Poison-River

What on Earth is this?

This movie is quite simply indescribable, but I'm going to have a good try.

On the surface this is just another 1960s sleazy black and white soft core porn movie that 'Something Weird Video' seem to specialise in. But this is a total off-the-wall oddity! There is ABSOLUTELY no plot to speak of here. What we have is a series of sexual scenes that seem to have been filmed, then re-filmed with other actors who appear in the film, then cut up and pasted together with no sense of continuity. We see a progression of various sexual encounters; couple, threesome, foursome, lesbian, whipping, (light)bondage, but the scenes often jump and other actors from different scenes appear in the scene taking the place of a previous actor. There is a bizarre karate fight at the start of the film between two men....this then turns into a fight between a man and a woman. The actress is wearing no underwear and some of the shots are extremely explicit. There is no real soundtrack to the film....there are a few minutes of library vibraphone music near the start, but that soon ends and the soundtrack becomes a loop of a woman moaning with pleasure(and using expletives). Add to this the sound of the karate fight(which often appears over the top of sex scenes), a phone-sex conversation which goes on for a while(and is EXTREMELY graphic...which adds to the erotic power of the film), the sound of clumping feet, and various extracts of conversation and sexual conversations...none of which ever match what is happening on screen. The acting is really odd to. Some of the actors(for example,the couple who engage in the naked karate scuffle, and who later share a bath) seem to be enjoying the experience; others seem very blank and emotionless. Especially the bearded actor who seems completely unmoved, even during the sexual scenes.

It's very difficult to tell what this all about, and what exactly the film makers had in mind when they made this. If Dali and Bunuel had decided to make ''L'Age D'or'' as a porn movie, this is probably what it would have looked like. Despite it's amateurishness, the film has a hypnotic power that keeps you watching throughout it's short (69mins) running time....which is not something you can say about a lot of these type of movies.

I'd love to have been in the Times Square dirty-mac crowd when this turned up on screen.

I've given in 10 out of 10 purely because it's such a peculiar, one-off experience....and possibly a true example of pure cinema.

I really expected this to be awful, clichéd and embarrassing....BUT, this turned out to be a pleasant surprise.

Whilst strictly a teen-movie(in premise at least) there is a fair amount of nudity and swearing to lift this out of the cheese-factor. Emil Hirsch is an amiable male lead, while Elisha Cuthbert looks far more beautiful here than she ever did in '24', although it's interesting that she looks better when appearing natural, than when dolled up as a porn-starlet. Timothy Olyphant adds a certain menacing charm to proceedings by apparently playing a watered-down version of the character he plays in 'Go'.

All in all a pretty good little movie that deserves better than the lukewarm reviews it got upon it's release. Better suited for older teens though.