GRINDHOUSE VIRGIN PART 2 TRIPLE FEATURE

Another triple threat of vintage sleaze from After Hours Cinema - will they ever stop unearthing this stuff?

This time around, we're treated to three lesser-known oddities from the hairy, halcyon days of the 1970s. The theme here is, obviously, virgins being deflowered. Rest assured though, as the accompanying booklet spells out, there are no underage performers in any of these films. I even have my suspicions as to whether any of these people were actually virgins at the time of filming. Ahem ...

The fun begins with VIRGIN FOREST. This opens in inauspicious style, with a rambling male narration (the fucker sounds stoned) over several minutes of tedious stock footage of trees, undergrowth, bears, leaves etc.

Just when you're ready to nod off, we are introduced to three pals who are in the woods on a hunting trip. Cue some spirited but undeniably atrocious acting. At the very least, these hairy blokes (two have beards) look extremely chuffed at being caught on camera.

The guys make a $10 bet to see who can catch the biggest "game" and then split up to go a-hunting.

Then we cut to a gorgeous brunette who finds a sedate part of the forest, lays her towel down and strips naked to sunbathe. Her body is amazing. So when one of the bearded cretins stumbles across her and gets invited to join her sunbathing, you really do have to say to yourself "jammy cunt". Without delay, the hirsute freak is licking the grateful wench out in an oddly amusing cunnilingus scene. Check out the permanent smug grin on this Peter Sutcliffe-lookalike.

As they continue to fuck, the other bearded bozo looks through his rifle sights and spies another attractive filly inexplicably all alone in the woods. This one is meditating. Naked. "Oh my God!" he exclaims, "I was looking for squirrels and I found a beaver". Priceless.

The third man, brandishing a rather lethal-looking moustache, goes fishing (stock underwater footage included) and stumbles upon a naked blonde girl skinny-dipping in the lake. He literally fishes her out and takes her to a nearby cabin for a spot of rutting.

The bulk of the film involves cuts between each sexual liaison, before a couple more characters turn up and everyone meets up at the cabin for the obligatory climactic orgy.

VIRGIN FOREST is a pretty inoffensive way of wasting 52 minutes.

At least the following two films have the promise of cult favourite Rene Bond amongst their casts.

According to the Internet Movie Database, Bond appeared in 88 films in an 11-year period - between 1970 and 1981. Although most of these were hardcore efforts, she also featured in the likes of FLESH GORDON, PLEASE DON'T EAT MY MOTHER and FANTASM. In addition, Bond starred in at least 200 loops over those years, many of which also featured her then-lover Rick Lutze, before taking her popular girl-next-door persona and disappearing from the film industry to get married (not to Lutze) and forge a life as a financial advisor. She died of liver failure in the late 90s.

Now fondly remembered for her formidable body of work from the 1970s, After Hours Cinema have been committed over the last few years to bringing the Bond legacy to a wider audience with some highly respectful DVD packages.

The first Bond film here is VIRGIN MAID. This begins with an extended slice of sleazy funk on the soundtrack, as we're invited inside someone's house to witness two brunettes indulging in lesbian antics on the carpet, and a rough-looking blonde pleasuring herself with a vibrator.

After what seems like forever, a Madame in a black dress walks into the room and offers the girls' services to a couple of keen-looking male punters. The men take their women to separate bedrooms and set about bonking them, while someone who resembles a member of The Monkees spies on them through keyholes.

Some unremarkable fucking and sucking ensues, before a young-looking Bond turns up. She's also looking through a keyhole watching another lesbian event unfold, and meets up with the monkey-man to screw on the sofa. This looks to have been filmed prior to Bond's famous boob op (she being one of the first porno actresses to have enhancements, to cater for what she called the "North American breast fetish").

It's all devoid of a storyline and, for the most part, dialogue. Which leaves plenty of room for sex. But it's all pretty ugly stuff I'm afraid. Lots of hair, sweat, cellulite and flabby white flesh. And bad zoom-ins clumsily attempting to get a better look at overly pink genitalia.

The final film is 1971's I'M NO VIRGIN. This begins with teenager Meg (Sandy Carey) drinking and fucking boys in cars, much to her observing father's chagrin.

With mother terminally ill in bed upstairs, Meg grows tired of her Dad's constant nagging and flaunts her wares at him. The father eventually buckles when mother dies and rapes Meg (set to some impressively inappropriate music).

After seemingly killing her father with a blow to the head from a bottle, Meg leaves the family home and promptly finds her way to a hippy pad where a bohemian group welcome her in. Their leader, the aforementioned Lutze, initiates Meg into their free way of living by - you guessed it - porking her. And things spiral from there, crucially including Bond in a bit-part as a hippy commune member.

I'M NO VIRGIN is different to the first two films, in that it has a considered script and the actors at least try to hold down a bit of drama. It's a film, if only loosely so. Utilising some interesting camera angles during the expositionary scenes, there are clearly creative aspirations at play here. They're not exactly successfully realised, but they're here regardless.

Intriguing for the first half, vaguely tiresome for the latter half, I'M NO VIRGIN deserves some credit for it's semblance of plot and a downbeat edge that qualifies it as dark drama.

It must be pointed out that I'M NO VIRGIN is also different in that it is softcore. The sex scenes are all discreetly shot so as to avoid the image of penetration or ejaculation. I didn't see any obvious cuts - it appears to have been shot this way.

Newly remastered from original film prints, each film is presented in anamorphic 1.78:1 and they appear to be correctly framed. Outside of any obvious cropping of titles or character's heads, you'd be hard-pushed to question the framing anyway: such aesthetic considerations were clearly not high on the filmmakers' list of priorities.

Each film is presented in washed-out colour transfers that have their fair share of wear. Vertical lines and scratches are rife but never intrusive.

The English mono audio tracks offer a general cleanliness that is occasionally compromised by the odd pop and hiss. Dialogue is somewhat muffled throughout all three offerings, but it hardly matters.

The disc opens with a groovy animated main menu page that plays out to I'M NO VIRGIN'S funky score while offering a nice montage of Bond smut on loop. From there, there are no scene-selection menus but each film can be traversed through by way of their own remote-accessed chapters: FOREST has 9 chapters; MAID has 9 chapters; VIRGIN has 11 chapters.

Each film can be accessed individually from the main menu page, or played out as one marathon triple bill by selecting the "Grind It! Play All" function. Selecting this option plays the films in sequence with After Hours Cinema trailers in-between each feature.

Extras begin with a selection of trailers for After Hours Cinema titles: GRINDHOUSE VIRGIN; GRINDHOUSE VIRGIN 2; GRINDHOUSE HONEYMOON; GRINDHOUSE TRASH; HONEYMOON SUITE TRIPLE FEATURE; EUROTRASH COLLECTION.

The only other extra in this package is a 4-page booklet with liner notes from The After Hours Collector. Offering synopses of each film and titbits of era-placing trivia, they're a decent set of notes that are accompanied by some nice black-and-white stills.

Although none of the films here are of genuine merit (indeed, none of them are about virgins), fans of Rene Bond will no doubt lap up the chance to see two more "lost" films of hers. So there is a point of interest here and, as always, I commend After Hours Cinema for their efforts. But the casual buyer would be better served by one of the distributor's more high profile titles, such as STORY OF PRUNELLA, FORCED ENTRY or A TOUCH OF GENIE.

Review by Stuart Willis