''Forced Entry'' is a 1973

adult An adult is a human or other animal that has reached full growth. In human context, the term ''adult'' has meanings associated with social and legal concepts. In contrast to a " minor", a legal adult is a person who has attained the age of major ...

horror film Horror is a film genre that seeks to elicit fear or disgust in its audience for entertainment purposes. Horror films often explore dark subject matter and may deal with transgressive topics or themes. Broad elements include monsters, apoca ...

written and directed by Shaun Costello under the pseudonym Helmuth Richler. It stars

Harry Reems Herbert John Streicher (August 27, 1947 – March 19, 2013), better known by his professional pseudonym Harry Reems, was an American pornographic actor and later a successful real estate agent. His most famous roles were as Doctor Young in ...

(credited as Tim Long) as an unnamed and psychotic

Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vie ...

veteran A veteran () is a person who has significant experience (and is usually adept and esteemed) and expertise in a particular occupation or field. A military veteran is a person who is no longer serving in a military. A military veteran that has ...

who sexually assaults and kills women who stop at the

filling station A filling station, also known as a gas station () or petrol station (), is a facility that sells fuel and engine lubricants for motor vehicles. The most common fuels sold in the 2010s were gasoline (or petrol) and diesel fuel. Gasoli ...

where he works as an attendant. Called "one of the most disturbing and unpleasant porn features ever made," the film utilizes actual footage of the war, predominantly in the rape and murder sequences.

Plot

After opening with newspaper articles, footage, and quotes relating to the

and the psychological condition of the American soldiers who have returned from it, the authorities are shown investigating a crime scene in which a man was shot in the head. Going back an unspecified amount of time, the man is revealed to be a gas station attendant, and is shown coercing a female customer into giving out her name and address by claiming they are needed for a

credit card A credit card is a payment card issued to users (cardholders) to enable the cardholder to pay a merchant for goods and services based on the cardholder's accrued debt (i.e., promise to the card issuer to pay them for the amounts plus the o ...

transaction. After the woman drives away, the attendant goes to her apartment building, and watches through a window as she has sex with her husband. When the husband leaves, the attendant breaks into the apartment and forces the woman to perform oral sex on him while he verbally abuses her, slitting her throat after he climaxes. Back at the gas station, the attendant gives a lost motorist directions, and follows her to the address she was looking for. The man breaks into the house, drags the woman out of the shower, and forces her to fellate him at gunpoint. He then sodomizes her, stabs her, and kisses her as she dies. Later, a ditzy female

hippie A hippie, also spelled hippy, especially in British English, is someone associated with the counterculture of the 1960s, originally a youth movement that began in the United States during the mid-1960s and spread to different countries around ...

picks up an equally vapid hitchhiker, and the two travel to the gas station. The attendant tricks the driver into giving out her address, and goes to her home, where she and her companion are doing drugs, and having sex. The attendant sneaks in and tries to force the girls to submit to him, but the pair are too intoxicated to take him seriously, frustrating him to the point of a

psychotic break Psychosis is a condition of the mind that results in difficulties determining what is real and what is not real. Symptoms may include delusions and hallucinations, among other features. Additional symptoms are incoherent speech and behavior t ...

. As he screams "Stay away from me!" and has a series of flashbacks to both the war and the rapes and murders he has committed, the attendant shoots himself in the head. Returning to the intro, the man's body is covered by a sheet, and hauled away by the police.

Cast

(as Tim Long) as Gas Station Attendant * Laura Cannon as Lost Driver * Jutta David as David's Wife * Shaun Costello as David * Ruby Runhouse as Hippie Girl * Nina Fawcett as Hippie Girl

Reception

In his autobiography, star Harry Reems wrote that ''Forced Entry'' was the one film he regretted doing.

DVD Talk DVD Talk is a home video news and review website launched in 1999 by Geoffrey Kleinman. History Kleinman founded the site in January 1999 in Beaverton, Oregon. Besides news and reviews, it features information on hidden DVD features known as ...

gave the film zero stars, calling it "morally repugnant". Noting the film is "the first film to show a disturbed war vet coming home from Vietnam," Ed Demko calls the film "one of the more important and relevant films to ever come out of that age of pornography. It’s a film that really transcends the time that it was made and might even be more important now than the age it was made. Sure there’s a ton of nasty sexual activity in the film but the subject matter and what the movie is actually saying goes way beyond that."

Analysis

In "''Forced Entry'': Serial Killer Pornography as Patriarchical Paradox", scholar Robert Cettl assesses the film's role as pivotal in the history of American serial killer films and discusses its

subversion Subversion () refers to a process by which the values and principles of a system in place are contradicted or reversed in an attempt to transform the established social order and its structures of power, authority, hierarchy, and social norms. Sub ...

of American

patriarchy Patriarchy is a social system in which positions of dominance and privilege are primarily held by men. It is used, both as a technical anthropological term for families or clans controlled by the father or eldest male or group of males a ...

"by highlighting a paradox in relation to hegemonic masculinity" and how the director turns pornography "into self-conscious political discourse", arguing the film critiques patriarchical reaction to

second-wave feminism Second-wave feminism was a period of feminist activity that began in the early 1960s and lasted roughly two decades. It took place throughout the Western world, and aimed to increase equality for women by building on previous feminist gains. Wh ...

(represented by the independently-living female victims) as grounded in war-mongering (rape-murder scenes interspersed with footage from the Vietnam War) and ultimately doomed to self-implosion (the killer's suicide).

Remake

In 1975, the film had an R-rated remake starring

Tanya Roberts Tanya Roberts (born Victoria Leigh Blum; October 15, 1949 – January 4, 2021) was an American actress. She played Julie Rogers in the final season of the television series ''Charlie's Angels'' (1980–1981), Stacey Sutton in the James Bond fi ...

and Ron Max.

References

External links

* * {{IAFD movie, Forced+Entry, 1974, Forced Entry 1973 films 1973 horror films 1970s exploitation films 1970s pornographic films American exploitation films American horror films American nonlinear narrative films American pornographic films American serial killer films Films about post-traumatic stress disorder Films about rape Films about veterans Films set in 1972 Films set in New York City Films shot in New York City Obscenity controversies in film Pornographic horror films Vietnam War films 1970s English-language films 1970s American films