Man, they just don't make 'em like this anymore. I guess that statement pretty much sums up the bulk of what we review here, and hell, in some places, not only do they not make 'em like that anymore, they really never got around to making 'em like that in the first place. They are simply ultra-bizarre anomalies in the fabric of film reality, oddities that should never have been brought forth unto this world.
Sometimes, you encounter something that defies all logic and interpretation, exists entirely outside the realm of even fringe film making. On occasion, that film doesn't have the name Alexandro Jodorowski attached to it, but a lot of times it does. Weirdness can come from a variety of sources, and a seasoned aficionado of global bizarro film knows no genre is safe from producing a film that can only explained as the work of a schizophrenic on enough acid to freak out an elephant.
These days, pornography is not exactly a playground of creativity and weirdness. Oh sure they come up with some funny titles and maybe a few funny ideas. For the most part though, it's pretty mundane stuff that follows an all too predictable formula of identical blond silicone adds humping some guy who might also be the star of a late night AbFlex commercial, unless they are Ron Jeremy, in which case they may be advertising a grill that lets you cook entire cows at once. If you are lucky, maybe you run across a film of Kobe Tai growling like mad and writhing all around, but for the most part, it's safe to say porn just isn't very weird these days.
I find that distressing. It's a shame that a style of film making so solidly identified with the fringe, no matter how many mainstream folks imbibe behind closed doors, is so self-conscious about it's larger reputation that it won't take any real chances. As paradoxical as it may sound, porn has never been more socially acceptable than it is these days. And it's not because we're all a lot more liberated and hornier. It's simply because porn is a lot more boring.
It wasn't always this way, kids. There was a time when porn was not afraid to produce some freaky shit, a time when the makers of adult films even gave a damn about trying to come up with some sort of story, however bad, to serve as a basis for all the nudity and wild fucking. This magical era was the 1970s. They are a much maligned decade, forever forced to lug around the tarnishing albatross of disco, stupid fucking pantsuits, and KC and the Sunshine Band. It's easy to hate the 1970s, and few rational people would be tempted to debate you, especially after the sickening glut of disco revivalism and nostalgia that swept over us not too long ago.
Luckily, I am not a very rational person when it comes to many things, and I'm among the first to jump to the defense of the 1970s. There's no denying that the 1970s, like no decade before or since, was the time of some of the most kick ass action films, the most gory horror films, and the most fucked up bizarro films. Porn in the 1970s was delightfully free of self-consciousness and rules. They'd fucking do anything. If your movie calls for some old mother fucker running around with a raw chicken hanging off his dick, well then by God they'd do it. It was a glorious time, my brothers and sisters, when creativity ran wild and every excess was indulged. Let us bow our heads in a moment of silence as we remember a wilder time, when a fifteen year old with big boobs could star in her own porn movies, direct, and even open her own production studio without anyone catching on that she wasn't legally old enough to drive.
I'm certain that the porn industry of the 1990s would never touch a film like Hardgore with a ten foot, umm, pole. Luckily, Hardgore was made in the 1970s, when film makers really had no problem making movies where a woman masturbated with an ear of corn while the Devil danced around behind her, jerking off and squeezing his own testicles (for more of that action, check out The Devil in Ms. Jones). Free from the restraint and yawn-inspiring commitment to the mundane that runs rampant these days, the people behind Hardgore, who no doubt did more drugs than all the Rolling Stones combined, churned out one of the most mind blowingly bizarre films ever made.
Rest assured your conventions are all intact. The soundtrack is quality Bruno Mattei sounding lounge music. The acting is stilted. The dialogue is laughable. And of course there are scenes where the boom mic is dangling in the shot like John Holmes' wiener. I mean, just because you are coming from left field doesn't mean you can't respect the classics. The plot itself begins as pure porn convention -- a sexy young woman is admitted to a clinic where they promise to cure her of that awful disease, nymphomania. Naturally, the staff (ahem) of the hospital have some rather curious ways of treating their patients. I'm not sure if constant sex with an endless stream of beautiful nurses is a cure for anything, but I'm willing to undergo the test. All in the name of science, after all.
But the predictability ends there. It turns out that not only are all the nurses horny bisexual nymphos themselves, but the doctor and his staff (ahem) are all a bunch of Satan worshipping, orgy having cultists! Right on! Before you know it, lesbian sex gives way to scenes of bizarre rituals, masked minions of Lucifer, and gore. Yep, gore. They didn't pick the title of this movie out of a hat, you know. So now you have lesbian sex, Satanic rituals and orgies, bloody decapitations and castrations, and you know what? That's only the beginning.
You'll sit through this whole movie wondering what it could possibly come up with next, and chances are they won't disappoint you with the results. Satanic orgies are punctuated by necrophilia, and then by dead women coming to life while a fleet of flying dildos with sparklers in them shoot fake sperm at our lovely heroine as they dart about the room. You get an evil Satanic dildo of horror that heats up and shoots out smoke, causing the cutest woman in the whole movie to writhe in pain and yell, "It burns! Call my mother!"
Call your mother? The fuck? I can think of a lot of things I would yell if I had a Satanic dildo of fire stuck in me, and "Call my mother!" is so far down on the list that it's not even worth bringing up. It might be different if her mother had been in the movie at any point, but no. She just sort of randomly brings her up as Devil smoke pours out her crotch. Hey, it was the 1970s.
The Devil himself, or a reasonable facsimile thereof, shows up to orchestrate a massive orgy, get a blow job, and do a little decapitating. Maybe it wasn't the Devil, I don't know. At the very least, it was a spokesman or official representative of Hell. Satan got a lot more action back in the 1970s. In the 1980s, he was too busy with heavy metal music, and nowadays Christian fundamentalists are so vile and hateful that it really overshadows anything Lucifer could through at us.
I think this movie kicks ass. It's a total mindfuck that will arouse you one scene, then come at you with guys getting their wee-wees chopped off while Iron Butterfly type psychedelic music goes wild in the background. I think my favorite thing about 1970s porn is that there are no skinny-ass, fake boob having stars. Nothing is less attractive than that. The folks here are all real, complete with the perfect amount of baby fat, actual butts, and no silicone. If I'm going to watch porn -- and of course you know I would never ever watch that filth, but I'm being hypothetical -- I want to see real people with real body parts. It's more attractive to be a little bit doughy but all natural than to be ninety pounds, with 50 of it being the fake shit in your boobs.
I'd like to think this movie will gross out and offend a lot of people. How often does someone decide to mix splatter gore with hot porn? Not very often. I know y'all these days are shocked by nothing, not so much because any of us are more open minded than ever before; but rather, it's simply because we're a lot more lethargic, apathetic, and desensitized. Part of what makes porn fun is that it offends so many people. And Hardgore will probably even offend some porn fans, especially those weak-ass new school kids who have no idea just how fucking bizarre the shit was in the 1970s.
You will scratch your head. You might hide your eyes. You might feel that special urge and take matters into your own hands. No matter what you do while you're watching this movie, the fact remains that it's one delightfully baffling, totally insane romp boiling over with hardcore sex, nudity, orgies, blood, gore, flying attack dildos, cool-ass jazz music, sexy nurses, weird looking guys, the Devil and his minions, and some other stuff I can't even explain. As for me, I loved this movie so much that I don't even hide the fact that I own it. It's a true testament to a dirty film when you don't even try to hide it by labeling it Ninja Death Trap IV or putting in the back behind all the other videos. 
