'Sex Sex' fun
Boston Globe, By Jim Sullivan
| If you are a devotee of sleaze, you'll salivate at the prospect of ''Mau Mau Sex Sex,'' a fond and fawning look back at exploitation, or grindhouse, movies from the 1930s through the 1960s. From ''Maniac'' - retitled ''Sex Maniac'' because, well, you know - to ''Child Bride,'' ''She Freak,'' and ''The Defilers,'' all the way up to the gore classic ''Blood Feast,'' ''Mau Mau Sex Sex'' is a look at prurience and deviance before the era of hardcore. The problem is that this 80-minute documentary - produced, written, and directed by Ted Bonnitt - is mostly told through the eyes of genre vets Dan Sonney, 84, and David Friedman, 76. Which is not to say there aren't glimpses of merriment. Said glimpses come almost exclusively in the clips from the movies these guys made. You feel like you're being let in on the old secrets: Promise a little more than you deliver and when in doubt, go topless and/or bloody. (Lesbian encounters and whipping scenes also work.) There's no auteur theory here. These movies were made to make money. ''Blood Feast'' cost $24,000 and grossed $30 million over the years. The plots of these flicks are ludicrous; the titillation factor rules all. And, the standards of the time being what they were, Sonney and Friedman show plenty of female breasts and butts, but have to draw the line at genitalia. September 21 2001 |
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