While not terribly ambitious, REUNION delivers a fun and sexy turn on the well-trod 10 LITTLE INDIANS motif. Sometimes, a familiar scenario with a few embellishments is all that's required to craft a low-key winner.
Of course, a good cast doesn't hurt, and REUNION's small but recognizable band of thesps are more than up to the task. Real-life couple Tony Richards and Bree Anthony star as Jim and Carol, a pair of high school sweethearts reunited on a trip to a mysterious island for an oddly small-scale high school reunion. With them are genre stalwarts Vanessa del Rio (still early in her career), the always-reliable Marlene Willoughby, Nancy Dare, and Taylor Young (one half of Carter Stevens' eponymous TEENAGE TWINS). All have been invited at the behest of a mysterious host, eventually revealed to be Arthur Sassy (Alan Marlow), a classmate each of them picked on back in high school. Aping INDIANS, the film features Sassy picking off the ladies one- by-one, using a hypnotic music box (don't ask) to lull them into submission before having his way with them and leading them to his private lair on the island grounds.
While admittedly full of holes as a basic premise (the group's high school apparently had class sizes in the single digits, and for some reason no one trapped in the house thinks to ask the maid for help – or inquire why she's obviously a man in drag), the whole affair is carried along by a proficiency of style. The film is well-shot and edited, the couplings arousing and not overlong, and the movie strikes a good balance between sex and story, something far too many sex flicks struggle with. There's also an excellent selection of library tracks used to great effect, and the cast, composed largely of '70s NY porno stalwarts traditionally relegated to supporting roles, shines after finally being placed in the spotlight. (The sole exception is Young, whose somnambulistic performance recalls her work with Stevens.)
The only major criticism I would level is that the film seems to run out of steam as it goes along, taking a surprising amount of time to establish its characters and story and increasingly rushing as it gets toward the end, almost as if it were shot in order and the crew realized it was running out of time. Nevertheless, it's rare that a porn flick will leave me wanting more story – not to mention a longer running time! - so I have to give it credit for sparking narrative interest. While REUNION doesn't achieve terribly much in terms of narrative, its quick pace and solid production values nevertheless speak to real talent behind the camera, and provide an all-too-rare example of how entertaining a sex flick can be when fornication and narrative are afforded equal prominence.
