Tweet
Released by: Vinegar Syndrome
Released on: June 16th, 2015.
Director: Carlos Tobalina
Cast: Serena, Joey Silvera, Bill Margold, Jesse Adams, Sheila Parks
Year: 1982/1983
Purchase from Amazon
The Movie:
Like it or not, Vinegar Syndrome is back with yet another Carlos Tobalina double feature!
Anticipation:
First up, we voyage with two newlyweds, Jerry (Jesse Adams) and Joyce (Sheila Parks), who arrive home after enjoying some post wedding bliss. When they get back to familiar turf they find that Jerry's brother Steve (Joey Silvera) murdered the dude that his wife Wendy (Karo Akamoto) was messing around with behind his back.
But there's a twist, sort of - the gun that Steve owned wasn't the one that was used in the murder, or so says his lawyer. Because of this, the verdict is appealed Steve's once again a free man. This is good news for the most part until Steve and Joyce meet and discover that there is an undeniable attraction between the two of them. If that weren't enough, Jerry and Wendy discover they have an unusually similar problem!
As all of this drama unfolds and the various players dip their toes into various ponds, Wendy's cousin, Serena (played by… Serena) shows up and decides everyone should attend a costume party - which, at risk of spoiling things, gives everyone the chance to bone everyone else under cover of their respective masks.
A goofy XXX soap opera, Anticipation is about as good as you'd expect if you're familiar with Tobalina's output - meaning it's not all that convincing or very good at all but somehow watchable in its own strange way. The dramatic aspects aren't particularly well thought out and the story really only exists as an excuse to get the sex scenes in there, but at least the sex scenes are fairly good. Serena and Sheila Parks are both in fine form here and when the obligatory group session that Tobalina always seems to finish his movies off with finally occurs, you can spot the beautiful Laurien Dominique as one of the players. That's not a bad thing. If you like explicit, goofy dramas
Flesh Pond:
The second feature is more interesting, and also more confounding. When it begins, a female hostess (Drea) is letting various players into the swinger's club from which the movie takes its name. A bunch of people show up, including Bill Margold, unaware that there are two escaped convicts nearby - in fact, we see them running through a field with a playful dog running along beside them. That dog probably wasn't supposed to be there in the first place as we never see him again.
At any rate, as you could probably guess the armed hoodlums arrive at the club and force the hostess to lock the doors. They're going to hold these swingers hostage and make them perform for their entertainment! The first, and definitely y the strangest, of these performances is when an exotic dancer (Rita Ricardo) gives speech about the benefits of having a rubber man lover - and then she proceeds to dance and then screw her own rubber man, who she names Johnny Rubber. He's Canadian, we're told.
From there, everyone else is basically forced to have sex all while the guy who owns the joint (Tobalina himself) blathers on to some friend of his about who the two ex-cons were actually innocent all along or some such nonsense. Then at one point one dude blows a load and it lands in another dude's hair - he doesn't really look too happy about that.
What starts off like a raunchy take on a home invasion horror like The Last House On The Left quickly devolves into more of Tobalina's standard group grope sessions but this isn't without its own bizarre entertainment value. The scene with Johnny Rubber is worth the price of admission alone, as it's just so strange that you sort of need to see it to believe it. Not specifically because it's all that taboo busting but really just because it seems like this really was the actresses act, it feels very professionally rehearsed and as such, completely out of place in a movie that otherwise seems almost entirely improvised.
It's not very well shot and the sex is fairly pedestrian if performed with a bit of enthusiasm - but Flesh Pond is genuinely strange enough to work… sort of.
Video/Audio/Extras:
Both features look great in 1.78.1 anamorphic widescreen transferred in 2k from their respective 35mm negatives. The elements used were in excellent condition and while there is a scratch or two here and there, for the most part the transfers are as clean and as colorful as you could hope for. Expect some grain, but you'd be silly not to and it's never particularly distracting. These are solid transfers through and through, no serious print damage to complain about, sharp detail, very film like but still crisp and clean. Expect some grain, but you'd be silly not to. At this point in time anyone who has been following these releases knows to expect excellent quality - this release continues that trend.
Both movies get the Dolby Digital Mono treatment, in English with no alternate language options or subtitles provided. Both films sound fine. Dialogue remains clear and crisp and the scores sound good. Levels are properly balanced for both features though some might note some minor hiss in a few spots.
The only extras on the disc are trailers for each feature, static menus and chapter selection.
The Final Word:
Vinegar Syndrome's double dose of Tobalina films is as good as the previous entries in their run, at least as far as the presentation goes. The movies are up to the director's typically low standards but Flesh Pond is goofy and weird enough that it'll definitely offer fans of WTF cinema a few kicks.
