Investigative reporter Emanuelle is on a mission to uncover the decadent habits of the upper class. This leads her to some first-hand experience, and some highly scandalous insight...
"Emanuelle In America" was produced in 1976, but we stick with IMDB, which lists it as 1977. This is a review of the uncut version with a runtime of 100 minutes.
Sleaze-master Aristide Massaccesi aka Joe D'Amato has created some spectacularly outrageous movies, the best known of which - among horror fans - probably is "Antropophagus" ("The Grim Reaper", 1980). "Emanuelle In America" is one of his numerous erotic (?!) movies featuring Laura Gemser, and it's easily as outrageous, in several ways.
It's a low-cost exploitation-movie that borders on porn, but it has an actual story that serves as a filler and framework for the sleaze. We get to see huge amounts of bare skin and some forms of erotic (?!) interaction. In her first encounter, Emanuelle shows a remarkable degree of control, which is both just staggering and hilarious at the same time. She then goes on to work her way deeper into her subject, meets some people, takes some pictures... There is a potentially decent story about investigative journalism here, but it clearly doesn't matter very much.
So far, so sleazy-good. Slow-paced low-fi erotics with a little bit of spy-style action, or maybe the other way round. Sure, why not, it's not everyone's cup of tea, maybe just base and boring, but some level of interest by a certain audience is guaranteed, the movie delivers, and it looks and feels somewhat nice and accurate for what it is.
Until... until it doesn't. It's the oddest experience ever. One can't deny a certain intention in all of this, and a certain level of success in the execution - but, who on earth was this movie made for? So you thought "The New York Ripper" (1982) is a little weird? In terms of nasty sleaziness and sleazy nastiness it's NOTHING compared to "Emanuelle In America". Congratulations, Signore D'Amato, you win.
What makes "Emanuelle In America" so utterly disturbing is the weird detachment, the somewhat mindless, light-hearted presentation, which is strongly amplified by the prolonged slow, erotic (?!) scenes. The concept of a half-porn and half-horror movie has been explored in "Emanuelle E Gli Ultimi Cannibali", too, but in "...America" it's taken to the extreme. The soft side is predominant, by far - but what the hard side lacks in runtime, it makes up for with amplitude, shock. It's like a slap in the face when you're half asleep - definitely not a pleasant experience.
It's hard to describe without just naming some scenes, thus spoiling the entire movie, due to the simplistic and one-sided structure of it. But at the same time it's the whole point of this review: "Emanuelle In America" is really weird. It's 99% nothing too special - but the few other things in there, you're really not sure you wanna see. A horse (...) may be considered just waaay too much (...) by and for some, but it's the weird, forced placement among the other, mostly quite tolerable scenes that makes it genuinely disgusting to watch. The same goes for the extreme violence, it's just extreme (!), which alone is easily enough to turn stomachs, but it's the context, the odd placement, the lack of approach, that makes you want to just turn it off.
How do you rate a thing such as this? It's 99% of the time... well, porn, thriller, boring, something, nice, not nice, who cares... but you just can't show the other 1% to anyone. Because of the 1%, and the 99% around it.
"Emanuelle In America" has an undeniable effect, even if you think it's boring pretty much throughout, or maybe precisely because of that. It does some things that haven't been done before or after in exploitation cinema, which gives it some actual value for fans of the genre. Or, who? What genre? What is this? It sure gets a point for exploitation, boldness, and some really shocking imagery, this is not for the faint of heart! But for gorehounds and horse-lovers, that's about it, you can skip pretty much the entire movie. For everyone else, said 1% just hit waaay too hard, killing off any sense of eroticism or adventure or whatever hint of immersion may have been there. If you came for the shocks, you need a lot of patience. If you didn't, you will be seriously appalled. Either way, you kinda lose.
Obviously, "Emanuelle In America" is not to be taken seriously, it's
low-budget pulp fiction - but the dynamics are still just too odd. Even if you liked "Cannibal Holocaust" (1980), "Hostel 2" (2007), "Giallo A Venezia" (1979) and all of Jess Franco's movies, chances are you won't like "Emanuelle In America". It's very little, which is fine, but then it's waaay too much.
Verdict: It's really a tough watch, for several reasons. 3/10
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074473
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emanuelle_in_America
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdCQiCRexcU
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