Forced Entry

Forced Entry (1973)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Notorious hardcore movie attempted to mix real life drama with sex and graphic rape scenes. Harry Reems plays a gas station clerk who has just returned from Vietnam, which has left him mentally unstable. He gets various women's addresses from his job, follows them home only to rape and kill them. There's really not too much else to say about an actual plot and I'm really not sure where to stand on this movie. Having read about it for years I guess I was expecting something more brutal than what I actually got. I think, for the most part, this is just a porno movie that tried doing something more than just your average porn, which was something every porn was doing around this time. The fact that they tried to tell a "real" story of a troubled Vietnam vet was an interesting gimmick but I'm really not sure it helped the film any. To me, this is still just a porn movie and I think for the most part the film tries to play erotic just as much as it does disturbing. There are a couple sex scenes that are clearly meant for the erotic nature and then we get Reems breaking in on the women for the rape sequences. I found the violence in a few of the scenes, especially the second woman, to be a lot more disturbing than the rape scenes. I was surprised to see how realistic the murder sequence was as it almost looked too real. I think many could debate what the film was really trying to go for but the film-making is rather lousy and this here takes away a lot of its more dramatic impact. I can't say I was really disturbed by this film. Future films like I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE and MANIAC dealt with ugly subjects, minus the hardcore footage, and to me were much more disturbing. I think many expect this to be more graphic with the hardcore scenes, which is pretty much a given in terms of sexuality but the dramatic side that they were going for is lost due to some bad editing and just overall below average film-making. I did like some of the camera shots that got us "close" to the action but that's about it. As a porno movie this is a mixed bag. As a drama it's a failure. On the level of plain weirdness and depraved film-making it somewhat works as there certainly aren't too many films out there like it.

Every time I believe that I have discovered the ultimate in repugnant, vile and downright scuzzy film-making, something comes along to prove to me that there are always more contenders for the title—it's just a matter of finding them.

This time, it's Shaun Costello's Forced Entry that has made me feel like like a complete degenerate for watching it. This reprehensible slice of roughie sleaze stars Harry Reems as a disturbed Vietnam vet who gets his kicks from raping and killing women. Working as a gas pump attendant, the psycho selects victims from unsuspecting customers at his garage, deceives them into giving him their home address, and then pays them a little 'visit'.

After spying on victim number one indulging in a spot of (prolonged and rather dull) lovemaking with her man (played by Costello himself), our knife-wielding nutter breaks into her apartment and assaults her, before slitting her throat.

The next unlucky lady to cross Reems' path fares even worse: she is interrupted mid-shower at gun-point, brutally sodomised (all the while being verbally abused), and then repeatedly stabbed in the belly and chest.

The loopy killer meets his match, however, when he chooses a couple of stoned hippy lesbians to be victims three and four. Too wasted to find him intimidating they merely laugh at his threats. Finding this all too much to take, a confused Reems turns his gun on himself, and blows out his brains! A thoroughly distasteful fusion of explicit sex and extreme misogynistic violence, this is harsh viewing that is made even harder to stomach through the use of genuine Vietnam war footage, which is inter-cut during Reems' vicious attacks. As if scenes of rape and murder weren't harrowing enough on their own! When viewed as porn, Forced Entry is a failure: the non violent sex scenes are over-long and mundane (and robbed of much of their eroticism by constant cutting to Reems' leering maniac), and the rapes are completely abhorrent. But as an unforgettable exercise in pushing the boundaries, I guess it can be viewed as a success.

I'm not sure how to rate this one, so I'll give it a middling score of 5/10 (a bit of a cop-out, I know). Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to scrub my eyeballs!

This is porno for people who hate themselves for liking porno.

The hardcore rapes basically left nothing to the imagination, like a more mainstream film would have. Even without the hardcore scenes, and even if it had 'name' actors, it would still be considered for mature audiences only. That is, if the Christian right didn't get it banned first.

Harry Reems was a better actor than you think. He just preferred doing films where he could 'do' the actresses.

Parts of this remind me of 'I Spit On Your Grave' or Joe Spinell's 'Maniac.' No violent revenge here however. But the psychological attacks, both in the film and on the viewer, were HEAVY.

It will be hard to watch, but watchable it is. Just be prepared.

This has to be one of the most brutal films I have seen , regardless of the more well know films along this theme (House by the Edge of The Park , Last House on the Left) , "Forced Entry" by its low production values , obtuse direction that is meant to leave you wondering what the hell went on , and the most bizzare inclusion of hardcore scenes , that were the most unplesant I have seen in years. It stuck out as a little know and heavily derided work. I dont think it could be classed as a "Adult Film" (as in pornography) because you would have to be one sick individual to get aroused watching this. That is where a lot of the contraversy comes from , and I was amazed that it was included in the film , and it would have been better without the hardcore rape scenes. We get the idea of what is going on , but having 8 mins of him forcing a woman to give him oral sex and then cutting her throat (and we do get to see the money shot) , had dubious overtones. But then again the subject matter is not one that should be glossed over , rape is an evil crime and I have never seen it put across so well , if brutally as in this film. So I was in two minds about it, I did like and and thought that it went to places that film makers are rarely brave enough to go , but then on the other hand I could see people taking it the wrong way. But you should make up your own mind and see it .

This notorious early roughie, though credited to one "Helmuth Richler", was indeed directed by our old friend Shaun Costello (aka Russ Carlson and at least half a dozen more noms de porn) who adopted this one time only (?) pseudonym on both sides of the camera. Though the long sideburns and tinted glasses prove distracting, his voice should be instantly recognizable to those familiar with his later quickies. He plays the character of David, boyfriend of the first victim (Jutta David, also in Danny Stone's 1973 cult fave HIGH RISE) and the only male performer except for Harry Reems who plays the deranged anti-hero Joe. Make that VERY anti, by the way !

A pre-credit newspaper article commenting on the syndrome commonly suffered by shell-shocked Vietnam veterans unable to re-adapt to everyday life after the war and therefore susceptible to battling imaginary enemies lends an air of seriousness if not quite respectability to the sordid saga viewers are about to endure. Haunted by B&W newsreel footage with a heavy predilection towards mangled corpses and various forms of disfigurement, gas station attendant Joe (who's never referred to by name but he runs a place called "Joe's Friendly Service") spouts his interminable interior monologue about how much he hates women in general and the uppity, sexually liberated ones in their big cars stopping by for gas or directions in particular. Getting their address from their credit cards, he stalks and spies on his victims before submitting them to his pent-up rage, ending in bloody murder. Joe's misogyny seems to stem from his being ambushed by female soldiers in 'Nam (or so the stock footage would have us believe) and perhaps symbolically none of the women in this movie are given character names, signifying that to him they're less than human. His MO consists of bursting into the woman's apartment, demanding oral gratification at gun or knife point and then berating them for not being any good at it ("I'm not enjoying this one bit"), thereby justifying their subsequent "punishment".

Victim # 2 is played by top-billed Laura Cannon, described by her male co-star in his 1975 autobiography (wittily entitled HERE COMES HARRY REEMS !) as a snooty Jewish American princess with a predilection for anal intercourse who had her heart set on adult movie super-stardom. Though she got off to a strong start with this one and the previous year's popular sex & horror combo DARK DREAMS, she would rapidly disappear from view. Porn fans expecting to get a thrill from the lady's extensive back-door activity here should be forewarned that the scene is in no way played for turn-on value, fortunately given the circumstances. It's rape all the way to the girl's gruesome demise. A couple of spaced out hippie chicks (Ruby Runhouse & Nina Fawcett) unwittingly turn the tables on Joe as he rudely interrupts their blissful lesbo love fest. High on sex and various mind-blowing substances, the women burst into laughter at the guy's sadistic taunts and willingly offer him their bountiful bodies. The girls' compliance proves to be too much for Joe and, rather than submit to their sexual assault, he turns the gun on himself.

Convincingly grimy in every single frame, this flick makes for a harrowing experience which must've rattled adult audiences' cages back when this played theatrically. It's hard to imagine anyone getting aroused over the unflinchingly depicted violations and even the bookend consensual encounters (the Jutta David-Shaun Costello scene and the lesbian number) are bereft of their erotic potential by constantly cutting back and forth to Reems spying on them. Such stark denouncement of the turn-on, crucial to the genre, may either seem like the makers shooting themselves in the foot by turning their backs on the entire raison d'être of pornography or an actual attempt to make viewers think about the correlation between cinematic sex and violence and the inherent danger thereof. Was this a film ahead of its time then ? Could be.

The biggest surprise remains leading man Harry Reems however. Billed as "Tim Long" (a pseudonym he frequently used before DEEP THROAT made him familiar even to those who would never have set foot inside a porno palace), he makes for an all too convincing madman in the Jamie Gillis mode. He would of course become best known for his many goofy, inoffensive turns that followed in the wake of THROAT's zany doctor character, making his menacing performance here all the more impressive. By his own admission, FORCED ENTRY was the one movie he regretted doing, apparently having signed on before reading a script. His reticence barely shows through. You may hate both this film and its main character, but you're not bloody likely to forget either. Ever !