Not only is everyone entitled to their opinion (obviously) but the previous two postings in IMDb are so misleading, I'm compelled to chime in with a (so-far) minority point-of-view. This XXX opus by Belgian director Peter Balakoff is nothing more than a showcase for his dubious acting talents. He should have paid more attention to his script & direction, which are woefully deficient.
Cornball plot hook, most memorably used by Sam Fuller for his innovative SHOCK CORRIDOR, is our heroine Gena Lee going undercover, hired as a nurse at a psychiatric clinic to find out what happened to her tagged-as-suicide dead sister Lucy who worked there.
Balakoff's generally incoherent plotting, interrupted frequently by extraneous sex scenes and horrendously arbitrary (and contradictory) editing, revolves around his position as Dr. Maurice Rondeau, head of the Psychiatry/Neurology Clinic at the state university. The doc's claim to fame is debunking spiritualism, treating patients thought to be possessed by the Devil using strictly medical means, not the exorcism of the Church. Gena is introduced at a lecture asking him about his medical philosophy.
SPOILERS ALERT:
After a very tedious 100 minutes, about three reels too long for porn, it's revealed that Rondeau's a complete loony, hypocritically staging Black Masses at his clinic in which he believes (or has the patients & staff believe) that HE is Satan. It's all in support of his pederasty, here very tamely depicted as shtupping patients who PRETEND to be children. This plus the poorly photographed XXX scenes render THE PSYCHIATRIST extremely weak in the porn department, no doubt accounting for its lack of DVD exposure.
While Balakoff hams it up miserably in the lead role, pontificating at every opportunity and getting enough on-screen blow jobs to make any budding male film student want to become a director, Gena is completely blank as the blonde heroine. She vaguely resembles (without any character or depth) porn superstar Juliet Anderson -who no doubt would have been considered "too old" for the role.
Rest of the cast is particularly nondescript and unappealing, starting with Gena's busty, long-haired roommate Natacha and Diane Miller as head nurse Virginia, who the good doc paints as the fall guy in the nasty "evil triumphs" finale. (Gena and Miller are regulars in Balakoff's acting stable, but rarely hired by anyone else, for good reason.) William Margold inevitably picks up a pay check in a nothing cop slot. There are many Black thesps in minor roles in order to provide mixed combo action.
Balakoff's occasional THE EXORCIST riff of speaking dirty with his male voice in the mouths of the female "possessed" cast is ludicrous and destroys any credibility to the more serious moments. The nightly Black Mass ceremonies are crudely done and of no interest to horror buffs. Fatally, the twists and turns of the later reels are ruined by the amateurish editing and the characters' random behavior, particularly on the part of our heroine.
Clearly Balakoff was ego-tripping when he made this one, but mere rarity does not make it more interesting than the numerous well-crafted classics and just solid XXX films of the booming late '70s period.
Cornball plot hook, most memorably used by Sam Fuller for his innovative SHOCK CORRIDOR, is our heroine Gena Lee going undercover, hired as a nurse at a psychiatric clinic to find out what happened to her tagged-as-suicide dead sister Lucy who worked there.
Balakoff's generally incoherent plotting, interrupted frequently by extraneous sex scenes and horrendously arbitrary (and contradictory) editing, revolves around his position as Dr. Maurice Rondeau, head of the Psychiatry/Neurology Clinic at the state university. The doc's claim to fame is debunking spiritualism, treating patients thought to be possessed by the Devil using strictly medical means, not the exorcism of the Church. Gena is introduced at a lecture asking him about his medical philosophy.
SPOILERS ALERT:
After a very tedious 100 minutes, about three reels too long for porn, it's revealed that Rondeau's a complete loony, hypocritically staging Black Masses at his clinic in which he believes (or has the patients & staff believe) that HE is Satan. It's all in support of his pederasty, here very tamely depicted as shtupping patients who PRETEND to be children. This plus the poorly photographed XXX scenes render THE PSYCHIATRIST extremely weak in the porn department, no doubt accounting for its lack of DVD exposure.
While Balakoff hams it up miserably in the lead role, pontificating at every opportunity and getting enough on-screen blow jobs to make any budding male film student want to become a director, Gena is completely blank as the blonde heroine. She vaguely resembles (without any character or depth) porn superstar Juliet Anderson -who no doubt would have been considered "too old" for the role.
Rest of the cast is particularly nondescript and unappealing, starting with Gena's busty, long-haired roommate Natacha and Diane Miller as head nurse Virginia, who the good doc paints as the fall guy in the nasty "evil triumphs" finale. (Gena and Miller are regulars in Balakoff's acting stable, but rarely hired by anyone else, for good reason.) William Margold inevitably picks up a pay check in a nothing cop slot. There are many Black thesps in minor roles in order to provide mixed combo action.
Balakoff's occasional THE EXORCIST riff of speaking dirty with his male voice in the mouths of the female "possessed" cast is ludicrous and destroys any credibility to the more serious moments. The nightly Black Mass ceremonies are crudely done and of no interest to horror buffs. Fatally, the twists and turns of the later reels are ruined by the amateurish editing and the characters' random behavior, particularly on the part of our heroine.
Clearly Balakoff was ego-tripping when he made this one, but mere rarity does not make it more interesting than the numerous well-crafted classics and just solid XXX films of the booming late '70s period.