ULTIMATE DEGENERATE, THE

ULTIMATE DEGENERATE, THE (aka; THE DEGENERATE)

(director/writer: Michael Findlay; screenwriter: story by Michael Findlay; cinematographer: Roberta Findlay; editor: Michael Findlay; music: Earl Windmin; cast: Uta Erickson (Maria Curtis), Michael Findlay (Spencer / Voices), Earl Hindman (Bruno), Donna Stone (Tammy), Janet Banzet (Dora), Suzzan Landau (Carla), Yolanda Cortez (Chiquita), Clint McCook (Helen); Runtime: 72; MPAA Rating: NR; producers: Michael & Roberta Findlay; Something Weird Video; 1969)

“It is what it is, a trashy adult cult film that delivers an assortment of perverse sex thrills in a campy way.”

Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz

Doesn’t shame itself as an exploitation sleaze film meant for the grindhouse crowd. It is what it is, a trashy adult cult film that delivers an assortment of perverse sex thrills in a campy way. Legendary underground NYC director Michael Findlay (“Take me Naked!”/”The Touch of her Flesh”/”Funk”) is also the screenwriter, coproducer, with his wife Roberta, and has a starring role.

The story is told in flashback from six months ago, when cheerful but bored exhibitionist Maria (Uta Erickson) disgusts her lesbian lover Tammy (Donna Stone) by parading around naked in front of the window to excite an elderly man who lives across the street. The NYC vixen answers an ad in a sex newspaper to be part of a harem of naked women kept by wheelchair-bound eccentric named Spencer (Michael Findlay) in his rural Vermont farmhouse he runs with his sly henchman Bruno (Earl Hindman), who tells Maria that his boss is on the verge of insanity. Spencer injects the girls with a homemade aphrodisiac that keeps them “tuned up for love.” The girls rehearse in the nude for sex shows for an audience that never appears. They also get photographed in lesbian acts, have corn cobs shoved into their cunts, their bodies sprayed with whip cream and one girl makes love to a clock (which is pretty close to the spelling of cock). For $500 a week Maria goes along with this goof and has no problem making lesbian love with Dora while Carla clicks away with her camera. But, the envious Bruno has a different agenda than Spencer, and switches the ingredients in the aphrodisiac with some kind of hate drug so that now Maria becomes paranoid that Spencer will kill her and becomes aggressive which sets the stage for a bloody climax.

Supposedly, this is Findlay’s best and most acclaimed work. If your bag is roughhouse skinflicks that feature a bevy of big-chested naked broads parading around and a film that makes no pretense to be anything but a sleaze-fest, then you might want to check this one out. Others be warned that this is not a mainstream film and is far more outrageous than anything Russ Meyer ever did.

REVIEWED ON 6/30/2008 GRADE: B-