Is There Sex After Death?

"Is There Sex After Death" is a tongue-in-cheek look at sex and attitudes about sex that was released in 1971. While the episodic film is X-rated and features a lot of frank nudity, it is a mostly unsexy (aside from the Sex Olympics bit) film and if you are looking for sexual gratification, you could do a lot better. Sadly, however, if you are looking for comedy, you could also do a lot better--which is REALLY sad since the film is meant to be a comedy. The narrator, Dr. Rogers (actually, Alan Abel himself) talks about a wide range of normal and bizarre sexual behaviors and occasionally shows naked people engaging in a few of these acts.

"Is There Sex After Death?" is certainly not the sort of film I usually watch or review. However, I recently saw a wonderful documentary called "Abel Raises Cain" and it is about the hilarious life of Alan Abel--the man who, along with his wife, wrote, produced and directed "Is There Sex After Death?". I was so captivated with the true stories about Abel's many practical jokes and deliberate hoaxes on the American public, I decided to find this comedy. Unfortunately, while I liked the idea of "Is There Sex After Death?", the end result was just dreadful. The biggest problems were that the film was extremely uneven and never once did the film manage to maintain any momentum. So, when on rare instances when the film DID make me laugh, these were very, very few and far between. I think much of this is because the film was so disjoint and poorly written. A well written film that makes fun of sex or attitudes about sex would have been welcomed--the dry and unfunny bits in "Is There Sex After Death?" were not.

I assume when this film debuted back in the early 70s that it must have been shocking or controversial. However, today it seems relatively tame and dated.

I feel sorry for females that rented this film. All the naked ladies here were gorgeous, all the naked men were middle-aged and/or fat. That's not fair really.

The nudist colony scenes were laughable. Everybody was trying so hard NOT to look at the camera. And do nudists really play 'simon says' that much? The sex hospital segments were a perfect example of black comedy. I liked seeing the people doing it on the bed and begging the scientist 'Please, can we stop now?' As if.

The fake porno shoot was hysterical. The 'director' taking it all too seriously was a riot.

And the sex doctor caressing the nudies next to him with that feather made my wife jealous. Wish I had a feather like that.

Rabies and gentlesperms, I hyperbolically proffer proof positive that criminally neglected, luridly luxurious, titillatingly trashy B-Movies can be spiritually scholastic, electrifyingly erotic experiences that exquisitely expands both energized think sponges and timorous babymakers alike! 'Is there sex after death' remains a playfully mounted, rigorously wrong-headed, salaciously sardonic, terrifically tasteless, fearlessly funny expose that certainly doesn't shy away from positing the most penetrating questions! And I righteously dig on the fact that our whip-witted, heroically hip host Buck Henry clearly doesn't give a flying Buck about persistently pricking bourgeois sensibilities!!! Right on!!!! Buck the system!!!! Buck the Police...etc!

Thirty Three years later, I am still chuckling. I didn't really want to go to see an X rated film. This movie was a riot. I can still remember a lot of the scenes but I have never seen it for rent or talked to anyone else that viewed this hilarous film.

This film is a crazy quilt of tongue in cheek vignettes, all spoofing the sexual revolution of the 70's. It is great dirty satire featuring some of the best

improvisational comedians of the era, including Buck Henry and the hilarious

Marshall Efron. Many of the movie's funniest sequences take place at the

Bureau of Sexological Investigation where the head doctor, Alan Abel, instructs his patients on solving a variety of weirdly humorous maladies. There are also real on the street interviews with Abel and an inspired group of people. Throw in a topless string quartet, a pornographic opera, life inside a nudist camp, and a marvelous bit with an X-rated filmmaker, and you have a constant barrage of laughs. The most comical scene is The International Sex Bowl sequence at the end, which remains a classic piece of comedy. Highly recommended.