Red Heat

Red Heat (1975)

** (out of 4)

Porn film from Ray Dennis Steckler finds a female director in Las Vegas shooting some porn scenes while at the same time several men are being murdered by a red head. As I go through the work of Steckler I'm discovering that it's best to watch his film without expecting too much plot. I say that after nearly each new film of his I see and it holds true for this one. I'm going to guess that Steckler wanted to do something more than just film a bunch of sex scenes so he threw in this "mystery" but it's not a mystery because we know who the killer is from the start. The killer is showing murdering everyone so I'm really not sure what the point of these scenes were. The story is so slim that there's really not much going out so if the director wanted to do something different then it probably would have been best to leave the identity of the killer a secret. With that said, I must admit that I found some of the dialogue to be funny and especially during the opening scene where the female director talks about why one certain woman wanted to do porn. Obviously none of the performances are all that good but why would you expect them to be? The hardcore scenes really aren't anything that special but it seems the director is mainly worried about the money shot. I will add that the strangest thing about this film are the murders, which are pretty bloody. I bring this up because Steckler's own horror films don't contain this much blood so it's interesting that he pours it on here. The best thing about RED HEAT is getting to see 1975's Las Vegas, which includes some great billboards highlighting the performing talent but also a couple mentions of then recently released DEEP THROAT.

No pun intended - this has nothing to do with the Arnold movie - or the one with the girl from the Exorcist (the latter I have not watched yet). Though I reckon it is closer to the latter one. Just slightly though - because while the other one may be a bit ... well sexual, it has different themes and it is not as explicit as this one for sure.

This may be the best one of the movies I have seen from the "notorious" director (who apparently had claimed he never did adult movies - this and other examples beg to differ). We have two storylines (well let's call them that) ... and both involve people explicitly going at each other! Male and female that is - in case that matters to and for you. The effect (shot) towards the end is quite nice - considering the time it was shot. All in all quite hairy (whether you are into ... this or not is up to you)

There are plenty of films like this out there, many of them aren't very good, and this one isn't very good either. To sum this film up in a nutshell; it's basically a voice over, a very thin plot and loads of sex scenes. There's really not a lot going on in this film, and the sex scenes aren't all that interesting either; which kind of made me wonder why I bothered watching it. The plot actually sounds quite interesting as it revolves around a mystery in Hollywood, but since the plot doesn't really figure; it's not very interesting. The sex scenes are, unfortunately, about as good as the rest of the film in that they're not very erotic. In fact, the sex scene quota mostly just consists of blow jobs and not much else. The film does have one saving grace; that being the fact that the running time is only just over an hour; any longer and Red Heat may have become torturous. This film may appeal to some fans of this sort of stuff - but it didn't do much at all for this one, and since it's completely obscure; I wouldn't recommend anyone bothers trying to track it down.