Fantasm (1976)
** 1/2 (out of 4)
This here is best remembered for being the first softcore film to be shown in Australia as well as it featuring some very big stars. The film has a Professor talking to the camera and explaining various female fantasies. From here we see ten different stories dealing with women and their sexual fantasies.
FANTASM basically has ten vignettes and I personally found the majority of them quite boring. I think the history behind this film is the main reason that it is remembered because there's really nothing overly special here in regards to the direction or the stories. I say this because by 1976 America was fully into hardcore pictures and softcore ones like this were pretty much being forgotten. Had FANTASM been released to America I doubt it would have done much but since this was a first in Austrlia it has a bit of history to it.
The main reason to watch the film is for the variety of stars that show up. There are some very famous faces that pop up throughout the ten stories and this includes John Holmes, Rene Bond, Candy Samples, Serena as well as Uschi Digard among many others. The Holmes segment has a woman fantasizing about him as well as him using food in a sexual way. The Digard sequence shows off her "best parts" but the story is pretty lacking. I love Rene Bond and she's my favorite actress but I must say that she isn't too good here. She's part of a rape sequence where she takes on a black boxer. I'll just leave it that Bond doesn't come across too good here.
I must say that the Candy Samples sequence stands out the most because she fantasizes about her son and taking a bath with him. This here was done years before the hardcore film TABOO so this segment does stand out among the others. As I said, I thought the stories for most were rather weak and I didn't think they were well-directed either. The main reason to watch this is for the number of American stars who show up.
