American Taboo (1983) User Reviews

power slide

[trashgang · 6/10 · 13 June 2013]

It's strange that Steve Lustgarten, the director, his flick Power Slide isn't available on IMDb. So I had to do it this way. Sure, Power Slide is out on VHS but Belgium used to have a label called EmporiumMovies that were known to bring out hard to get flicks on DVD as a VHS rip. That's easy to spot because you can see the typical VHS faults.

As soon as they came out whit their label the sooner they vanished from earth and no those DVD's are only to find by collectors at flea markets. Was it worth the search? Yes and no. Yes, because there's was action going on and no because it didn't deliver anything new and looked like those old exploitation flicks.

The story itself was rather simple. When Kyle Lockwood returns after years to his home town he soon learns that the local mob has the town in hands like a vice grip. When he learns that one of his friends vanished he's sure he's being killed, but cops are corrupt too so it's up to Kyle to do some research.

It do has a few shoot outs but nothing is shown on-camera. It's a bit tame on the red stuff but somehow I kept watching due the story itself. Only for the buffs of old school drive-in flicks with old school cars from the seventies.

Gore 0/5 Nudity 0/5 Effects 2/5 Story 2,5/5 Comedy 0/5

Wow

[BandSAboutMovies · 6/10 · 7 March 2024]

This was directed by Steve Lustgarten, who won the 1983 Academy Award for Best Student Film. When you read the plot - "Unstable thirty-something introvert, who works as a photographer's assistant, becomes obsessed with his underage female neighbor" - you might think that this is going to be exploitative. It's not. Instead it comes across as completely real even if we'd never make the decisions that the characters live through.

Written by Lustgarten and his leads, Jay Horenstein (who plays Paul) and Nicole Harrison (who plays Lisa), this movie feels like we're looking at actual lives. Sadly, American Taboo was the only movie Harrison made during a time that she said that she was "a poet from the Northwest who joyously misspent her youth in Hollywood." Even more depressing is the fact that she died in 2011 from brain cancer. She feels like someone who could have broken through in some way to be a star.

You can see this as troublesome and wish fulfillment because the young girl is the aggressor in this movie, but it's also so well made that I didn't come away feeling strange or grossed out by it. Paul seems like someone who can't connect with anyone and so when he does feel something with Lisa, it does seem like something that is only happening in his head even if it is the reality within the movie. He feels regret because he sees this as something that he could have kept from doing but Lisa is more of a realistic person, knowing that she wanted it and that it seemed like it was happening regardless of whatever front of morality Paul had erected.

What a strange film to be in the Visual Vengeance library of movies.

Well worth tracking down

[GMP1 · 22 September 2000]

From the title and plot, one would expect an exploitative, soft core flick. One would be wrong. This is in fact a very sensitively made film about the developing relationship between a shy and emotionally-guarded photographer and a very attractive, though certainly not dizzy, teenage girl. The performances by the two leads are quite good, as is the scripting and direction. While apparently little known and not seen on TV, it's worth the effort to locate.

CONTENT NOTE: The film is rated R for nudity and sexual situations.

OK regional Oregon "student" film, not the the best title

[lazarillo · 1 July 2010]

This is an "Academy-Award winning" film (it actually won a STUDENT Academy Award, which some might say is like winning a gold medal at the Special Olympics). The "taboo" here involves a shy thirty-year-old photographer's assistant having an affair with a girl in her late teens. This may very well have been an American taboo in 1984, but I watch a lot of 70's European exploitation flicks and this is a VERY common theme in those (except the guy is usually also the girl's stepfather, uncle, mother's boyfriend, best friend's father etc.)

As in the European films, the girl is none-too-believable as a teenager. The actress (Nichole Harrison) is unusually attractive and looks to actually be in her early twenties. She also has kind of a weird accent considering this is supposedly set in Oregon (French Canadian maybe?--she talks kind of like Genevieve Bujold). Her character is also a little implausible. She's generally the aggressor in the relationship--and when's the last time you saw an attractive teenage girl with seemingly no close girlfriends or boys her own age sniffing around? The guy (Jay Horenstein)is a little better, not a strong actor, but he looks right for the character. He's a handsome guy, but also quite believable as a socially inept loner. He's even kind of creepy looking(it's kind of a relief he's only having a statutory affair with an older teenage girl as opposed to molesting 8-year-old boys or something). His character seems somewhat similar to the guy Carl Boehm played in "Peeping Tom", but Horenstein is not a good enough actor to make his character as sympathetic as Boem did (nor is he nearly as interesting since he doesn't stab anyone in the throat with a tripod leg).

This isn't a bad film, but it's kind of leaden and serious (the European "lolita exploitation" films are a lot more fun). On the other hand it's not well-made enough to be able to take too seriously. As for the eroticism, well, Harrison has some nice nude scenes (and, believe me, men of all ages would probably want to take this "teenager" to bed). I actually think its title kind of works against it though. People drawn in by the salacious title will probably be disappointed by the rather tame content, and those seeking a more serious film will be turned-off by it seeming to be perverted exploitation. That's probably why it remains another of my obscure discoveries in the VHS graveyard (with no DVD release anywhere in site).