Be Lisa’s Next Victim!
—
James requested it, so I got my hands on a copy of Her Name Was Lisa, a film directed by Roger Watkins starring Samantha Fox as the titular Lisa. If those two names don’t mean anything to you, good! They shouldn’t! But if you are curious and don’t want to open up a secret internet window, Roger Watkins was a mid-tier pornographic director who also made a few horror films in his time. Samantha Fox was actually a fairly famous and notorious pornographic actress. And in case you were wondering by now, no this film is not a sexploitation film like I was hoping it was going to be. This is just a straight up pornographic film.
Our story begins where all great pornos begin, at a funeral. The titular Lisa is dead. Are you excited yet? Because I’m sure not. In a weird way, this film is basically a porn version of the 1954 Humphrey Bogart film The Barefoot Contessa. The film is told in flashback as people remember their fondest memories of Lisa, which most of the time involves hardcore sex.
The first memory is from this one photographer. Lisa comes to him and is like “I’m a model I guess”, they honestly never really establish who Lisa is or what Lisa wants. Which is strange for a film that is centered around Lisa and her life. But anyway, Lisa shows up to this modeling gig and begins modeling. What’s amazing though is that the photographer doesn’t own a camera. Lisa is modeling and the photographer is sitting down just kind of watching her. I don’t know what kind of business this guy is running but I don’t imagine his income is very high if this is how he operates his business. Then they have sex. And I was concerned because this was at the seven-minute mark and now the story can’t really progress because all of the sexual tension is gone. Don’t worry though. I was wrong.
So then the next scene is a few weeks later and they are doing another session. The photographer isn’t important for this scene, so he has a camera now. Also Lisa is blonde now for some reason. She is never blonde again for the rest of the film. Part of me thinks it honestly might be a different actress. But anyway, the photographer is a tool and is angry for some reason. She is like “Bruh, calm down. What’s your deal?” and he’s like “The producer is coming today and I don’t want you to meet him!” Then like a Scooby Doo villain the producer shows up and is standing behind them and tells the photographer to go get them food. The producer and Lisa start talking. Lisa is clearly not into him and does not want to be around him. And is also pretty creepy and I wasn’t a fan of this scene. But then the sex music starts playing and Lisa is totally into him for plot purposes and the two have a long and boring sex scene. The entire scene I was thinking “what happens when the photographer shows up and walks in on his fat producer naked lounging around his studio?” So I guess the director had a great sense of tension when directing the scene. The photographer does end up showing up and walking in on this and the producer just says “You should have knocked!”
We then hard cut back to the funeral. It’s kind of hilarious how this film bounces from straight up sex with full penetration, to these bad porn actors trying to be sad at this fake funeral. I’ll also say that what was nice about reviewing this film is that I really only had to watch it with a critical eye for maybe twenty minutes of its hour and a half runtime because I could just tune out during the sex scenes. Nice and refreshing viewing experience.
The next flashback presented is the memory from the producer. Apparently, that sex was so good that they got married and had a long marriage of growth and love. Just kidding. The memory from the producer is this one time that he came home and she was a dominatrix and they had sex. It’s a long scene that is primarily just him naked being sexually tortured. If I could have fast-forwarded, I would have. She then goes to a sauna and meets Carmen! Carmen is played by Vanessa del Rio who at the time was a medical researcher attempting to find a cure for AIDS. Just kidding. She was another pornographic actress. Now according to the bio for this film, Carmen is the main antagonist. But after watching it, Carmen is in like two scenes and doesn’t do really anything.
Hard cut back to the funeral. People are still sad. This film is really well written.
Then Lisa and the producer are hanging out at home and the producer is having some friends over. Lisa for some reason thinks that the producer will be leaving and just the friends would be there. Which is very foolish but I honestly don’t even care anymore. So the friends show up and in a really dark and uncomfortable turn, the friends rape Lisa while the producer watches and masturbates. I was really losing my patience with the film around this point.
Lisa then meets up with Carmen in the sauna again and the two have the obligatory lesbian sex scene. And then Lisa dies. The end.
So yeah. I went in expecting a fun sexploitation film. And instead I got a bad porno that wasn’t exciting at all and involved rape and poorly done BDSM, and on top of that, the overarching plot revolves around a funeral where everyone is crying. So even on a porn level, this film is a failure. Why do I do this to myself? I could have watched an Italian Neo-Realism film. Or an American New Wave film. Or hell I could have watched one of the Erotic Thrillers from the 90s. But instead I watch Sad Funeral The Porno.