Retro Porn Review - The Sexualist

It’s a little hard to define this movie. With a full title like The Sexualist: A Voyage to the World of Forbidden Love, you’d expect an elaborate pseudo-spiritual journey that overcomes all kinds of taboos, but just when you think you figured it out, some weird shit will throw you off immediately.

Billed from the start as “produced, directed, photographed and edited by Kemal Horulu”, in a Prince-like do-it-all credits, you get the idea that this will be an ego trip with some tits on it; which is not entirely inaccurate, but in a completely unexpected way. You see, the “plot” of this movie could actually be seen as an honest reflection of the dark side of pornography: Monica, played by porn legend Jennifer Welles, is unhappy in a lifestyle that’s seen her be exploited for years. She meets Inga (Barbara Benner), a new girl in town that — just like Monica when she started — came with dreams of making it in the movies. Monica tries to warn her against working with Jeffrey, an annoying and pretentious hippie porn director/astrologist who tries to make art my mixing his two passions. Meanwhile, an impatient mobster who they call “The Godfather” (though he’s significantly less intimidating) who’s been financially backing the films is losing his shit over the expenses.

But this whole plot that could have led somewhere interesting is dumbed down by lengthy explanations that mean nothing, and just show you how full of itself this production is.

The director’s narration through the collage of sex scenes are a throwback to the “white coater” films of the 60s (those movies in the early days of porn with a fake doctor with a coat who made the content “educational”). He attributes zodiac sign qualities to their masturbation habits (a mirror for Geminis, a silent dildo for Virgos, etc.). It was a little weird/cheap that he used all girls several times attributing them a different sign every time, and most of the scenes are not only soft-core, but a bit dull.

Every now and then, they’ll just throw a bad pun or ridiculous act or character and try to turn it into a screwball comedy, without being particularly funny. They try to make fun of a couple of transsexuals in a scene that leads nowhere, and just when you think that’s getting a little ridiculous, in comes the gorilla.

A man dressed up in a bad gorilla outfit (but always addressed as a real gorilla in the movie) responds to an ad in the paper, and agrees to be in porn. An anthropologist with giant boobs that saw this as a great opportunity is doing the scene with him, yet the gorilla seemed camera-shy and won’t do it. The Godfather decides it is time to drop his pants and show the gorilla how it is done, but his fat Italian ass mooning brightly in the air is all the gorilla needs to get excited. A somewhat comical act of bestiality then ensues, as the mobster can only stay still and take it. The gorilla proudly comes out of the closet publicly, which I suppose was brave in 1973.

The sex is mostly soft-core, and only the Tina Russell scenes are worth mentioning, even if she doesn’t have a line in the whole thing. It’s hard to tell if it’s self-mocking or not, but one thing is sure: This is terrible film.

Trailer: THE SEXUALIST (Nitehawk Naughties) from Nitehawk Cinema on Vimeo.

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