HONEY BUNS: Lust and Lunacy In The 70's Skin-Flick

The 1970's were truly the "wild west" era of adult movies.  Anyone with basic filmmaking equipment and a handful of exhibitionist performers could knock out a movie and get it into storefront theaters.  The result was a lot of curious product that fulfills the genres demands in eccentric ways.Case in point: Honey Buns, a weird blend of porn and comedy that focuses on the luckless Harry (Matt Hewitt), a horny schlub who is too self-conscious to get it on with the women he lusts after.  His luck changes when he meets the Magician (Harvey Whippsnake!), a mysterious man who gives him a pill to help him become sexually confident.  Harry takes it that night, leading to a plethora of sexy female apparitions who help him get over his virginal ways for once and for all.Honey Buns will look as primitive as cave drawings to any modern connoisseur of adult fare: the filmmaking is functional at best, with lots of camera and boom shadows, and much of the sex was shot softcore with explicit inserts awkwardly added later.  Rene Bond and Uschi Digart figure prominently in the credits but neither has a sex scene and Digart doesn't show any flesh.  The actual bedroom gymnastics are left to L.A. sex film scene regulars like Sandy Carey and Kathy Hilton.That said, Honey Buns is memorably loony.  The early scenes are a weird combination of sub-sitcom comedic schtick, topped off by Hewitt's odd "Latka Gravas" accent, plus some sleazy '70s skin-flick sex.  It gets even weirder once Harry starts having his visions at home, including a standout sequence where Harry is disciplined by a cape-wearing dominatrix vision while music-library acid rock throbs on the soundtrack.In short, your interest level in Honey Buns will depend on your fondness for weird, rough-hewn early '70s adult filmmaking.  If you're a fan of Something Weird's sex film double bills, you might get a kick out of it.DVD Notes: Honey Buns recently got a new DVD release from Impulse Pictures.  It presents the full-frame film in a reasonably colorful and sharp style, taken from film elements.  Adult film fans should note this version runs 74 minutes and appears to be the longer version of the film as it has the insert-shots intact.