Confessions Of a Teenager Review

Distributor: Gourmet Video Collection Edition Details: Standard DVD Movie Specs: Genres: Golden Age Classic, Feature Film, Comedy Also known as: Confessions of a Teenage Peanut Butter Freak, Peanut Butter Freak, She Can't Get Enough Run Time: 87 minutes Rated: X Release Year: 1975 Director: Jerry Abrams (as Gerald Graystone) Written by: Zachary Strong (as Zachary Youngblood), Jerry Abrams (as Gerald Graystone) Cast: John Holmes (as John C. Holmes), Constance Money, Helen Madigan, Zachary Strong (as Zachary Youngblood), Veronica Taylor (as Sharon Taylor), Jacque Hanson, Karen Reed, Malcolm Healy, Charles Swanson, Molly Seagrim (as Jo Ann McClure), Kandi Johnson (as Candice Harley), Barry Vane, Jack Wilson (as Joaquin Delicado), Herman, Claudia Stanton, Kim Blaire, Mira Vane, Claire Kimball, Bradley Furman, Harold Burns, Michael Bee, Star Mountain Release Specs: Audio: English Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono Subtitles: none Video: Full Frame, 1.33:1 Video Format: NTSC Format: DVD Regional Code (for DVD/Blu-ray): 0 (All) Number of discs: 1

Confessions of a Teenager is one of those adult films that could have been great, or could have been horrible, but ends up just being fair to middling. Confessions of a Teenager is an oddity within the adult world as far as the plot fetish is concerned. Zachary Strong has stated that Jerry Abrams originally came up with the concept for the film because Strong enjoyed peanut butter and that Strong himself wrote the film. Billy (Strong) is afraid of girls. After a failed sexual encounter with Brenda (Kandi Johnson), Billy is brought by gas attendant Priscilla (Helen Madigan) to her place where he tells her the tale of how his Aunt Opel (Jacque Hanson) took his virginity and ended up giving him a sexual fetish for peanut butter and other humiliating sexual tales from his past.

Confessions of a Teenager, as one can discern from the description, is a strange film that turns to various types of incest for several of the sex scenes and certainly doesn't follow any formula for that time, or any other time for that matter. The story, despite all the weirdness, is an enjoyable one and is truly unique. The characters are interesting and the story never ends up getting boring. The story is also genuinely amusing as well. The humorous situations in the film are well-done and aren't just recycled from other films.

Where the film falls apart is the amateurish production values that it exhibits. The film suffers from some rather poor editing. There is also issues with how the film was shot. For instance, the opening sex scene with Billy and Brenda is poorly shot and choreographed. The sets were clearly either hastily assembled or locations were hastily changed for the production. For instance, Bill's cousin René's (Karen Reed) room wasn't painted very well at all. The issues don't end unfortunately with the production values as other poor choices were made when making the film that bring it down. For some reason, Billy's “friend” Jeff (John Holmes) spends the entire film speaking with a horrifically fake Scottish accent. The accent, even had it been well-done, doesn't even fit the character at all. As to who's genius idea this was and how no one saw during filming that this was one of the worst possible ideas is unclear.

Confessions of a Teenager takes a good story and mixes it with some horrible production and creative choices and takes what could have been a great film and drops it squarely down to just okay. Confessions of a Teenager is definitely worth a watch but likely isn't worth adding as a permanent addition to your classic collection.

Gourmet Video Collection has done a poor job with their release of Confessions of a Teenager. Confessions of a Teenager was shot on film and the master that GVC used for this collection was clearly a video tape. Confessions of a Teenager is presented in the academy aspect ratio of 1.33:1 in 480i. The image contains glitches in the video, some rather horrific, artifacts, and print damage. The image is clearly low definition and not in 480i. Colors are poor. The original titling appears to have been removed and replaced with a new shot on video titling. It appears as if the same master that was used for the Alpha Blue Archives version was used for this version as well. Overall, the image quality is very poor and unacceptable.

Confessions of a Teenager is presented with an English Dolby Digital 2.0 monaural audio track. The audio isn't in great shape. The audio has a constant hiss throughout the movie and there are frequent pops. There is also loud distortion in the audio in places. The dialog can be heard throughout the film, however, the listening experience isn't a very pleasant one.

GVC hasn't included any extras on this release.

Confessions of a Teenager will never be considered to be a great adult film, nor should it be considered to be a poor adult film. The film had the potential to be very good, however, numerous poor choices made while making the film along with some amateurish mistakes keep the film from ever reaching its full potential. Confessions of a Teenager is worth a watch, however, I am not sure that it's a film that one would want to own in their collection. Gourmet Video Collection has done a poor job with this release of Confessions of a Teenager with low-quality video and audio.

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