FORCED ENTRY

FORCED ENTRY

(a.k.a. INTIMATE ENTRY)

Graphic real-life stock footage of the Vietnam war opens the film, with a newspaper cutting telling us immediately what this is all about - those poor, fucked up souls who returned from war back to the US and who had no way of exorcising the madness they had seen.

One such poor soul - although after sitting through FORCED ENTRY you'd be hard pushed to find anyone who could feel sympathy for him - is a nameless petrol station attendant (Harry Reems, DEEP THROAT), who first meet filling up a young lady's car.

The lady (Jutta David, HIGH RISE) offers to pay with cash, but the attendant asks for payment by credit cards, due to the number of recent robberies.

But he uses this as an excuse to take the woman's name and address, and later sneaks up an outdoor ladder to spy on her in her apartment while she has sex with her boyfriend (writer-director Shaun Costello, WATER POWER).

This gets the attendant's pulse racing, and he later returns when the woman is alone, breaking into her apartment and forcing her at knifepoint to oblige him orally.

As this act of rape is committed, the attendant has aural and visual recollections of the horrors he saw in Vietnam - all of which is conveyed to us through grainy black-and-white footage of real corpses, screaming women etc.

When the woman has finished servicing him, the attendant moans that he "didn't enjoy that at all" and slashes her throat.

After that, the attendant is back at his single-pump petrol station waiting for his next victim. She arrives before too long, in the form of a well-to-do lady (Laura Cannon, FLESHPOT ON 42ND STREET) who stops to ask for directions.

The attendant notes the address she's asked for, and sneaks round that evening to interrupt her shower ...

And so FORCED ENTRY continues. There is no real plot, other than that of a seriously disturbed Vietnam veteran who deals with his angst by sexually abusing and murdering young women.

There's no background to the attendant, other than the flashbacks of real war footage that inform us of his military history. But the lack of detail - refusing to even give Reems' character a name - is a strength in that his rapist/killer becomes the scariest kind of screen psycho: the faceless everyman.

Reems gives a great, intense performance and truly frightens when spitting out hateful bile at his victims while performing sex acts on them. He holds the whole film together with his imposing athletic build, wild piercing eyes and pervy sneer.

Cannon is heartbreakingly convincing as the second victim. Pairing her with Reems and Costello's intrusive handheld camera makes for extremely uncomfortable watching - surely one of the most distressingly realistic depictions of rape ever committed to celluloid.

The film has a grimy, authentic feel to it - much akin to THE DRILLER KILLER, in the way it convincingly languishes among the seedy underbelly of New York.

Costello has an eye for the cinematic, and is just as interested in pacing, lighting, shadows, atmosphere and performances as he is in directing the hardcore sex scenes (which, if anything, go on too long).

The use of stolen music on the film is great too - everything from funk, jazz, to classical stuff - plus some bizarre Eastern-sounding music that makes the disturbing Vietnam footage even more unsettling - is utilised to sparing, alarming effect.

FORCED ENTRY isn't perfect. Some performances are weak (ironically, including Costello's own) and although the film is only 82 minutes long it feels too long. This is largely down to the set-piece scenes going on for too long.

The finale is implausible, which partially undermines the convincing set-up. And the introduction of two (genuinely) drug-addled hippie chicks towards the end is annoying. You'll find yourself actually wanting the attendant to kill them ...

Structurally, the film works well and is competently edited (even the looped dialogue of Reems during the rape scenes is effective - whether it was an error or not). The way the film starts with the aftermath of it's climax and then retraces the story up to that point for the rest of the film is interesting too, predating SCHRAMM with this idea by a good two decades.

Not only does FORCED ENTRY predate SCHRAMM with this plot device, but you could also argue it's a forerunner to TAXI DRIVER (the alienated Vietnam Vet bubbling with violence), COMBAT SHOCK (the scuzzball haunted by graphic flashbacks of 'Nam) and WATER POWER (much the same storyline, albeit including the added humiliation of rapist-imposed enemas).

But, as effective and surprisingly well made as FORCED ENTRY is, it remains inferior to all of the above.

After Hours, a division of Alternative Cinema (Seduction, Shock-O-Rama etc), have released FORCED ENTRY on to DVD fully uncut and uncensored.

A disclaimer on the disc explains that the film's been digitally remastered from the only existing materials, and therefore the quality may not be that great.

True, the print used suffers from vertical lines and some specks (a lot of specks in a couple of scenes. But this is nothing to do with the transfer, which in itself is as good as it possibly could be. There's no grain, ghosting or artefacting present - images are fairly sharp, and although some blacks are faded, this is the best I'd imagine we'll ever see FORCED ENTRY looking.

The English mono audio is fine - clear, consistent, and with just a little background hiss on a couple of occasions. Again, no problems here.

The disc has no scene-selection menu, but the movie can be navigated through by way of 9 chapters.

Extras start with 3 rare 8mm loops. These vary in video quality (the first is the worst quality - in black-and-white, while the other two are in colour). These last 28 minutes in total, the first starring Costello and a hot blonde, the third giving us further evidence of Reems' talents.

There's also trailers for FORCED ENTRY, BUTTERFLIES (also starring Reems) and A TOUCH OF GENIE.

GENIE's trailer includes hardcore footage while the other two (FORCED ENTRY is a trailer for this restored DVD) do not.

The best extra, though, isn't even on the disc. It's an excellent 8-page booklet that features probably the best DVD liner notes I've ever read. They're from Costello, who takes us articulately through the making of the film, how he raised it's $6,200 budget, the pitfalls of micro-budget filmmaking, his place in porno at the time, the people he mixed with - it's a fascinating insight into a seldom-discussed period of underground cinema.

There's also a brief introduction to the disc in the booklet, which hints at the possibility of more Costello films to come from After Hours. Here's hoping ...

Not to be confused with the Tanya Roberts film with the same title (and virtually identical plot), Costello's FORCED ENTRY earns it's reputation as a brutal, explicit and truly unsettling porno/slasher movie. It's amazing that's it's finally out on an uncut "director approved" DVD. Deserves to be owned.

Review by Stu Willis


 
Released by After Hours Cinema
Region 1 - NTSC
Not Rated
Extras :
see main review
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