I will say this. Getting a membership to Bizarro Video for a month has exposed me to a lot of GIMP genre stuff I didn't know existed before. A lot of crap, but also a lot of, well, bizarre stuff. For example, I downloaded and watched the first three The Rapeman movies. I tried, I really did, to keep these short. But even when I leave out all the plot stuff I still end up with detailed descriptions of rape scenes. Oh well. I reviewed all three, but I'll space them out into three posts.

The Rapeman is a mild-mannered school teacher by day (he even wears black glasses and kind of looks like a Japanese Clark Kent) and vigilante by night, dressed all in black with a mask shaped like the head of a penis, righting wrongs through penetration. That's the motto of Rapeman Services. Wikipedia tells me this movie series is based on a manga comic, and the last movie aired in 1996. You can read the Wikipedia entry if you are interested. These are "pink" movies, by the way, with no explicit sex.

The Rapeman actually has an engaging plot, in this instance political intrigue. I will refrain from a retelling of the story (oh my god I could almost hear the collective sigh of relief). We begin with The Rapeman (and that "The" is important, as comic book aficionados will tell you, it is not "Batman," it is "The Batman") looking down from on high as a guy drops off his girlfriend. He's just given her a gift, and they've been dating for 6 months and she hasn't put out yet. He was kind of hoping.... Well, she crushes him and breaks up with him, the bitch, and saunters off with a backward glance and a casual "I'll keep the gift!"

The Rapeman rappels down the side of the apartment building and crashes into her apartment. He tape gags her mouth, handcuffs her wrists behind her back, strips off her dress, hikes her up onto a table against the wall, and as he rapes her, he tells her he has a gift from all the guys she has bankrupted. There is nudity and we get to see her feet bounce and her hands grasp and clench as she is raped. The goal is to show her suffering, obviously, which is kind of neat. She makes pained rape victim noises. He rapes her into submission, and as he walks away, she asks for more. (Okay, but it was great up until that comment.)

The Rapeman is commissioned by a jilted lover to rape a politician's new wife. The Rapeman is uncomfortable with the job, but takes it on. He grabs her in the parking garage, drags her into the back seat of her car, handcuffs her, and rapes her. There's not a lot to see this time around. No nudity, no tape gag, not even any motion indicative of violent sex. As a rape scene, it is a bust. However, while he's struggling with her, a car drives by and takes pictures of The Rapeman raping her. A set up!

As Keisuke (The Rapeman's Clark Kent alter ego) walks home the next day, he catches sight of a girl with a telephoto lens taking pictures of the "jilted lover" leaving Rapeman Services after paying for the job. Keisuke thinks she is the same person from last night. She is a reporter. The Rapeman attacks her in her apartment. He throws her on her bed. She looks sufficiently terrified. He produces his trademark handcuffs and cuffs her wrists behind her back. Tells her he won't hurt her if she gives him the photos and negatives. She doesn't know what he's talking about. He shows her his partner with a camera and tells her that her rape will be filmed and they'll send the pictures to every media center if she doesn't cooperate. She demurs. The Rapeman tears open her blouse (she is wearing an industrial grade white bra, unfortunately), opens his pants, and grabs her legs, pulls them apart, kneels between them and moves in when she says okay, she'll give him the pictures and negatives. Damn. She gives him an undeveloped roll of film. He says if they aren't the right ones, she knows what will happen.

Well, they aren't the right ones. The Rapeman returns the next night. She is in bed. He flings the sheets aside (she is not nude, dammit) and brandishes his switchblade knife. He runs the knife up her pretty bare leg and tugs her panties with the tip. They talk. Turns out she doesn't know about the rape photos. But she does identify the "jilted lover" who commissioned him to rape the politician's wife as a known associate of a yakuza boss. He says sorry for the misunderstanding and leaves her alone. She was kind of cute and I was looking forward to seeing her raped. But The Rapeman only rapes women who deserve it.

On the "jilted lover's" orders, yakuza thugs beat up The Rapeman's partner. Now it's personal. The Rapeman catches the "jilted lover," who is the manager of a night club, in the bathroom of her club. He cuffs one of her hands to the sink, rips open her blouse (she is wearing a bra) and asks her who took the photos. She doesn't know. Thank god. He pulls down her dress and bends her over the sink counter and rapes her from behind. It is in slo-mo, which robs it of some energy and violence. She makes victim noises but they could have been better. He leaves and when we cut back to her she is sitting on the floor, still handcuffed to the sink, drowsily saying "that was great." But it was an okay rape up until that point.

Turns out the bad guy behind all the frames and dirty tricks is the rival politician and he has an evil Dragon Lady campaign assistant who is calling a lot of the nastiest shots. She is lured to an empty office and The Rapeman confronts her there. He handcuffs her to the legs of a chair and then sits the chair up on a desk, so that she is on her knees with her elbows on the desk and her hands cuffed up at shoulder height. He reaches up under her throat from behind and arches her head back. He rips her suit off to expose her black lacy bra and panties. He rips off her panties to reveal her shapely bare butt. Then he rapes her from behind, and it is a nice, rough, rape. She makes nice victim noises and looks discomfited by the penetrating justice being dealt her. Her hands flex and grasp at the chair legs. He waits until the very end to take off her bra and expose one breast and squeeze it roughly. High marks for this rape.

The Rapeman's moral compass wasn't pointing True North in this first movie. The first rape of the bitch serial dater-and-dumper was good. Tape gag, wrists handcuffed behind the back, bare breasts, and fairly strenuous rape action, were all very nice. Unfortunately, his next two victims--the politician's wife and the reporter--were innocents. However, the rape of the politician's wife was very brief and aside from handcuff bondage and kidnapping/struggling, not much to write home about. The almost-rape of the reporter, on both occasions, had excellent tension and build-up, with handcuff bondage in the first instance and switchblade knife threatening in the second. She looked appropriately frightened both times.

The rape of the night club madam was mediocre. There was no nudity, which always loses points with me personally. She wasn't sufficiently frightened or in enough pain. The action was okay, but the extras--like victim noises and pained or frightened expressions--were lacking. The final rape of the Dragon Lady was excellent, though. Outstanding build-up, nice camera shots of her hands and feet reacting as she is being violated, a very rough rape from behind, great victim noises and pained facial expressions, handcuff bondage, and nudity. No gags, but oh well. So, four rapes and two almost-rapes, with handcuff bondage. I would give this a B, both because it had an engaging and well-executed plot, and because it had copious rapes, the final one being excellent in almost every respect.