SEXIS WRONG

The three supporting players are effective unknowns, with
no associations to other films. Serena, as always, more than
lives up to her infamous S/M reputation. Remembering this
film will lead you to ask, “Where is Serena today?” and, “Is
she still alive?”
A most peculiar Cameo offering was Red Heat, written and
directed by cult movie figure Ray Dennis Steckler and his
wife using the collective pseudonym of Cindy Lou Sutter.
Red Heat is equal parts off-kilter Vegas travelogue, bloody
sex-killer flick, and raunchy loop package, all in one. The grizzled-sounding
offscreen female narrator tells of her sleazy
adventures directing skin flicks. Then she tells you about her
star, Red Heat, who went on a wild murder spree. The sex
scenes are raunchy early-1970s hotel-room balling populated
by hardboiled, aged Vegas pros. Las Vegas is really the costar,
showing off a constant tapestry of nightclub marquees
advertising the likes of Barry Manilow, Buddy Hackett, and
Flip Wilson, filmed under a blinding white Sun. This is intercut
with after-dark drive-by shots of degenerate massage parlors
and adult bookstores. Watch for director Steckler’s cameo
as Red stabs him in the shower. It’s far from a conventional
hardcore film, but Red Heat still had enough oomph to satisfy
horny Cameo denizens.
When the Cameo turned into a $1.99 triple-bill house in the
1980s, tourists, suckers, and guys from Jersey in groups
made the pilgrimage.
The Venus
The Venus Theater was originally called the Eros E but changed
its name in the mid-1970s so people would stop confusing it
with the gay Eros next door. The Venus was Mrs. Wilson’s
second roughie showcase. The Venus showed all aspects
of the violation theme, whether interracially in The Big Man,
starring Jim Cassidy and John Holmes, or be it guys in gorilla
In the mid-1970s, the Cameo became
the superdome of the rough-sex
action picture.
costumes. Abductors, psychedelic pissing, or filmed volcanic
eruptions of all bodily fluids (shit, piss, semen, menstruation),
sometimes all at once, flew across the Venus’ grubby, stained
screen. The Venus audience was mostly black men agreeable
to any kind of kinky, anonymous sex and white men seeking a
dingy experience. All manner of 8 th Avenue flotsam floated in
after midnight like a tide breaking. Hustlers, drug casualties,
homeless perverts. In the 1980s, the Venus was an incredible
place for reruns, be it Teenage Fantasies or any number
of Shaun Costello movies.
The Intrusion was a frequent Venus replay. Pseudonymously
directed by “Art Nouveau” (most likely Shaun Costello), The
Intrusion is a meditation on the molecular structure of a rape.
Kim Pope plays a shy, bored housewife married to ineffectual
businessman Levi Richards. Michael Dattore cruises suburban
streets in his car looking for just the right house to invade.
After posing as an insurance salesman, he suddenly pushes
his way into the quiet home. Dattore’s shrunken Skeletor
coke head and loud plaid pants only makes him more rank
and believable.
He hustles the frightened wife upstairs, where he beats her
face with his cock, violates her with a knife handle, and facefucks
her. The Filipino maid surprises him, and she gets some
of the same. She’s stripped, revealing pubic hair shaved into
a heart. He ties her hands behind her back. After acquiescing
to Dattore, she is ordered onto the bed with Pope. It all
builds to a crescendo of an oral orgy. A flip-book reprise of
the whole film is presented, leading up to the final moment,
with the maid drawing a fatal close to the rapist’s whole insane
outburst. Menace is the leitmotif of The Intrusion. Sharp
character performances and professional direction contribute
to its overwhelming sense of erotic threat, which is amplified
by its malevolent avant-garde soundtrack. The Intrusion is a
tight, compelling, minimalist psychodrama.
The Capri
The friendly neighbor of the Venus and Eros was the Capri
Theater on 46 th Street and 8 th Avenue, owned by Tom, a
nondescript little Greek guy. The Capri was a long, shoeboxstyled
grindhouse with a busy balcony. A staircase above the
balcony led to the owner’s office. Tom was a sometime XXX
producer but looked like he should be running a coffee shop.
The Capri had a reputation in the 1970s for showing so-called
quality adult films tinged with a patina of kink. These features
brought a dedicated crowd bearing five-dollar bills to the box
office. The Capri was considered reasonably
safe, despite the 8 th Avenue hookers who’d
mosey around during closing time.
The Capri was immortalized in Shaun Costello’s
Afternoon Delight. George Payne, Vanessa Del Rio, and
Dave Ruby, all attired in leather, get it on with a shatteredlooking
Alan Marlow in the theater’s balcony.
One of the Capri’s popular 1977 offerings was the Jamie Gillis
vehicle Winter Heat, shot in the middle of winter, with all
the inherent isolation that cold weather imparts. Snow covers
the remote cabins where Jamie, Helen, and their two aging,
Stonewall-era traveling companions bust in on three passive
girls. These creeps take over the cabin and have their raw
way with the pitiful girls. Winter Heat is an ambient roughie
154 EVERYTHING YOU KNOW ABOUT SEX IS WRONG