Mens Room (Vinegar Syndrome) Review

Distributor: Vinegar Syndrome Edition Details: Standard Streaming Movie Specs: Genres: Golden Age Classic (1970s Shot on Film), Feature Film, Gay Also known as: Men's Room, Tea Room Run Time: 67 minutes Rated: X Release Year: 1977 Director: Vince Trainor (as Robert Shaw) Written by: Dick Sheppard (based on a story by), Vince Trainor (as Robert Shaw) (written by) Director of Photography: Vince Trainor (as Robert Shaw) Cast: Dave Daniels, Danny Robb, Shannon, Craig Roberts, Scott Heath, James Scott, Steve Pypo, Louis Lane, Ray Nemo (as Ray), Roy Nemo Release Specs: Audio: English Mono Subtitles: none Video: Full Frame, 1.33:1 Video Format: NTSC Format: Streaming Regional Code (for DVD/Blu-ray): N/A Number of discs: N/A

Mens Room is an interesting gay feature film from director and writer Vince Trainor. Mens Room has a minimal plot to it, and minimal locations yet manages to tell an interesting story. Gay viewers will likely end up enjoying Mens Room more than straight viewers due to the sex heavy nature of the film.

In Mens Room, A park men's room is a meeting place for various gay interludes. Homophobic cop Jim (Dave Daniels) has the park men's room on his beat and sets out to bust the men who keep copulating in the men's room making his life miserable.

The concept behind the story is a good one; however, the only real issue with the story is that it isn't enough to fill up the longer runtime of the film. What is present in Mens Room would have been sufficient to make for a well-done short film. For a feature-length film, the story should have been more developed. The characters could have been more fleshed out. The finale of the film, which has to be seen (this reviewer isn't going to ruin it for you), is just plain bizarre.

The majority of the runtime of the film is the sex scenes, including an extended sex scene where two men, Jerry (Danny Robb) and Paul (Shannon), sneak away from the restroom to Jerry's house. There appears to be a good variety to the sex scenes, with gloryhole action, an orgy, and regular sex all present in the film.

The men's room used, whether it was a real one that they managed to have as a location or whether it was a set, works well for its role in the film. Overall, this reviewer thinks that viewers that enjoy male-on-male sex will get far more out of watching Mens Room than viewers who are straight due to the limited plot. If the film sounds good, you should give it a try.

The edition of Mens Room screened is the streaming-only edition on Exploitation.TV. Vinegar Syndrome has done an acceptable job with their streaming-only edition of Mens Room. Mens Room was shot on film and Vinegar Syndrome has used a faded and beaten print that has seen far better days for this release. Mens Room is presented in the Academy aspect ratio of 1.33:1 pillarboxed to the anamorphic widescreen aspect ratio of 1.78:1. The image is worse than it should be. The colors aren't bad, and there are artifacts and print damage present along with some jumps. The big issue with the release is that there is a period where the bottom of the image appears at the top of the screen. This reviewer doesn't think he has ever seen this issue from Vinegar Syndrome before.

Mens Room is presented with an English monaural audio track. There are crackles in the sound throughout the film; however, the dialog is clear and easy to understand.

Vinegar Syndrome hasn't included any extras for Mens Room.

The concept and story idea behind the gay hardcore feature film Mens Room are good ones. However, the film is likely to be best enjoyed by gay viewers because the concept is stretched out too long and the time is filled with large amounts of sex scenes with little story portions here and there. The streaming-only edition from Vinegar Syndrome on Exploitation.TV has problematic video quality but good audio quality.

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