Extra Action (and Extra Hardcore) (2007)

Directed by: Richard Kern | 80 minutes | erotica, short film

Richard Kern’s ‘Extra Action’ is an interesting, themed porn film featuring “real” women, in their natural environment. The collection of films is fairly casual, even if it is not completely spontaneous. It’s like a series of short home videos or (amateur) webcam performances, with mostly natural light and no soft focus or other cinematic adjustments. Not everything is equally erotic – sometimes it’s funny, strange, cute, or just a neutral observation – but this is probably what director Richard Kern intended. This is no ordinary porn movie with only sultry, on-camera flirtatious women with breasts like torpedoes, and an emphasis on sexual intercourse. Of course, the women in the film are constantly naked, or barely clothed, and they meander through the screen in a potentially tantalizing way, but in several scenes the viewer just seems to be witnessing the normal daily actions of these women. It’s a refreshing approach.

‘Extra Action’ presents a wide range of women: old, young, red, blond, dark, with braces, with and without pubic hair, slim, full, and with large or very small breasts. Some women – often with traditional good looks or voluptuous bodies – confidently challenge the camera and viewer, touching their bodies. Other women occasionally look uncertain and a little questioning at the camera. Sometimes serious, uninterested expressions detract from the possibly erotic content of the films, but at other times a nice pose or disarming look can cause excitement. The women don’t seem to have been filmed out of horniness or for the best effect, but more out of a fascination for the female body. Kern regularly chooses to observe the women, where erotic or sexy moments take place almost by accident.

It’s not just casual, natural observation. At least half of the running time consists of scenes with erotically posing, self-satisfying or making love to each other (because they are exclusively women). One chapter is all about dildos and in one interesting scene a blond beauty with piercing eyes and full lips – presumably a “professional” – shows how you put a condom around a big dildo (or penis) with your mouth. Another chapter features fetish moments involving handcuffs and candle wax, and another segment features leg lovers having fun, with some women writhing in impossible positions. There are also some exhibitionistic moments, when one of the women goes outside and quickly shows her breasts and vagina in the street and standing against a tree. In short, there is something for everyone.

As an extra, six short, often somewhat grimy films by Kern are included on the DVD, which vary in quality and value. At most you can say that they are interesting and unique. ‘Goodbye 42nd Street’ is a sort of walk through a number of sex cinemas and disturbing back rooms where things happen that the daylight can’t bear. A woman sticks out her husband’s eye (with bad effects/make-up), a couple engages in strangulation sex and pukes all over each other… that kind of work. In another clip, a Catholic schoolgirl comes home, takes off her clothes, does a little dancing, then puts on a dress. Little provocative or controversial. And yet another film, ‘Nazi’, shows a dancing, stripping woman in a soldier’s cap, standing in front of the American flag and closing her performance with the Hitler salute. Mediocre. The most interesting movie, ‘Pierce’, is a recording of a man who (presumably) inserts a pair of nipple piercings on his girlfriend. Artistically speaking, the film has little value, but you can’t look away when a rod or needle is first pushed through the nipples, pulled out again, and then a ring is slid through both nipples, accompanied by some groans from the happy recipient of the jewelry.