Winter Heat

The notion of "porno chic" in the '70s co-existed with rough trade porn, and the harder stuff (BDSM, fisting, torture) retains a hardcore (pun intended) following today. Problem is these shock-value films are rarely erotic, unless one classifies them with the tens of thousands of strictly fetish videos made for fans of same.

Director Claude Goddard (his name an amusing pastiche of Nouvelle Vague auteurs) did a good film TEENAGE STEPMOTHER for mainstream viewers, but WINTER HEAT is merely red meat baiting guys who dream vicariously of abusing women. You know the age-old defense of obscenity -it's better to fantasize about this behavior (using dirty books and movies as a prompt) than to act out. Count me out.

Premise is simple - too simple. It's the old house invasion trick, a popular dramatic device since THE DESPERATE HOURS, but just a gimmick here. Three average girls cross the snow-scape to an inviting winter home and are quickly invaded by an unsavory trio of Jamie Gillis, Alex Mann and Mickey Humm, plus femme sidekick Helen Madigan.

What ensues is a series of mind games intended to put the viewer in the perspective of the sadist/manipulator, a bit like the FUNNY GAMES movies of Michael Haneke. Hitchcock was perhaps the king of this particular suspense device, which has been overused in recent decades by horror directors (note that IMDb classifies WINTER HEAT as horror, which it is not, and the term horror-porn has come into use to describe many recent mainstream films).

The shallowness of this approach is made evident as Jamie launches into his oh- so-familiar cajoling patter - the text of a rapist with unveiled threats spoken sotto voce (I'll smash your teeth in, etc.) to seal the deal. As if this weren't obvious enough, Helen goes through almost the same verbal routine when she puts lesbian advances on one of the girls.

The humping and slapping around is unpleasant to watch, but of course the inverse is true if one is into this sort of hatred for women. No deep subconscious or repressed feelings here -this movie is out in the open in its attitude.

Balancing act to placate the less extreme viewer and reinforce the corny premise has the girls ultimately turning the tables, winning over the "nicest" of the villains, played by Mickey Humm, an actor unsuccessful in establishing an Adult Film career, and switching Gillis from dom to sub. Yes indeed, it was all play acting after all -duh!

This sort of lowest of brow entertainment is truly insulting (and was meant to be - just read Shaun Costello's revealing comments on the making of his famous WATER POWER that he kindly posted on IMDb). The irony 40 years later is that a new group of customers not even born yet when these films were shot is falling for the same sado/masochism switcheroo all over again, under the general rubric of nostalgia.

WINTER HEAT (aka Snowbound) 1975. 70min Four crusty criminal losers break into the snow-covered rural cabin of three lovely city gals and raise holy hell while they have their raw way with them. The fantastically demented scumbags, consisting of 3 guys and their main squeeze Agnes, (Helen Madigan, better known for her role in NAKED CAME THE STRANGER) are led by Jaimie 'Worlds biggest pervert' Gillis, and bring new meaning to the term 'lowlifes'.

Joey (Ray Carter), Benji (Mickey Humm), and Stevie (Gillis) are one of the seediest packs of beleaguered beatniks to ever appear in a porn film, and to make matters all that much more exciting, the three innocent city gals - Jenny (Jenny Lane), Clair (Lisa Young aka Judy Watt), and Gail (an uncredited Bree Anthony) - are fresh faced vacationing cuties with tender, untouched-looking bodies.

So be prepared for their violation, degradation, and overall 'touching' at the hands of Gillis and co. to be unnerving and memorable.

There is plenty of entertainment here for the perverse amongst us.

Jenny's inconsolable whimpering while she sucks cock against her will is nasty enough, but the beatnik dialog to come out of the pie holes of 'The Bad Bad Gang' probably makes her wish they had stuffed cocks in her ears as well.

'The problems of today, they're giving everybody in the world the blues," Benji laments, 'I need to get right tonight, I been wrong too long," concludes Joey, both obviously in love with the sound of their own voices.

Distributor Alpha Blue Archives aptly describe this product as 'An ambient roughie which strikes a relaxed groove through its insulated setting and occasional disco music interludes.' But really the most outstanding thing here is Gillis' incredible 'oatmeal humiliation' scene that stands out in the annals of rape porn history. I don't wanna give it away, but suffice to say the seedy and creative way with which oatmeal is utilized sexually here will have you questioning all your breakfast choices into the foreseeable future.

Directed by Claude Goddard, whose only other directorial credit was to make BARBIE'S FANTASIES with Gillis a year earlier.

What a golden period for brutal pornography the late 70's were...and this semen-soaked roughie had unbeatable credentials even for back then. For starters, Jamie Gillis, who has been swinging his rat-infested tool from porn shoot to porn shoot for close to three decades now, plays one of the most disgusting rapist pigs ever to have his crimes burnt to celluloid. He gets several opportunities to rape here, but his final rape, which sees him shoving foodstuff into one poor woman's opening, has to be seen to be believed. The film's three male rapists are also accompanied by a female (Helen Madigan) who also gets off on violating the ultra-cute and pretty trio of college gals who have their vacation become a nightmare when the vicious thugs bust their way into the girls' cabin. The film is unrelentingly grim. Directorially, it has no distinguishing elements, but its unapologetic nastiness and nihilistic resolution (the girls begin to enjoy the violation of their innocence) color it vital viewing for adventurous perverts.

I'm not a big hardcore porno fan, but I like a lot of the pre-hardcore "roughies" as well as the "rape-revenge" and Italian "terror" films of the 70's that were inspired by "Last House on the Left". This is kind of hardcore version of those. These kinds of films are notorious because they contain violence and rape, but I have found them to be either very realistic, harrowing, and disturbing (i.e. "Last House", "I Spit on Your Grave"), but NOT at all erotic, OR (as is the case with most of them) simply too ridiculous to take seriously whether they're erotic or not. The "hardcore roughies" I've seen almost always fall into the latter category. Between the typically bad porno acting, the typically bad porno directing, the incredibly inappropriate porno music, the complete lack of character development, and above all, the long, LONG sex scenes that take up most of the running time(I briefly dozed off during one sex scene here and left to make a sandwich during another), it's just really not necessarily to keep reminding yourself (a la the famous "Last House promotional campaign) that it's only a movie. . it's only a movie. . .

This has a couple things going for it. The lead actor Jamie Gillis was not only the most demented pervert in 70's porn, but he was also one of the best actors. He's not exactly David Hess, but who is? His two accomplices, unfortunately, seem like they're trying to perform scenes from a 70's Al Pacino or Dustin Hoffman movie in their beginning acting class (even when they're getting a b.j. or having sex they won't shut the hell up). The victimized girls don't have to act too much (their mouths are usually otherwise occupied), but they have a good "look". They're not quite the innocent-looking girls-next-door like Sandra Cassel in "Last House", Sherry Buchanon in "Last House on the Beach", or Leanora Fani in "Naked Massacre", and they're not seemingly unattainable beauties like Camille Keaton in "I Spit on Your Grave", but they're not just sleazy looking porno-skanks either. Of course, they eventually end up enjoying the initially forced sex, which may offend some, but that's also exactly why this movie is patently unbelievable and nowhere near as disturbing as the rape-revenge classics.

Winter Heat clearly takes influence from the Wes Craven classic The Last House on the Left, and is basically just another rip off (to add to Fight for Your Life, The House on the Edge of the Park etc) only this time hardcore sex scenes replace the moments of prolonged terror. The plot focuses on a group of criminals (three men and a woman) who have nothing better to do than break into a house inhabited by a couple of women. They get in the house and then force the girls to have sex with them. The film was obviously shot on an extremely low budget, but in spite of that it does actually work quite well. The hardcore porn takes up most of the runtime and that's actually a bit of a shame because it gets old fairly quickly; and the banter between the criminals is quite fun to watch. The acting is generally atrocious with most of the cast failing to convey any sort of emotion; but the lead criminal does a good David Hess impression. The girls that are broken in on are the least convincing; they don't really seem to mind being forced into oral and anal sex! All in all, this is not a bad film; it's short and sweet and not all that impressive, but roughie fans will probably get a kick out of it.