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.
** 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.