Each October, the Unsung Horrors podcast does a month of themed movies. This year they will once again be setting up a fundraiser to benefit Best Friends, which is working to save the lives of cats and dogs all across America, giving pets second chances and happy homes.

Today’s theme: In Memoriam

The pedigree of this movie: It was based on a story Ray Dennis Steckler called “Warning – No Trespassing”, scripted by Ted Newsom (Time Tracers, Evil Spawn) and directed and produced by Hal Freeman, who made his money from adult movies like Sex Rink, Radio K-KUM and the Caught from Behind Series. He wanted to go mainstream, so he paid for this movie all by himself.

There was a reason for that. In 1983, as the conservative Reagan White House and Attorney Edwin Meese started cracking down on porn, raiding the set of Freeman’s Caught from Behind 2. He was convicted of five counts of pandering but was given probation. This took years to resolve, up until 1988. Freeman died a year later, but the case that the religious right brought against him ended up legalizing pornography and eliminating any grey area. Then again, Roe v. Wade was a thing at one point too.

Freeman’s Hollywood Video started a mainstream Hollywood Family Video and this was the first release. It begins with psychologist Dr. Barbara Shelley (Wendy MacDonald) bringing her patients to the desert to try her confrontation therapy and get them to function as a group.

Those patients are Vietnam vet Rick Carlson (Tony Montero), who is dealing with flashbacks; the sex-addicted Cassie (Lisa Savage); Crawford (John Clark), who is an alcoholic; Jean (Monica Silveria) who resists any attempt to be touched; Dory (Lisa Loring, who was Wednesday Addams and by this point was married to porn star Jerry Butler and doing makeup on adult sets as Maxine Factor; she also co-wrote Traci’s Big Trick, an adult film about exactly how Traci Lords made movies as an underage teen), a former fashion model and lesbian who hates everyone and the hateful Dave (Hank Garrett, the foreman inspired by Paul Kersey in Death Wish).

Why does the doctor think she can control six mentally ill people in the middle of nowhere with no help? The first session ends up with Dave and Rick fighting each other and by the next day, their RV is ruined, the radio doesn’t have a microphone, all of their food is ruined and Dave is dead. One by one, they find a jack in the box and are killed.

This was late to the slasher cycle and even though it’s shot on video, this has some great gore and the last few moments really go for it. Speaking of going hard, Lisa Loring is a force of nature in this. RIP — she died last year — but she’s screaming every line and ends up scoring one of the women in a scene that cuts before any sapphic action, making you wonder if this really was directed by a man who went to jail for the sins of the adult industry.

There was one other Hollywood Family release. Earthquake Survival, which was written by Newsom and Brinke Stevens. It was directed by Freeman — who signed a certificate you could be proud of if you watched this — and hosted by Shelley Duval. It was sold exclusively at Sav-On stores in California.

You can watch this on YouTube.

Sources:

The Bloody Pit of Horror: Blood Frenzy