The Films

"Sunny" (2.5/5)

A frustrated Mrs. Carter turns to Mr. Carmichael for assistance when her late tycoon husband bestows most of his fortune to their son, Marc Carter.  She’s especially annoyed that her son wants nothing to do with her and refuses to share the immense wealth despite her sexually grooming of him starting from a young age, but the scheming mother hires Mr. Carmichael for his particular set of assets.   One of these assets is the gorgeous vixen, Sunny, a beautiful “company” girl who will do anything for her client.  She’s assigned to become involved with Marc, to obtain his trust, and to persuade him to distribute the money to estranged mother, by any means necessary.   There’s only one problem with the outlined plan; Sunny becomes greedy and devises her own scheme to marry Marc and keep all the money for herself.  Sunny’s road to retirement and luxury will be steep as she has to chip away at Mr. Carter’s tough exterior layer and whittle down his reluctance to get married as he seeks only the carnal flesh in sexual adventures and tests her against formidable sexual situations, through a plethora of perverse socialites, to fulfill his insatiable desires.

The whims of the melodramatic “Sunny” stems from New York born porno director Shaun Costello, who also penned the 1979 feature stag with an incorporating entanglement of power and lust that thrusts characters into the throes of frivolous and scheming carnalities.  Costello doesn’t hold back the sleaziness either with an anarchic position of keeping the covetousness internally between family parameters in a subtext that more or less preaches a boy’s breakthrough in becoming his own man and separating himself from his overpowering mother.  There’s also this loose Freudian aspect where the boy also reams his mother in the sack partly for revenge that grazes “Sunny’s” darker, psychological side that’s a cross between a boy’s desire for their mother and exacting intimacy vengeance upon a manipulative parent.

Portraying the titular character is another New Yorker, “Urban Heat’s” Candida Royalle.  The late starlet plays the seemingly loyal agency asset supervised by Mr. Carmichael and tasked with persuading Marc Carter in what to do with his family fortune.  Royalle’s short stature and average bust didn’t underwhelm her performance in being another one of Marc’s hot play toys, like his yacht, and the brunette with an exotic appeal had the gumption to withstand the ravaging by three male models during a semi-forced sex photo shoot scene that included Dave Ruby.  Haired with a fake mustache in portraying the opposite of Sunny is Rick Iverson as Marc Carter.  Iverson is completely swallowed by Candida in more ways than one.  Despite being an average sized bloke, Iverson just doesn’t cut being a spoiled and over sexualized playboy with a bouffant perm and, again, that horrendous upper lip caterpillar and his scenes with the soon-to-be founder of Femmes Production clearly disposition him as the weak point in intercourse.  Iverson grows a little more of a pair with his mother, his on screen mother that is, in Marlene Willoughby, taking more of a dominating position and owning the sequence.  The 5’10 brunette towers over Candida Royalle, perfect for an aggressive mother role. Willoughby’s knack for knob gobbling is pure eye candy as she seductively deep throats Rick Iverson and Gibert Palmitier, as the Chauffeur. Just as her character in Mrs. Carter, Willoughby is also very dominate as she outdoes her costars in acting and sexing that makes her scenes lively, spunkier, and more entertaining.  Randy West, Christine De Shaffer, Ashley Moore, Marc Valentine, Merle Michaels, and the Sloane Twins round out the performers while Jake Teague, Gordon Duvall, Wanda Manes, and Chula Henry, as an eccentric, high class, pot smoking voyeur, make up the cast of non-sex roles.

Aside from Marlene Willoughby, “Sunny” really doesn’t have any spectacular oomph behind it, despite all the breathy thrusting and pleasure pounding.  Instead, Costello focuses more on the conspiracy turmoil occupied with inner monologues from Sunny, flashbacks of Marc’s sexual encounters with his mother, and double backstabbings between various characters.  As a porno, “Sunny” struggles to erect a monolithic statement in hardcore action and just becomes lost in the industry’s fast-production scene.  Vinegar Syndrome’s Peekarama line is the perfect outlet for the Shaun Costello film where it’ll have a good run with classic sex cinema audiences as a rekindled product.

"More Than Sisters" (4/5)

Martin Randall is very concerned for his wife, Alice.  Alice has been having nightmares almost every night; their so intense and real that she tosses and turns, defensively talks in her sleep, and can't get any rest.  Martin also noticed differences in her behavior with a couple of examples being Alice taking the lead in bed and requesting anal.  The case falls into the hands of psychotherapist Dr. Alan Bannister to solve the mystery and as the good doctor hits a wall with his psycho-babbling and truth serum experiments, he turns private investigator John Bollinger.  Together, they dig for the truth behind what's really going inside the head of Alice Randall and her uncharacteristic sexual cravings and hangups. 

Perhaps the best Shaun Costello picture I've experienced to date, "More Than Sisters" is an adult mystery-thriller of deviation and fornication.  Costello, under his directorial pseudonym of Russ Carlson, helms the the 1979 feature that he also wrote under his pen name of Lars Tobin.  "More Than Sisters" strays not too far from the industry standard with Costello fabricating an above par plot that involves some extensive assessment to try and determine the end result.  Even though the title and DVD plot description slightly unearth and spoil the twist, the story maintains on the shoulders of it's characters to deliver the goods in full.  Oh, and the sex scenes are not too bad either. 

"More Than Sisters" star a dual role performance from Colleen Anderson in one of the actresses few credited films.  Anderson gives it her all performing as two different personalities and getting filthy with with orderly Roger Caine and the director himself as he takes on the role of Alice's worried stricken husband Martin, but the blonde Anderson's haggard look, pooch of a midsection, and butter face doesn't warrant lead material.  Again, Marlene Willoughby nearly steals the show as a Canadian psychiatric asylum warden who sucks the crazy off another orderly in a bizarre orgy in mental institution involving the fine bust and tail of Lisa Marks and "Debbie Does Dallas'" David Morris with Anderson squirming in a metal tub centered in the room.  Surprisingly, Jamie Gillies and Eric Edwards don't have substantial scenes.  Their performances with Erica Havens and Lynn Stevens, in one of her last credited roles, are severely underwhelming and cut short, especially between Edwards and Stevens who don't even finish.  Rounding out the rest of the cast is "Cannibal Holocaust's" Robert Kerman and Lisa Heyman.

Porn has always fancied itself the Korean form of flattery by imitation and "More than Sisters" has been certainly not spared from this aspect.  Costello borrows elements from Brian de Palma's 1972 mystery-thriller "Sisters," but straight up implements Bernard Hermann's soundtracks to the Alfred Hitchcock films, "Psycho" and "Vertigo," making it almost a satirical point to play the "Psycho" slashing shrieks when a penis enters one of the three orifices.  The influences aim to not displease by adding in an appealing horror erotica tone that sets the mood for the rest of the film and transforms the story toward being attractively interesting and hypnotic. 

Audio/Video (2.5/5)

Vinegar Syndrome scan and restore both films through their staple 2k technique from 35mm archival elements and present them both in a widescreen format - 1.85:1 aspect ratio.  "Sunny" fairs better of the two with the original material being fairly untarnished by father time, but the color palette doesn't pop with a tilt on the grayscale.  By far, "More Than Sisters" has the worst image quality despite being the better of the two features.  Blemishes, such as scratches, burns, and noticeably edit omissions, and an unfortunate lack of contrast put a damper release that's just slightly better than VHS. 

The English Dolby Digital mono tracks on both films don't have many imperfections other than some hissing in the dialogue on "More than Sisters."  The transfer tracks fain to please post restoration, despite lack of depth and fidelity, but that's expected with stag films from this era.

Extras (1.5/5)

Bonus material includes a commentary track by writer-director-actor Shaun Costello on "More Than Sisters" and "Sunny" has a theatrical trailer.

Overall

The Vinegar Syndrome Peekarama Big 2 Unit Show presentation of "Sunny" and "More Than Sisters" gets the job done.  There's no razzle-dazzle fireworks here and the only things to standout amongst the features is the blatant use of Alfred Hitchcock's famous scores from his legacy films, but one can appreciate what Shaun Costello was trying to accomplish on both his films - a porn with a story.  And I can get behind that.  Recommended.