Taboo 5 (Metro) Review

Reviewed by Diville  on  10/29/2000

Starring: Amber Lynn, Colleen Brennan, Porsche Lynn, Karen Summer, Lorrie Lovett, Shone Taylor, Jamie Gillis, Joey Silvera, Kevin James Johnathan Younger, Billy Dee.

Directed By: Kirdy Stevens

There are only a handful of adult films which can easily be called classics. Among them is Kirdy Stevens' Taboo. Despite the modern day Max Hardcores, Rob Blacks, and the other multitudes of directors who dispatch "extreme hardcore" to your local smut shop, Stevens' tales of consentual incest are as controversial now as the day he shot them. In fact, the Taboo series continues on, though it has left its incestuous subject matter far behind. Once though, incest porn was a strange little niche market and it wasn't uncommon to find stories of fathers getting it on with their teenage daughters, teenage sons seducing their mothers, or siblings exploring sexuality together. Does this make you uneasy? Queasy even? Well, I think it's supposed to...a little.

Sometime after Taboo 5 this series eliminated the incest angle. Of course, these editions contain no actual incest; just fictional stories. If you watched porn during the early 80's, you've seen these same actors have sex with each other in different films. Here, though, you have them playing two different families carrying out separate, but parallel plot lines. Jamie Gillis is back as the psychiatrist who not only specializes in treating "victims" of incest, but also as the father who just flat out treats his daughters to family sex. In earlier installments, one of his daughters (Karen Summer) left him briefly for her uncle, and his other daughter (Ginger Lynn) stayed home to keep him company in bed. This story picks up sometime after the last one ended. Ginger is long gone and Gillis is once again left lonely. There's another story told in Taboo 5, this one concerns Colleen Brennan as an otherwise good single mother who suffers from multiple personality disorder. Her alternate personality, apparently, has a thing for her teenage son's friends who have no problem taking advantage of her illness. Will she cross the line and enter her son's bedroom? Well, this addition is no different than the others before it--if there's an opportunity for two members of the same family to have sex, they will.

But not every character in Taboo 5 engages in incest. Amber Lynn plays the part of Gillis' manipulative girlfriend who never fails to pass up an opportunity to damage his already fragile self esteem. How? Well, she has sex with black men in his house, of course. No one ever accused Kirdy Stevens of being politically correct. Still, interracial sex reads differently now than it did when this movie was made. Now that Sean Michaels, Lexington Steele, and Mr. Marcus are among the most popular male talent working today, it's common to see black men with white women. If interracial sex ever held a taboo power over its viewers, I think it has now been too diluted to ever shock us again. This was shot during the time when Amber Lynn was in her prime, and even though there are better movies with her in them, it's worth it to fans to pick this up just for her alone.

It's hard to judge a movie like this. I'm not bothered by the subject matter because I know it's fiction. Still, it's different than the porn you see made today. The girls are all natural, and a lot of the guys look like they've never been to a gym. Though made in the mid to late 80s, this is old school porn, and as such, probably appeals to nostalgic smut consumers like myself and not to younger gonzo fans, which is in no way a knock against gonzo. There is an actual plot here, and though it is a little silly, it's a plot nonetheless and it carries the movie cleanly from beginning to end. For porn, that's saying something. The sex scenes, however, are only of moderate heat. Still, everything in Taboo 5 is at least interesting.

The appeal of this film is its subject matter, if that even appeals to you at all. It's a competent movie, which means a lot when compared to much of what's produced today, but there's nothing about the sex itself that really differentiates it from other good porn. Think of it as the third Godfather movie. When compared to just any other film on it's own merits, it's pretty good, but given your expectations earned by the those that came before it, it's lacking. Taboo 5 is provocative, though, and for that I feel comfortable recommending it. On the other hand, this is an almost ancient movie by porn standards. It's rough around the edges. But, if it's fair to say that this your father's porn, then your father is a pervert.

Before I wrap this up, allow me to add a quick personal editorial: The first two Taboo movies were the first two adult movies I ever saw. A friend stole them from his dad and gave them to me for safe keeping. The first deserves it's place in pornographic history. It's that good, although I prefer the second movie which isn't quite as well made, but it has a lot of Dorothy LeMay in it, and well, I really dig her. Taboo is available on DVD, but at the time of this writing Taboo II is not. I hope I'm not alone in requesting that it be brought out of mothballs and be given the full digital treatment it deserves.