Getting It On

This was filmed in my neighborhood when I was a Freshman in High School. I was an extra in the school auditorium scene where the "sex tape" is shown, Want to know more, email me. This was originally called 'American Voyeur' when I went to the premiere where the mayor of Hickory, NC gave Olsen a key to the city, with a crowd full of people dressed to the 9's. Then, a coming-of-age flick movie came up on the screen; nice surprise for that crowd.

"Getting It On" takes a seedy, repugnant premise, and then fails to go anywhere even particularly smutty with it. It's a movie about a teenager who apparently has hidden cameras in multiple areas around town filming girls taking their clothes off and having sex... and then makes you wait more than half the length of the movie before it shows you a glimpse of bare breast.

If this is confusing, it's nothing compared to the movie's "plot", which receives so little exposition that the movie makes little, if any, sense. I understood that the movie's protagonist has a flair for filming girls without them realising it, and also likes his next door neighbour. He has the typical goofy, obnoxious best friend who encourages him into emulating this behaviour when he is around the girl of his dreams, when he should just be "being himself".

I didn't really understand the point of the voyeuristic sequences, when the main character watches, for example, a group of girls having a pillow fight he has apparently filmed. This is, I guess, what sets the movie apart from other teen T'n A flicks, but in the movie itself it amounts to nothing. It could have been sleazily exploited to show more skin, and let's face it, it probably should have been! This is why people watch these movies, after all. However there is so little nudity in the movie, and the kid's voyeurism adds nothing to the story, so what was the point of it?

At one point it seems that his creepy hobby is going to save the day when his best friend is about to be sent to an all boys' school due to misbehaviour. The boys get a prostitute off the street, take her to a weird fancy dress party where both adults and teens are in attendance and the best friend dresses like a Klansman, and have the hooker seduce the kid's dad while on videotape.

They then play the film on the TV set the dad and his wife are watching, so that the wife can see her husband's adultery. What was the point of this? Revenge? Blackmail would have seemed a more obvious option. The response of the couple is even more bizarre and inexplicable.

Overall though, I enjoyed this movie. It's not as repugnant as it could have been, and I couldn't help but like the two main characters.

Simple-minded sex farce aims for sly smiles. On that level, it is amiable enough. All the actors seem to be having a genial enough time. There's not much else to tell -- just silly suburban hijinks, but nothing I found particularly offensive, or particularly interesting. But it was on a local UHF station while I worked out at a hotel gym, and for that it filled the bill nicely.

GETTING IT ON bills itself as a typical promiscuous sex comedy and fails miserably. It is a painfully amateur production with a cast of no-names that tend to make a viewer cringe every time they open their mouths. The cast is lead by Martin Yost, who plays Alex, a teen-age Peeping Tom who decides to turn his perverted pastime into a money-making scheme. His father blindly agrees to give his son the $4000 to start a security surveillance business, which Alex can then use as an excuse to spy on other people, presumably "in the act". The father is unbelievably naive. It would have helped if the father was more suspicious of what his son was doing with all this expensive equipment. As for the "peep" sequences, they are far and few in the film and lack imagination for what the film is trying to advertise. No new ground is broken here.

There is no drive to the film. It is dull and the actors just seem to be going through the motions. That and the director tries to use two different sequences in which an actor pulls a gun on someone else as a surprise comedic effect, which is a lousy attempt at cheap laughs. The film weighs in at about 90 minutes, and by 90 minutes it's too long! Don't bother with this one. Try PORKY'S or MISCHIEF instead.

I recently watched Getting It On (1983) on Tubi. The story follows a high school peeping Tom and virgin who stumbles upon video equipment, taking his obsession to the next level. Will his new hobby deepen his fixation, or will it unexpectedly lead him to love?

Written and directed by William Olsen (Southern Belles), the film stars Terry Loughlin (Out of Time), Martin Yost, Heather Kennedy (Leprechaun), and Jeffrey Edmond (Out of the Black & Blue).

This is a by-the-numbers 80s sex comedy in the vein of Porky's, Animal House, and Hardbodies, but without the charm or impact. Everything about it is mediocre at best. While there's the expected nudity, the storyline feels like an excuse to make a movie rather than something with any real substance. The acting is average, the dialogue is uninspired, and the coming-of-age elements are watered down. There's no standout scene that makes it worth watching.

In conclusion, Getting It On is a forgettable 80s sex comedy with far better options available. I'd rate it a 3/10 and recommend skipping it.