Infrasexum

Released by: Vinegar Syndrome
Released on: March 29th, 2016.
Director: Carlos Tobalina
Cast: Sharon Matt, Marsha Jordan, Eroff Lynn, Carlos Tobalina, Vincent Barbi
Year: 1969
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The Movie:

Carlos Tobalina's directorial debut was this 1969 low budget genre mashup, Infrasexum, and while it might not make a whole lot of sense, it is a ridiculously entertaining mix of sex and mayhem all wrapped up with a completely baffling message.

Our story follows Peter Allison (Eroff Lynn), a middle aged businessman who seems to have it all - a cute but kind of dorky secretary, an office with the finest in wood paneling, and a therapist who seems to be totally on the ball when it comes to Peter's issues with erectile dysfunction. While his amazingly endowed wife (Marsha Jordan) may wander around the family home in a slinky green nighty waving her jugs in his face both night and day, it's just not what poor Peter needs these days to feel like a man. At his shrink's suggestion, he gets in his old car with a good stereo and drives off to Las Vegas where, after we're treated to some pretty awesome stock footage of the strip and a few landmark casino's, we learn that Peter's just won a cool two hundred grand in cash!

Given this new lucky streak, he decides that instead of killing himself like he'd planned, he'll instead head back to his native Los Angeles and rent himself a place where nobody can find him. This is how he meets a well-connected Mexican named Carlos (played by Tobalina himself) who rents him a weird looking room with a ladder in the middle of it. Peter and Carlos hit it off and once Peter lets slip what he's dealing with, Carlos takes it upon himself to help the guy out. Carlos knows just what Peter needs to get his boner back - cute hippie lesbians! He sends him over to meet two chicks and the girls go at it like girls tend to do in sexploitation pictures. But Peter, poor Peter, he remains bonerless and once the girls try to get him involved all he can do is hold his head in his hands and sob 'I AM NOT A MAN!' over and over again.

From there, his luck goes from bad to worse when he winds up being kidnapped by two bad dudes who tempt him with a blonde and then tie him to a tree in the backyard. The blonde doesn't make it out alive but Peter manages to untie himself and take them out with a brick - POW! The cops let him walk around from the scene with no problems because, as the narration tells us, they understood that he was defending himself. From here, Peter decides that instead of proving his manhood by banging random women, he'll take to painting. He goes to a park and watches some ducks have sex and then he starts doing just that - painting. Will Carlos' new lease on life be enough to get him through this dark times or will his limp willy overtake his newfound optimism and cause him to jump off a bridge? And what of Carlos? Is he really going to try to please Peter with some surprise backdoor action and is he really going to finish off that cute blonde that Peter couldn't get it up for? And do the members of the so-called Charitable Sex Society really think that legalizing prostitution will do away with pedophiles and rapists?

What exactly Tobalina was thinking when he made this movie is presumably a secret the man took with him to the grave but what is readily apparent is the fact that Infrasexum is a fabulous cinematic disaster. The script contradicts itself in terms of what Peter is going through, what he wants and where he hopes to get during the story arc but that there is half the fun - is painting really a substitute for what he's going through? Given how he's prone to suicidal thoughts and killing two men in self-defense… maybe there's more than just a lack of boner jams eating away at the poor guy.

Eroff Lynn is fun to watch in the lead, bringing things delightfully over the top any time he has to express any actual emotion. Carlos Tobalina is awesome as, well, himself. He delivers every line of dialogue with a thick Mexican accent that almost seems to be a put-on and he jumps in on the sex scenes (all of which are softcore even if it does look like the performers are really going at it) every chance he gets. Marsha Jordan is underused here but her two most famous assets definitely get some quality screen time and in extreme close up no less! The stock footage is great. The period shots of the Las Vegas strip are killer, showing off plenty of great marquees with performers of the day (Don Ho, Frank Sinatra, etc.) top billed in neon. We also get some amazing footage of a band playing in a nightclub with some insanely erratic dancers going completely off the hook. The fact that this footage is presented slightly sped up gives it an even more surreal and bizarre tone. The opening and closing credits are also very cool, with words appearing out of the darkness, flying towards the camera in color, then disappearing back into the darkness again.

Video/Audio/Extras:

Scanned in 2k from its 35mm original camera negative, Infrasexum arrives on DVD framed at 1.78.1 anamorphic widescreen in a pretty impressive transfer from Vinegar Syndrome. Though there are a few vertical scratches here and there and a second or two of harsh damage, the vast majority of the film is in excellent condition. Colors are reproduced very nicely so the jungle looks lush and green and the tacky seventies fashions are as bold as you'd want them to be. There's one scene where it looks like the camera lens was wiped with a dirty rag, as there's clearly some muck on the lens. Black levels are solid as well. Detail is as good as it's going to get on a standard definition offering and there are no noticeable issues with typical authoring quirks like noise reduction or compression artifacts.

The film gets the Dolby Digital Mono treatment, in English and without any optional language options or subtitles provided. Clarity of the mix is fine. The score sounds good here and the levels are properly balanced, as such, the dialogue is easy to understand most of the time but there are some scenes that are mumbled and a little tough to discern. There is minor hiss in a few spots but it's not really a big deal and for the most part the track is very clean.

Outside of a static menu and chapter selection, the only extra on the disc is the film's original theatrical trailer.

The Final Word:

Infrasexum is pretty wonky stuff but God damn it all if it isn't a beautifully entertaining mess of a film. Fans of WTF cinema and Marsha Jordan's mammoth mammories ought to get a serious kick out of this one - and dig that Las Vegas strip footage, great stuff. Vinegar Syndrome's disc is light on extras but it looks and sounds just great - this was an unexpected blast to watch.