All of the nostalgia generated by the impressive technical impersonation of the Crown Pictures product of the 1970s gets drained quickly. The golden shower sequence takes the grindhouse homage into parody territory, where Phillips keeps one foot of the film firmly planted in throughout the running time. This is a major problem, because by maintaining the nonsense atmosphere where people are having sex out of nowhere, the grimness and dread from the bloodshed is watered down. Playing everything so broadly and jokeyly undercuts the impact of the violence, reducing it to a cartoonish level of unimportance. This goes for the sex sequences as well, which seem to be played for laughs most of the time, especially the same sex encounters. This lack of urgency over the stick figure characters makes everything dull very quickly. Even at 78 minutes, Anything That Moves goes on forever and never gets to anywhere you wanted to go.
Pity Phillips is trying to break a new trail in the post-exploitation frontier. As there is no more market for sexploitation, this gives creative filmmakers the chance to re-explore the possibilities of the format without having to follow convention. This means you shouldn’t even try to play with yourself during Anything That Moves, as it is not that kind of picture. Well, you could tickle a little while Allen does her stuff.
“…wet cinders with nothing hot or revolting enough to keep interest.”
However, this is a chance to liberate the study of the outlaw culture of the sex world without having to m********e your way along. Nina Hartley is given the opportunity for a real acting role, one that is the exact opposite in tone to her more well-known work. Hartley does an astounding job; she is surprisingly sinister to the point where she seems perfect for a series of horror pictures. However, the sex and violence mash-up simply doesn’t work; no light comes on when you pull the ceramic elephant’s dick.
It’s not like this combination hasn’t failed repeatedly. Back in the day that Phillips is emulating, Doris Wishman tried to add hardcore violence to the sex picture in A Night To Dismember, with Joe D’Amato doing the same in Europe with Porno Holocaust. The results of those attempts at double-core excitement were wet cinders with nothing hot or revolting enough to keep interest. I am not saying it isn’t possible to get it right someday, but that day is a long time coming. Anything That Moves is a throwback that should be thrown back. Move away from it as quickly as you can.
"… a throwback that should be thrown back."
