Far more fun is this second feature which begins when a bald guy in a suit who obviously married up brings his fairly foxy blonde wife to a theater where a guy in a mask (Holmes) acts as a master of ceremony of sorts. He introduces a few act as couples get on stage and screw, both hetero and lesbian, and ultimately tries to woo the pretty blonde wife up there for a go with him.
This one is still fairly plotless but it's at least got a coherent narrative and Holmes actually did appear in front of the camera here, he's not just been spliced in from old loops. On top of that, he spends pretty much the entire movie running around in a Lone Ranger mask and a black cape spouting off ridiculous dialogue with an awesome fake British accent. This adds a seriously thick level of 'huh?' to the movie that makes it far more watchable than it has any right to be.
As far as the couplings go, the camera captures the action well and from a few different angles and the cast, Holmes included, seem considerably more enthusiastic here than in the first movie. The movie was still very obviously made on the fast and cheap in that it's got a single location and a limited cast and the plot really only exists to string together the sex scenes, but hey, you've got John Holmes running around like naked Zorro with a bad British accent - that alone should and does make it worth watching.
RIDE A COCKHORSE:
A bit nastier than the other two films on the disc, this last feature starts out in a cabin where, aside from an omnipresent boom mic and it's large looming shadow, a bunch of nogoodniks are hanging out. They have their dirty way with an unassuming girl but, after they've done the deed, soon find out that her boyfriend (Holmes) is a drugged out psychopath and that he intends to get revenge. How does he do that? He busts into the cabin clad in a leather jacket and, under the shadow of that boom, he rapes the Hell out of their chicks and terrorizes everyone in sight!
Grisly, gritty and slimy, but also again made fast and cheap with a cast who can't really act, this one was shot without much regard for composition (that boom mic should get a co-starring credit as it's on screen more than any one character in the movie) but it's a pretty sleazy affair. Holmes would play bad guys before and after this role (Zodiac Rapist being a prime example) and he does well when given seedier material to work with. None of this is directed with any style but Holmes shows a zealous enthusiasm for his work here that is lacking in the other two movies in the set.
Video/Audio/Extras:
All three films are presented on one disc, the transfers are 1.33.1 fullframe across the board which appears to be the proper aspect ratio for each one of these movies. As far as the quality goes, there hasn't been a whole lot of restoration work done but they are taken from film prints. Look for plenty of nicks and scratches present throughout playback as well as color fading and heavy grain. Though interlaced, there aren't any compression artifacts or edge enhancement issues to note. A copyright notice appears to have been placed, digitally, on the title card of each of the three movies on this disc.
The audio, which is English language Dolby Digital Mono across the board, is about on par with the video, and as such, it's a bit rough. The dialogue is pretty easy to follow and understand but there's hiss present here and there and quite a few audible pops in the mix. No alternate languages or subtitles are provided.
Extras are limited to trailers for a few other releases from After Hours, though you do get the option to watch the movies on their own, one at a time, or by way of the handy dandy 'Grind It' button which plays them all back to back with trailers placed in between each movie.
The Final Word:
John Holmes made a lot of films before his death and many of them were better than the three included in this set - at the same time, many of them were worse. If you dig on low budget seventies quickies and don't mind slapshod production values, you can have some fun with these movies. They won't convert those who aren't already fans of 'the king' but this an easy way to get three of his more obscure films in one fell swoop.
