The other night we watched SexWorld, a classic put out in 1978. We have a copy of SexWorld 2002 (which we will review soon) and we wanted to watch the original first. I have to say, this was well worth the watching. In a nutshell, a bunch of people go on a long weekend to a place called SexWorld, where they can live out whatever fantasy or secret desire they harbour; with or without their partners. No fantasy is too difficult to accommodate, no matter what the request. The only conditions that seem to be placed on the visitors is that they don't fraternise with each other, or in the case of married couples, don't discuss what has gone on with each other.
Watching it, I was reminded of the old Fantasy Island TV series, and Dave said that it reminded him of WestWorld, which was released a few years earlier. We don't meet all the passengers on the bus, but we do meet a significant number of them. They have to fill in surveys and have briefing sessions where they explain their desires to the SexWorld counsellors and technicians, all of whom are trained to find the best fit for the client's desire. As each client describes what they want and/or how they found out about it, we see flashbacks of what led them to SexWorld in the first place.
First we meet Joan (Leslie Bovee) and Jerry (Kent Hall), who are into trying new adventures. She's an artist who paints nudes, which her husband finds stimulating. Next we meet Millicent (Kay Parker) and Ralph (Jack Wright) who have issues - she's a bitch who wants to be bullied by her man and as a result can't arouse her passive husband, and he has a "mommy fetish". Then we meet Lisa (Sharon Thorpe, last seen by us in Candy Stripers), a lonely woman who calls phone sex numbers to get off. Sadly, she is unsuccessful at this, although the guy on the other end, Peter Johns (aka Frank Michaels), manages just fine.
Once the weekend fun actually starts, Linda (Amber Hunt) and Jo (Carol Tong) are paired together, then Jerry gets to join in as his adventure. Joan gets to play with Marian (Abigail Clayton) as hers, Marian looking like Joan's next-door-neighbour. Racist bigot Roger (John Leslie) is given the gorgeous Jill (Desiree West) to prove to him that his "spigot ain't no bigot". Millicent gets her aggressive man fantasy with Phil (Joey Silvera), not knowing that Ralph is playing out his voyeurism fantasy by watching them (this was a pretty rough scene). He gets led away by Ann (Eileen Dover, aka Maureen Spring), his mother lookalike, who helps him to finally manage an orgasm.
Some fantasies are only discussed, such as the gay man describing what he wants, and some I'm glad that they weren't shown, such as the man wanting to have his sister suck him off in a bathroom while his family is outside.
Dale (Annette Haven, also in A Thousand and One Erotic Nights and Autobiography of a Flea) is at SexWorld to forget her lost lover, Alex (Suzette Holland, aka Chris Cassidy). We see her remembering, and then she gets a Latin stud, Tomas (Roberto Ramos), to help her forget.
Lastly we see the sad Lisa again. She is desperate for someone to notice her for herself, but when a mystery man knocks on her door and tells her that he saw her on the bus and was attracted to her, she hesitates too long and he leaves. Instead she gets her fantasy of the man from Behind the Green Door (Johnnie Keyes, yes the real Johnnie Keyes in a special guest appearance) and a jolly good rogering results.
When the weekend is over, some are happy, some are not. Millicent and Ralph have saved their marriage, as he is now able to stand up to (and for) his wife. Joan doubts that her marriage to Jerry will ever be the same again (perhaps the lures of Sappho, or the next-door-neighbour, are too strong for her to resist). Roger has learnt the delights of dark meat (and that "you people don't smell funny"). Dale has presumably forgotten her lost lesbian lover. Whether Lisa is satisfied is left unanswered. As the bus pulls away, taking the guests back to the airport, SexWorld shuts down until the next bus-load of tourists arrives.
The question keeps getting asked throughout the film whether the "staff" are real or robots, as they seem to be able to accommodate anything, even someone who looks exactly like Joan's next door neighbour. There are several scenes that imply (but don't confirm) that they are robots and several scenes that imply (but don't confirm) that they aren't. In the last scene where the place shuts down, everyone, except the chief scientist, mysteriously freezes after the power goes out... Were they or weren't they?
You can buy SexWorld here through Uncut DVDs in Australia.
You can buy SexWorld here through Good Vibrations in the USA.
