Review: The Story of O Part II

Neither a true sequel to the first film nor is it based on author Pauline Reage’s own sequel to “The Story of O”, this one has a board of directors trying to stop being overtaken by businessman Pembroke. Someone comes up with the idea of employing the special talents of the title character (played by Sandra Wey) to embroil Pembroke in shocking scandal. Pembroke (played by the very Pembroke-sounding Manuel de Blas) and his family (including wife Rosa Valenty and daughter Carole James) move into a European estate, owned by O who will find a way to bring out each of the family’s sexual secrets to be used for later embarrassment (Blond adult son Christian Cid, for instance, seems to like both oysters and snails if you catch Laurence Olivier-in-Sir Anthony Hopkins’ voice’s drift).

I didn’t really find the first film appealing, as for me it’s hard to enjoy a sexy movie where several of the participants don’t look to be enjoying themselves much. It’s just not my kind of thing. This 1984 sequel of-sorts from director Eric Rochat (who apparently went on to write and direct “Story of O: The Series” for TV) and co-writer Jeffrey O’Kelly (amazingly the creator of an animated family TV series called “Doctor Snuggles”!) isn’t quite as misogynistic as the first film, as the title character (played this time by Sandra Wey) is much more in a position of power. However, there are still moments which are really foul, with Rosa Valenty in particular getting a pretty poor time of it. For the most part, though, it plays more like an “Emmanuelle” film, really but with O in the lead instead of Emmanuelle. However, it’s still staggeringly boring, overly talky, badly acted, and full of repellent pigs or uninteresting jerks. In fact, it’s too full of them, the film is grossly overpopulated, making it hard to keep track of things for a while.

The bodies are stunning when we see them on display, but the sex isn’t especially explicit or memorable, I’m afraid. Too much rapid editing, lots of thrusting and reaction shots, and sadly, some of the sex is fully-clothed. Yep. That’s what you want in a softcore film, isn’t it? Way too much sheer clothing instead of actual nudity in my book. The low point may be a lesbian scene that doesn’t involve anyone relevant, has hardly any nudity, then turns into a threesome, before eventually becoming a guy-on-guy scene. I’m not remotely homophobic, but there’s a reason why there’s so few softcore erotica movies with guy-on-guy action (i.e. The main audience tends to be aggressively heterosexual males). More importantly, though, the scene manages to tease just about every possible audience/demographic, leaving no one happy. This is an ill-advised mess with too many characters and too many stories running concurrently to really keep up with. It really needed a singular focus. The very 80s-looking Sandra Wey (think Emma Samms meets Rachel Ward), seems to struggle with speaking English expressively, and is quite forgettable in the lead. In fact, there’s long stretches of dialogue in this where it’s almost impossible to decipher what people are saying. Spaniard Manuel de Blas is chief offender in this respect, whilst Carole James appears to be a legit British actress who made the occasional appearance in mostly foreign films until 1987. It all takes an incredibly nasty, if predictable turn in the ludicrous finale. Thinking about it, I can’t imagine how anyone could be turned on by what happens in the latter stages. Being turned on is kinda the point for this genre, right? The finale certainly won’t please anyone, and in fact I’m not entirely certain it actually made any bloody sense. What a mess! Amazing to read that Hans Zimmer (“Rain Man”, “Inception”, “Man of Steel”) and Stanley Myers (“The Deer Hunter”, “Dreamchild”, “Prick Up Your Ears”) composed the score for such a trashy film.

 

Although there’s some relatively explicit cunnilingus and attractive scenery, this is just too nasty and moralistically murky for me. It’s also very silly which is just as much of a killer for this kind of thing. Overpopulated, overly talky, and overall boring as hell.

 

Rating: D