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Released by: Alpha Blue Archives
Released on: 2004
Director: Victor Milk
Cast: Harry Reems, Zebedy Colt, CJ Laing
Year: 1976
Anyone even remotely familiar with the so called golden age of adult filmmaking knows who Harry Reems is, right? Sure! He's the guy from Deep Throat who helped show the late, great Linda Lovelace where it's at. Even people not into smut pictures recognize Mr. Reems and his monstrous moustache, he is one of the most instantly recognizable male adult film stars of all time. Even though he's been out of the business for closing in on two decades or so by this point, his enduring popularity continues thanks for that one little film that made him a household name (he's now supposedly selling real estate in Utah).
Sex Wish (it's no coincidence that the title bears a little bit of similarity to a certain Michael Winner directed Charles Bronson film from a year or two earlier...) finds Reems playing Mr. Kenneth Bradshaw, a suit and tie guy who is eagerly awaiting his marriage to Fay (C. J. Laing). One fine morning, after an evening of passionate bumping and grinding, Kenneth heads off to work and runs into a weirdo (Zebedy Colt) in the hallway. He thinks nothing of it, and off he goes, but soon after he finds out that the very same weirdo forced his way into Kenneth's apartment that morning and raped and killed his lovely fiancé (all shown in graphic, unflinching detail).
Kenneth comes home to find her laying on the floor dead and obviously raped, and he swears revenge on the sonuvabitch who was responsible for this. He decides to dish out his own brand of justice, and he heads out into the city streets to track the bastard down and make him pay.
As Kenneth tracks the killer through the city, he stops to have a three way with a black chick and a white chick, while the killer breaks into a black couples apartment. The woman (credited as Candy Love) and the man (credited as Ronnie Love, and looking very much like Rudy Ray Moore from the Dolemite films) are forced to have sex for the intruder as he watches. Once they're done the dirty deed, he chops off buddy's ding-dong and kills the pair of young lovebirds in cold blood.
Will Kenneth ever track down the heartless raping and killing machine prowling the streets and making the city unsafe for men and women alike, or will he run around and score with more and more chicks? You'll have to watch Sex Wish all the way to the end (a chore for some porn watchers, especially in today's age of gonzo!) to find out.
Alright, so it's kind of a Death Wish rip off on one level, but Sex Wish isn't a half bad film, with or without the hardcore sex scenes in it. Zebedy Colt (star of classics like Seka Is Tera and The Devil Inside Her) is absolutely and diabolically insane as rapist - shrieking and flipping out while he does his thing with a nylon stocking pulled over his head to give him that desperate criminal look. He just exudes filthiness and depravity in every scene, especially the final one where Reems chases him through an underground tunnel, pistol drawn and loaded (and no, that's not an allegorical phallic reference, he really does pull a gun on him).
Reems actually manages to show a little range and plays his role pretty straight for the most part. If you've only seen him in Deep Throat, where he does it all with a wink and a nod, it's actually a little off putting to see him pissed off and out for revenge. Colt is the real reason to watch this one though, and at times, he even manages to be just a little too convincing and his performance actually borders on truly frightening.
Aside from the two male leads, there are some great sex sirens in the film as well. C. J. Laing (of Anyone But My Husband and Water Power) and Reems have a length scene at the beginning on the film, and Terri Hall (from The Opening Of Misty Beethoven) shows up towards the end to lend the film her much appreciated charm.
So basically, you've got some really grisly and uncomfortable rape scenes taking place, and Harry Reems chasing Zebedy Colt through the streets of mid-70s New York City? Yep. And with some hot women running around and periodically having sex on camera. But there's a little more to Sex Wish than just that. It has a sort of realism to it that a lot of porn films can't really muster. A lot of this is due to the pacing of the film - it moves along very quickly, even during the non-sex scenes - and a lot of it is due to the locations used, as pretty much everywhere Reems goes on his quest for revenge is gritty and grimy looking.
Directed by Victor Milk (the film notes infer that the Tim McCoy name sometimes associated with the film is an alias), this is a grizzly, nasty little rape revenge film that contains a couple of nicely executed and reasonably erotic sex scenes and just as many gut wrenching and nasty rape scenes as well.
The final scene is quite tense and actually fairly artistic in its layout, and especially in its lighting. The lounge where it's all taking place is lit with some nice colors that really do a pretty good job of not only complimenting the action but also of framing the performance going on during this scene (which in and of itself is kind of strange, but it works somehow).
Look out for Robert Kerman (a.k.a. Robert Bolla) from Cannibal Holocaust in a small and un-credited role as a New York City police detective working on the case.
Video/Audio/Extras:
The picture on the ABA Sex Wish DVD leaves something to be desired. It's obviously been taken from a VHS source, and not a particularly good one from the looks of things. The colors are faded and the image is soft. Now, it is watchable and you won't have any problems following along with the film, but the source material has certainly seen better days. I've no idea if a film source was available for this transfer or not and I'll give ABA the benefit of the doubt and assume it wasn't, but the movie still doesn't look so hot, which is a shame.
The audio does fare slightly better than the video does, but not by a whole lot. There's some hiss throughout and the dialogue is a little muffled sounding in a few spots. It's nothing to write home about, but you can hear everything.
Alrighty, moving from left to right across the extra features menu we find the following little nuggets of gnarliness....
The original Sex Wish trailer is supplied here. It uses an interesting marketing technique by comparing the amount of rapes that have happened in major cities across the world, the number builds with each new city. Careful listeners will notice the blatant use of the classic music from Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho playing a prominent role here.
Some interesting, albeit rather brief, film notes are included here. Not only does it list the cast, crew, and studio information but it contains an interesting still photo taken for a scene that was never shot in which Colt's character inserts a severed penis into a woman's mouth!
Alpha Blue continues the extra features with three clips from another Zebedy Colt film, Unwilling Lovers from 1977 (also known as Mama's Boy). In this film, which Colt also directed, he plays a semi-retarded man who was scared by watching his parents have sex at a young age. In the first clip, Colt forces himself on a woman he finds in a park, sucking his thumb as he mounts her. The second clip shows a husband and wife fighting. She tries to leave the car they're traveling in, but he forces himself on her unbeknownst that Colt is watching from behind a tree. One thing leads to another, and Colt gets a piece once again - and this time it ends on a rather grim note. In the third and final clip from Unwilling Lovers, we lay witness to a lesbian scene that turns into a four way group experience! The menu states that these clips suffer from poor audio quality, which is true, so be prepared to have to crank up the volume a bit to make out the dialogue.
Finally, the trailer for The Devil Inside Her is also supplied, which also features Zebedy Colt (who also directed) in a pretty large role as a priest. It's an interesting trailer in that it starts off as a reasonably serious piece on the exploration of the occult and man's obsession with evil.
The Final Word:
Sex Wish scores high marks in the depravity and sleaze departments, even if it isn't the most original story to ever come along. Harry Reems proves he can actually kinda-sorta act and Zebedy Colt scared the crap out of me a few times. Alpha Blue's DVD doesn't look so hot but it's watchable, and it and sounds okay for what it is (and what it is happens to be an old smut movie - so it can't compare to modern day productions). The extras are interesting and compliment the feature film quite nicely.