Eros High School: Feels So Good

My contact at Synapse sent me a couple more films from their Impulse label's Nikkatsu Erotic Films Collection (a series of 70s and 80s softcore porn flicks originally known by the industry term Roman Porno). Synapse plans to release 15 of these titles, and seeing as how I feel obligated to review films people send me, I'm going to have to ask them to stop sending them, as I don't want to come off like a total pervert. That's the Phantom of Pulp's job!

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy a sexy Japanese movie every now and then, and while these films never show full frontal nudity, much less actual penetration, nevertheless they're incredibly filthy. With the exception of international warfare, the Japanese invariably master whatever they set their minds to, and in the realm of softcore porn, the Japanese "pink film" is nonpareil.

Looking at the packaging,  you can pretty much guess what's on the table here: At least one Japanese high school girl gets the business from a guy in a straw hat (while holding a track shoe no less! No, not really ...). Turns out the guy is the self-styled Ryu the Rapist (Shohei Murakuni), a geta clog-wearing punk with a pet pig who goes back and forth between reform school and standard high school because he rapes women and girls wherever he goes. He's set his sights on pretty track star Misa (Asami Ogawa), but he's going to plow through all of her friends and a number of other girls first. The rapes start off violent, but of course the girls start to love it soon enough (an unsavory sentiment, the merest hint of which got Sam Peckinpah in hot water over his 1971 film Straw Dogs). What's truly bizarre is that the film is largely played for laughs. It's that queasy mixture of goofy and disturbing I noticed in so many Category III Hong Kong films (reviewed for your reading pleasure in Asia Shock).

I was also sent #4 in the series, Zoom Up: The Beaver Book Girl, an intriguing title from 1981. This one will likely be a bit more deviant, for as time wore on, the Roman Porno film franchise felt the need to up the ante as it were. I anticipate more wall-to-wall sex and less prurient hijinks than Eros High School.

I should mention that the disks feature informative essays by pink film expert Jasper Sharp, so if you want to pretend you're not just perving out but really doing legitimate film history research, here's your chance. In any case, if you're a heterosexual male with a pulse, you're sure to get turned on by this terrifically titillating film fare. (These films hit the street June 12, 2012.)