"Afternoon Delight" (4/5)

Five friends enjoy a once-a-week poker night at one or the other's house.  This time, Pete Ferrell's time has come to host a night of cards and he plans to make this night more memorable than any other by having competition don a tuxedo and be welcomed by a desirable house maid.  Unknowing what to expect, each man figures enters Ferrell poker game with quizzed expressions and after one hand played, Ferrell pulls out another game.  A game involving the five friends to anonymously write down a sultry and illicit story of each of their five ex-wives and guess the husband whose wife ultimately ended their relationship by going out with a, literal, bang, but as one story after another is shared, the once frivolous game becomes an insightful look into their own demanding whims and off-putting neglect that required of their wives to find pleasure elsewhere.

Director Shaun Costello, credited under the pseudonym of Warren Evans, helms a 1980 succulently skeevy romper slapped frivolously with the generic title "Afternoon Delight."  Also penned as the feature's writer, Costello ventures through five crotch tingling anecdotes that play the field across a broad range of bored house wive fantasies that lead either to the dark and dank sticky floor sanctuary of an adult theater house to a more professional setting of an elaborately clean and detailed dentistry exam room.  Costello's impeccable no smoke and mirrors production value is wealthy beyond the genre's means and refreshingly raunchy with no repetitive motions or gimmicky intentions to award falsely a more than agreeably hot presentation. 

The actress known as only Serena headlines the feature that ironically portrays her in the worst possible way with her wandering house wife character walking on set to be a curious kitten looking to be a porn actress.  Serena, who to me has always reminded me of a butt-tooth cartoon caricature from the 1920s, has the low scene on the totem poll that is less than exhilarating and she performs, in fact, in the most conventional means of the entire duration with a porn inside a porn routine.  From worst to best, Vanessa Del Rio, who I usually don't fancy either, has won me over with an unforgettable performance of going incognito into an adult movie theater and watch hunks jerk themselves off toward the action on the screen.  When their astute senses come around and realize he is a she, they don't miss a shaft stroke, continuously working themselves on and into the del Rio cock hungry machine as she can't get enough, happily abiding their spunk by any means possible as the reel rolls.  Another fun scenario to watch is Veronica Hart's brunette vixen self to be molested under nitrous oxide by the one and only Clown Prince of Porn Bobby Astyr portraying to be professional dentist and assisted by his lovely dental hygienist Nancy (Diane May).  Controversially, as if nothing is ever controversial about porn, is Samantha Fox's librarian gone wild segment where she transforms into a dominatrix with a nazi outfit, whipping her client until she can't take the anticipation of feeling ever last inch of him in her mouth or elsewhere.  Lastly, the most tenderness performances goes to Merle Michaels who seductively lures two construction workers inside her high rise apartment to jackhammer her into submissiveness while her husband is away.  The rest of the cast includes Eric Edwards as Pete Ferrell, Robin Sane as the onset fluffer, Christie Ford as the maid, Dave Ruby, George Payne, and Alan Marlow as the creepy theater guy with glasses.

"Slave of Pleasure" - (3/5)

Richard and Eileen's lackluster sexual relationship in their marriage has steered Richard to an extramarital affair with Eileen's best friend Barbara and when Barbara tries to force Richard's hand to leave Eileen for good and he ultimately refuses the concept, Barbara, out of spite, involves a Middle Eastern sex trafficking business women named Sultana to have her goons kidnap and drug Eileen as part of an international transaction.  Despite their inability to reconnect and rehabilitate their marriage, a desperate Richard hires a private investigator named Dan McCord to locate the whereabouts of Eileen before she's shipped to be an Arabian pleasure slave all the while a back peddling Barbara tries to negotiate with Sultana on her friend's release.

Though credited under a different moniker than in "Afternoon Delight," Shaun Costello scribes and helms "Slave of Pleasure" under the guise of Russ Carlson on this Costello double feature.  "Slave of Pleasure" is indisputably a different breed of animal when compared to "Afternoon Delight," which maintained a playful eagerness for pleasure outside the confines of marital ball-and-chains.  This Costello film has an aggressive spirit that ranges between types of immoral debauchery.  From cheating with the spouse's best friend to a torturous moment involving forced BDSM and rape, "Slave of Pleasure" taps into that guilty gratification deep within us all. 

Headlining "Slave of Pleasure" is long time industry vet Jamie Gillis.  Gillis plays the top dog sex trafficker orchestrating trades between Arab countries and America and, surprisingly, doesn't have more than one scene which involves a threesome with short lived actresses in Patty Boyd and Roseanne Farrow on hands and knees playing characters craving cock from the effects of a sex inducing drug.  The man-ish C.J. Lang gets looped into a couple of scenes with the fairly soft around the midsection director Shaun Costello who dons two masks, somewhat literally, in the story as the husband Richard and a masked dominator when C.J. Lang is strapped up for reneging on her deal with Sultana.   Sultana's an interesting sex trafficking mistress with an interesting actress in Gloria Todd, the only black actress on set who can't get in a rhythm of dialogue, but can suck the chrome of a door handle, especially when opening wide to swallow and getting double penetrated by her two henchmen played by Herschel Savage and Dave Ruby.  Roger Caine, Ursula Austin, Robert Kerman, Theordora Duncan, Ashley Moore, and Michael Thorpe co-star with plenty of hot, sweaty action to go around.

Like aforementioned, this Costello production sits on the other side of the saucy spectrum with a style that's more invasive.  Costello gets close, real close, to the action.  When Costello sticks his wet tongue between the pimpled cheeks of Roseanne Farrow and gently zig-zags across her anus, a full view of each and every stroke is recorded.  The same can be said when Farrow, on the opposite end of sixty-nine, wraps her thin lips around his crotch rocket.  The closeup shot becomes a fixated motif that's rich with body fluids slathered around orifices. 

Audio/Video (4/5)

Vinegar Syndrome presents this particular Peekarama Big 2 Unit Shot DVD in two different formats.  "Afternoon Delight" is presented in the original aspect ratio of a widescreen 1:85.1 while "Slave of Pleasure" sports to two vertical bars, one on each side, in a 1.33:1 ratio.  Both films are scanned and restored in 2k from 35mm archival elements which have withstood the test of time sporting nice finished products that brightly exhibit a vivid color palette, fleshy lively skin tones, and able to reduce much of the film grain.  "Afternoon Delight" has slight wear with reel damage inside last one-third of the film. 

The Dolby Digital mono track on both features are favorable.  Where the fidelity is shallow, the dialogue is evidently clear and unblemished.  Slight crackling during the title sequence of "Afternoon Delight" as a sign of some track damage. 

Extras (1/5)

Extras include a commentary on both tracks by writer-director Shaun Costello as well as a theatrical trailer for "Afternoon Delight."

Overall

Shaun Costello and Vinegar Syndrome present a pair of polarizing films that define the filmmakers range and who commits to involving the entire cast one way or another and not relying on one trick to perform relentless that ultimately nullifies a feature's interests.  Both films look good for their ages of 1978 and 1980 which is, again, a testament to Vinegar Syndrome diligence and hard work committing themselves to unsheathing classic pornos.  "Afternoon Delight" and "Slave of Pleasure" are two films I would highly RECOMMEND.