Usually when I think of “Eruption” in the late-70s, my mind goes immediately to Eddie Van Halen’s legendary song/solo/masturbatory guitar exercise. John Holmes (perhaps the Van Halen of porn? Can we use that analogy?) is acclaimed in his own right, cocky and primarily famous for an abnormal phallic skill.

The movie was shot on location in Hawaii, and its production value is worth mentioning, as you truly get a good sense of that mid-70s Honolulu feel. Holmes plays Pete Winston, an insurance salesman who relies on his charm to get the job done. While creeping on ladies at the beach, he spots Sandra Bevin (Leslie Bovee) whose husband she’d like to get rid of, and together they plot a way to try to kill her husband, fool his company’s savvy investigator and get a million dollars. They apparently fall in love over this bond, and quickly consummate this at a more secluded spot on that beach.

Now, why a life insurance salesman who just met a random woman who openly told an unknown man that she wanted to murder her husband, trusts her enough to go into a relationship with her is not that clear to me, but I’m not here to pass judgment on John Holmes.

A slightly shy Holmes finds himself in a couple of unexpected sex scenes under the radiant Hawaiian sun, and keeps insisting on going to his apartment, but all the women in this movie seem to want to go have sex outdoors. I guess, as a production company who paid for everyone to go to Hawaii, they wanted to use exterior locations as much as they could. And boy, did they! There are actually very few indoor scenes, sexual or otherwise. Usually, even in the golden era of porn, any exterior stuff is basically used as an establishing shot, obviously because it’s more expensive to shoot on location and because, well, this is porn. It’s a lot easier to shoot inside!

The acting leaves a lot to be desired, except for Holmes who does a decent job as a cunning salesman. In a movie where most non-sexual roles – I can only assume – were given to members of the crew or bystanders who couldn’t act to save their lives, it was kind of refreshing to see Holmes deliver with a smug face, “Listen, there’s an old Chinese proverb: ‘The sting of the bumblebee is deadly, but it’s the charm of the bumblebee that will kill you.’”

In one of the few scenes at the guy’s apartment, we get to see some very cool extreme close-ups of Bovee and Holmes’ activities. That and another scene where they have sex in a cane field are probably the standouts of the film.

The music is good as usual and the plot will hold your attention. It could have used some better sound post-production, especially considering the budget for the other stuff would suggest that was possible, but overall it’s an entertaining enough movie, if not very good.