PEEKARAMA BIG 2 UNIT SHOW!: THE SEXORCIST (1974)/DEVIATES IN LOVE (1979)
Director: Ray Dennis Steckler
Vinegar Syndrome

Vinegar Syndrome's Peekarama line brings back Ray Dennis Steckler with two of his "loopier" hardcore concoctions to DVD with their DVD of THE SEXORCIST and DEVIATES IN LOVE.

THE SEXORCIST: Young reporter Janice Lightning (Steckler regular Carolyn Brandt, BLOOD SHACK) accompanies sexorcist/demonologist Professor Ernest Von Kleinsmidt (Kelly Guthrie, DEVIL'S PLAYGROUND) on an expedition to The Marsh outside the city where once dwelled a coven of sex-crazed Satan worshippers. They discover a parchment which Ernest takes home to translate. Reciting the words aloud, he unknowingly wakes hooded cultist Volta (Wayne Williams) who offers the gift of true pleasure to Janice's hooker roommate Diana (Lilly Lamarr), taking sexual possession of her in order to deliver souls to the devil from her clients (along with pimp Richard Zufger). When Janice discovers Diana's desperate state, she contacts Von Kleinsmidt to conduct a sexorcism (which may be exactly what the devil wants).

Alternately known as THE SEXORCIST'S DEVIL and UNDRESSED TO KILL, THE SEXORCIST is one of the many pseudonymous Ray Dennis Stecker hardcore efforts – direction is credited to "Max Miller" here but IMDb lists "Sven Hellstrom" so that name may be on other prints – he helmed from the mid-seventies to the mid-eighties as it became harder to market his kookier genre works, and also one of a handful with a supernatural element along with THE MAD LOVE LIFE OF A HOT VAMPIRE (included on a previous Peekarama Steckler triple feature) and SACRILEGE. Like much of his output, hardcore or otherwise, THE SEXORCIST is a dud, with Brandt's droning narration filling much of the soundtrack apart of a lot of MOS photography in between ugly-looking sex scenes and Guthrie's demonologist spending much of the running time contemplating terrible occult paintings and drawings before realizing the demonic nature of the parchments. Brandt does not participate in the sexual activity, but the film does offer up some twists in the downbeat finale to keep those with a higher tolerance for Steckler amused.

DEVIATES IN LOVE: An offscreen psychotherapist who has devoted his career to studying suppressed sexual urges from the Spanish Inquisition's sexual sadism to the modern day submits for analysis the story of Claire, a young married woman who has developed a kink for peeping on her neighbors while her husband is at work. Incest between a pair of adult siblings and the swinging orgies of the employers of her Asian housegirl friend are far less disturbing to her than the realization that, when she pictures herself in their place, it is with the female half (or third or fourth) of the pairings. She tells her therapist about her curiosity about schoolmate Anne who was known as the school slut but whose freedom she envied. The therapist counters her interpretation with his own that Anne's promiscuity was the result of her loneliness, and that her bisexuality was further evidence of her need for affection from any available source. Claire tries to suppress her own urges with alcohol and secretly viewing stag films gifted to her and her husband by Anne's equally uninhibited sister, but she craves the real thing and then fears that she cannot stop after realizing her fantasy.

Obviously a collection of anonymous loops shot much earlier than the 1979 release date held together by scenes of Claire wandering a supposedly San Francisco suburban neighborhood, along with a few side trips to New York and Las Vegas, DEVIATES IN LOVE – also known as FADE TO RED and also credited to "Max Miller" (while IMDb lists "Otto Van Dayan" as another pseudonym accredited to the film) is marginally more interesting for its disparate construction. More seasoned viewers of porn loops or the feature works of lesser porn auteurs might recognize some of the scenes - among them a sequence involving a biker cult that kidnap, rape, torture, and murder women in the Utah desert - but the only recognizable face is early-to-mid-seventies porn star George S. McDonald (whose post-porn activities were the subject of Rialto Report podcast) in an S&M loop framed by the narrator as being about the dangers prostitutes face when clients enact urges upon them that they are ashamed to voice to their regular partners. Besides a few lesbian interludes, the opening "Spanish Inquisition" loop includes a brief shot of oral sex between two males.

Both transferred from archival 16mm elements, THE SEXORCIST (here titled UNDRESSED TO KILL) and DEVIATES IN LOVE (onscreen title: FADE TO RED) both look just passable in their non-anamorphic fullscreen presentations owing to Steckler's bland photography and the source material for the bits he integrated into the films from elsewhere. Grain is preserved and there is a hell of a lot of it, while skintones veer towards the orange, and detail is strong enough to do the performers no favors (including one performer who may be a long-haired hippie guy or a woman with some unplucked facial hair). The Dolby Digital 2.0 mono tracks fare best because the dialogue is largely post-recorded. There are no subtitles or extras of any kind. (Eric Cotenas)

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