User login

Exotic Malice

Review by: 
Black Sex
Release Date: 
One 7
Aspect Ratio: 
Directed by: 
Joe D’Amato
Mark Shannon
Annj Goren
George Eastman
Bottom Line: 

One thing cult film lovers hardly ever get is an x rated movie with a detailed plot that is more than just about sex itself. I can barely name a handful of examples of X rated films in the past that ultimately had anything to say to its viewers other than “look at us we are naked, hot and doing it-wee!” While porn is all fine and dandy everyone knows that whenever the genitals are exposed onscreen and allowed to dance with one another all other sorts of expectations of quality for a film must be abandoned.  Yet this is cult film a strange subjective world where exceptions abound to every rule….

The Plot of Exotic Malice centers around a man named Mark, a guy who looks like a Magnum P.I. era Tom Selleck gone horribly, horribly mad. It seems he has been terminally diagnosed with prostate cancer and the treatment is available, the surgery must be conducted as soon as possible and it will render him permanently impotent.  With his life and manhood at stake (however literally) he decides to revisit an island in Santo Domingo where he hopes to rekindle a passionate love affair with an island girl who made him feel so very alive.  While admittedly the plight of Mark is sad, I am reminding you the viewer not to cry for him-don’t you dare.  From the moment he touches down in this (stereotypical) island paradise he starts blackmailing; coercing women to perform ACTUAL oral sex on him TO COMPLETION. While he actually isn’t violent whatsoever, his methods are somehow worse for being so. For example, there is a scene where he forces a woman perform fellatio on him all so he will agree to donate some money to a charitable cause. The cause: a mission for the island prostitutes who are trying to find a better life, a charity inspired by the very young girl who is forced to go down on him all the while he yells terrible mean things at her that she herself likely hasn’t heard since she herself was rescued from working the streets at age 15 and became his best friend’s wife.  Much as the rest of the movie this scene is actually crafted with a degree of drama, meanwhile it is completely pornographic in its execution. Finally, we have a sexploitation movie that gives both men and women a reason to watch and stare with wide eyed shock and secret (though seldom admitted) delight.  Except for the fact that the actor playing Mark (Mark Shannon) has severe genital warts, the sex scenes themselves could have been beautiful except that they are usually cloaked in some degree of (plot based) emotional abuse and coercion- A perfect Soap Opera power game pabulum, turned porno. Yes. Yes. Yes. Both sexes of sexploitation lover will surely rejoice at this.

But the selling point here is the plot and it isn’t long before Mark quickly learns of his island lover’s untimely death shortly after he left her. Yet somehow, it is rumored that she was brought back to life, through voodoo and arcane magic; surely it is only a lie? If so, why does he catch glimpses of her in the reflections of windows and on the streets? Yet Mark had better hurry, if he doesn’t get back to the states in time to receive his operation he will die of more than just a proverbial broken heart.  The plot seems to unceremoniously expose itself forty minutes in like the ever-present cluster of genital warts on Mark’s scrotum, but it is only the beginning. With a Hitchcock twist and a final scene that fixes Mark’s real dilemma once and for all, this is a complete movie with a real plot and character development even though actors often actually fuck each other.  If that sentence sounds weird, it’s probably because as mentioned before, it simply hasn’t been said for too many films since Caligula…

If you like either perfect exploitation or hardcore porno where the onscreen genitals take second stage to the detailed, plot driven characterization of a man who is a whole different kind of “gigantic prick” in an adult film, this is for you. Extras include a few deleted scenes of every main female character masturbating for no apparent reason. I don’t know whether to lambast that for being cheesy or vehemently demand at once that more films have this for their entire female cast. It might have ALMOST made STEEL MAGNOLIAS watchable, provided you turned it off somewhere between Darryl Hannah and Shirley Maclaine, probably no further than Dolly Parton. What do you think? I would love to hear you guy’s (and especially you women’s) innermost, inappropriate ruminations on this. 

Your rating: None