Water Power

Three intervening decades have done nothing whatsoever to blunt the impact of this notorious roughie, ripped from then current headlines about one Michael Kenyon alias the Illinois Enema Bandit who raped and forcefully, er, cleansed at least two dozen women between 1965 and 1975. Charged with assault and battery, he served a mere six years behind bars, only to be paroled in 1981 after which he wisely faded into well-deserved obscurity. While a TV movie of the week (starring Cameron Mitchell perhaps, think TOOLBOX MURDERS) might've been a tantalizing proposition, the counterculture seemed a more likely candidate to process this peculiar court case. It served as inspiration for Frank Zappa's song "The Legend of the Illinois Enema Bandit" and, for better or worse, this interesting but still extremely hard to take adult film long attributed to Gerard Damiano of DEEP THROAT and DEVIL IN MISS JONES fame. Though his name has always been prominently displayed in both credits and all publicity material, Damiano has repeatedly gone on record claiming he was supposed to do it, but didn't. Most sources henceforth agree that it was our old friend Shaun Costello at the helm, a theory supported by the familiar soundtrack choices (Bernard Herrmann's VERTIGO soundtrack has once again been extensively plundered to set the mood) as well as the director's brief appearance as an extra in a police station sequence. If indeed so, this truly stands as his most disturbing effort since 1972's FORCED ENTRY and it's a far better produced work to boot.

Opening with an improvised New York street scene, stylistically likened to Martin Scorsese's MEAN STREETS by Jonathan Ross in his enjoyable if not always accurate INCREDIBLY STRANGE FILM BOOK (where he continually refers to the film as being titled THE ENEMA BANDIT and asserts that it sports no credits whatsoever while it actually has and fairly complete ones at that), the movie introduces its audience to an apparently average nameless guy played to absolute psychotic perfection by the inimitable Jamie Gillis. Surely, this part was instrumental in cementing the actor's longstanding reputation as porn's most fearsome nasty bastard and may even have hypothetically influenced the respectable likes of Harvey Keitel on Abel Ferrara's gut-wrenching BAD LIEUTENANT. A casual trip to a sleazy brothel named rather incongruously the Garden of Eden earns him a $ 10 blow job from friendly resident tart Sharon Mitchell and a lecture by madam Gloria Leonard (legendary former editor of skin magazine HIGH SOCIETY and one time chairwoman of the Adult Film Association of America) on the house specials. Her mention of high colonic captures his interest and, as luck would have it, one such session is just about to get underway with faux doctor Eric Edwards (yet again wiping the floor with his Mr. Sensitivity image) and ditto nurse Marlene Willoughby pumping a bagful of soapy water into the bowels of poor supine Pamela (Long Jean Silver from the jaw-dropping Alex deRenzy flick of the same name, though her claim to fame – one of her legs has been amputated following a car accident and she occasionally uses the stump for penetration of various partners of both sexes – is kept out of frame here). Having found his niche, Gillis sets about to ritualistically clean the "filthy whores" of Manhattan, his first victim being his across the street neighbor, a pretty stewardess he worshiped from afar until he realized she had a boyfriend (the ubiquitous chubby-cheeked David Joseph) whom she regularly performed sex acts with. The girl's eternal second stringer Clea Carson, billed as "Valerie Morgenstern", a pseudonym derived from mainstream actress Valerie Harper and her popular TV character Rhoda Morgenstern, more than a tad ironic considering this actress would go on to become a heavy hitter in the Women Against Pornography movement, sidling up to the likes of Linda Lovelace !

The nature of the crime alerts hard-bitten vice squad detective Irene Murray (an understated C.J. Laing who only seems to come to life when it's her turn to tussle with Gillis) who is forcibly teamed up with homicide cop Jack Gallagher (deftly sketched by the extremely hirsute John Buco) to crack the case. A pair of lesbian teenage sisters named Ginger and Candy (reliable supporting babe Susaye London and one shot wonder Barbara Belkin) find their fondling rudely interrupted by Gillis in the movie's most tasteless number, where it becomes painfully obvious that neither actress was given a chance to clean up before the forced irrigation action, a humiliating highlight clearly taken well beyond the ladies' comfort. Armed with the perpetrator's description and having narrowed down his territory, Irene agrees to act as decoy which very nearly leads to her being offed as the badge in her handbag inadvertently divulges her identity. The final frames show the maniac's face being lit up by the arriving cop car before he makes his way into the night.

It would be easy to ridicule WATERPOWER if it had been assembled with the slapdash, "make it up as you go along" attitude of Costello's customary "Russ Carlson" quickies of the same period. The immediately obvious fact that it doesn't pushes the film into a whole different territory however. Compellingly written and acted with utmost conviction for most part (making the rape scenes particularly queasy viewing), it has a power to disturb that very few other roughies can even begin to touch. Considerably more extreme than mainstream portraits of psychosis such as John McNaughton's admittedly excellent HENRY : PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER, it once and for all dispels that old "less is more" adage by searing each grotesque violation into the mind's eye with unrelenting blowtorch intensity. Presumably impossible to love (unless maybe you're the lucky owner of a very sick mind), this is one film you will NEVER forget.

Man there's a lot of mighty unclean women floating around nowadays, well there seemed to be as far as Jamie Gillis was concerned! The director of "Deep Throat" tried his hands at yet another porn, this being by far the nastiest of them all. What can be so nasty you ask?

How about a loopy Gillis barging into your house with a gun in one hand, an enema kit in the other and hell bent on cleaning you up!!!

Honestly what can I say, it's a porn movie. Though it is a good porn movie, with some marvelous music swiped from "Cape Fear" and god knows what else. Jamie Gillis is, as per usual totally convincing as the "Enema Bandit". Plus this was also based on true events! Unbelievable!!!

The 70's were the times in which porn was very mean and ugly.Lots of so-called XXX roughies was made during those glorious years of cinematic filth.Among them was infamous "Waterpower" by Shaun Costello.Jamie Gillis plays here a notorious rapist called the Enema Bandit.He viciously rapes his female victims and before the rape he gives them an enema.The cops are trying desperately to catch him..."Waterpower" is certainly a shocking and dirty stuff,but the acting is pretty good and the cinematography is great.The film is filled with gritty atmosphere of urban decay.The scenes of sexual violence are hard to stomach and the misogyny is rampant through its projection time.Jamie Gillis is frighteningly realistic as the Enema Bandit.A must-see for fans of bizarre hybrids of porn and horror.8 out of 10.

Of course, I do not want to condone the use of force or violence, and in this video, it is actually criminal - rape associated with the administration of enemas . . . however, with that caveat having been applied, this video is CLASSIC. Everything you could want, from the medical administration of a discipline enema, to the girl next door who needs to be cleansed, to the two sisters alone at home, to the ultimate female police officer who tries to set the guy up! It's a full length film and I think - with other vintage 70/80 film - that which became the cornerstone of my interest in medical fetish/fantasy and the later development of "PLAY DOCTOR". Highly recommended.

Back in the golden era of the porn industry they really made some nasty flicks. That era lays between 1972 and the start of the VHS. Most of those flicks are forgotten and are nowadays searched by collectors. The girls in those flicks just looked like your usual neighbours, they didn't have perfect bodies but that added something towards the flicks. Nowadays they look like fake plastic barbie sluts, can't act and are screaming like their life is depending on it.

Water Power was one that had a proper VHS release and played some theatres in Europe. The copy I found even had Dutch subtitles. Finally it is out on DVD but still it is a hunt to find a copy.

Jamie Gillis, one of the well known porn actors, plays Burt. A lonely guy who hasn't got a girlfriend and watches a stewardess undress from his window. From there on things go wrong with Burt. When he's seeing a hooker she tells him of some perverted sex going on in the room next door. He watches it and by seeing enema he decides to clean the sleazy streets of New York.

You don't watch it for the script because that sucks (no pun intended) really hard. When the cops go looking for him nothing goes on and how a cop Irene Murray (played by C.J. Laing) finds him on the streets isn't explained neither but the script isn't the most important thing.

It does contain some normal sex scenes but the ones with the enema are the ones that are hard to swallow (no pun again intended). The first enema is explained in front of the camera and does look normal but once Burt is on the streets to rape and punish things aren't for the easily offended. Two scene's are rather disgusting, especially the lesbian one with Susaye London (Ginger) and Barbara Belkin (Candy). Susaye went further in the business but Barbara made her first and last entrance into the porn industry. Were the scene in the club the enema was done with a cleaned girl (if you know what I mean) pure water came out of her ass but in the lesbo scene filthy shitty water is sputtered in the bath tub were they were standing, but to make it worse Burt gives them a golden shower and to humiliate them he cums on their juggs, not an easy scene to take if you aren't into roughies. Naturally C.J. Laing had do to her stuff too. It's so weird as being a Jew that she entered the porn industry. Nevertheless, she gets an enema too but this time she filled with so much water that it really must have hurt and to make it even worse Burt penetrates her. You can see her being humiliated in Sex Wish and The Taking Of Christina, both from 1976. What makes it all even naughtier is the fact that no effects were used or stand-ins. What you see is the real stuff.

Still it's worth seeing because there is an actual story in it although it isn't that good but it's not just about banging and the face of Jamie did look a bit creepy sometimes. This is really a classic in the 'roughie ' genre and one to see if you aren't easily offended.

Gore 1/5 Nudity 5/5 Effects 0/5 Story 2/5 Comedy 0/5