The Love Epidemic

The Love Epidemic is a series of comedy vignettes about sexually transmitted disease spliced with serious medical footage and doctors explaining the risks of unsafe sex.

This is considered an Ozploitation (Australian Exploitation) film. You will never convince me this is a serious educational film. It was simply an excuse to get nudity and sex past the censors to make a few bucks at the box office.

It is very funny in places and it draws comparisons to Woody Allen's Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Sex But Were Afraid To Ask (a better film). There's a really fun sketch with two ignorant men in the pub talking; "one day you're just going about your business then the next thing you know your tool drops off". Or syphilis and gonorrhoea represented as two blokes in boiler suits inside the factory of the human body drinking beer and talking about the good old days of WWII VD. Or the prostitute who makes the punter wash his "old man" in the sink. It's all very silly stuff and Brian Trenchard-Smith even manages to sandwich in a kung fu fight and a medieval battle.

This is far from a great film, but it delivers on what modern viewers expect. A fair amount of nudity including some full frontal, simulated, but lengthy sex scenes and some laugh out loud moments. It's not as good or as polished as the aforementioned Woody Allen film, but for a low budget Australian comedy it does deliver on inventiveness and laughs. Be warned there are some graphic scenes of the symptoms of VD so don't watch it if you are having your dinner.