Dominatrix Without Mercy (1976) User Reviews

Disjointed, But Twisted "Roughie" Material...

[EVOL666 · 6/10 · 27 May 2006]

DOMINATRIX WITHOUT MERCY is an "average" entry in the 70's New York XXX-"roughie" scene. There are a few scenes of sadistic and twisted sexuality, but overall, nothing TOO shocking if you've watched a few of these...

The storyline is super-simple - a girl answers an add to be a "model", and all sorts of nastiness take shape from there. Heavy on the S&M and bondage type material, a decent banana scene featuring Vanessa Del Rio (that is VERY reminiscent of the cucumber scene in HOUSE OF DE SADE) and a few other fetishistic sex scenes, including a lot of bondage, a good bit of whipping, some funny cock face-slapping, and a golden-shower pretty much sum up this "classic"...

I guess with the amount of this stuff that I've watched so far, I'm starting to get particular. I honestly like the 70's/80's era hardcore films for either their storyline, or their perversity. DOMINATRIX...delivers a few good scenes, but nothing very notable. Stick to true sleazy classics like WATER POWER, FORCED ENTRY, APPOINTMENT WITH AGONY, DOMINATRIX BLUE, ORIENTAL TECHNIQUES IN PAIN AND PLEASURE, and a few other seriously sick entries if you wanna see the "goods"...6.5/10

Sleazy enough, but mostly just a bunch of sex scenes

[The_Void · 6/10 · 6 March 2007]

"Dominatrix Without Mercy" - it sounds awesome (err...if you're into rough porn flicks), but unfortunately the film is just a bunch of sex scenes with little or no relevance to each other, and the dominatrix of the title doesn't have all that much to do with the plot. Well, I say 'plot', this film doesn't really have any - a young lass sees an advert for a job, she goes for it - and then basically ends up having rough sex with a bunch of sleazy men. Director Shaun Costello is best known to me for his shocking 1972 film 'Forced Entry'. That film worked because it was completely relentless with its sleaze and savagery, whereas this one feels a bit flat. The 65 minute running time doesn't do it any favours in this department either, as it makes the film feel like it was put together as an afterthought...and it probably was. The sex scenes themselves aren't terrible. I'm not into 'domination' and S&M, but surprisingly (given the title), this film doesn't seem to be either. The film does have it's moments, however, and I'm sure that most roughie aficionados will want to check it out, if only for the title.

Fun and twisted but unessential roughie

[Bloodwank · 6/10 · 6 September 2011]

Dominatrix Without Mercy is certainly the least interested in plot or character of the roughies I've seen so far. Now this isn't inherently a bad thing, these films are pornography and as such rough sex is always the defining factor, a film stripped down to essentials can be perfectly satisfactory if it gets them right. The trouble here is that there isn't that much of interest in the sex, suitably mean spirited though it is. Story wise we have a girl answering an ad for a work in Screw magazine, she heads to a brothel and the rest of the film is concerned with various patrons and their in out adventures. The first ten minutes or so is rather striking stylistically, with editing that positively abhors notions of sense or reason, cutting wildly between a number of different sex scenes with zero concern for coherence. Things settle down a bit after that but the main concern is still switching between screws and after a time it gets pretty monotonous. There are also a few blatant technical flubs like out of time sound effects and paddlings that clearly don't connect, which also tend to get old pretty fast. Weird thing is though, I was never genuinely bored at any point, the whole thing washes gently through the brain like a soggy dream, not too much of real merit but all kinda watchable at the same time. There are a few stand out bits and pieces as well making the whole thing easier to swallow. Men and women scantily clad, leashed and forced to act like dogs is always fun and there's a bit of that, as well as ample flogging/paddling action which I can't get enough of, so that's another plus. A bit of painful looking nipple clamping goes down well too, as does a rip-snorter of a banana masturbation (and subsequent eating) scene that is just an absolute hoot. Dildo play, golden action and a bit of tit wanking round out the strangeness on offer and thats all fun as well. Performers are all sound, Vanessa del Rio is in there (I think the banana scene is her), Terri Hall too (of Terri's Revenge fame) as well as good ol' Fred Lincoln and even Jamie Gillis for a spell, I just wish they all had more to do or made more of an impression. Fun soundtrack too, flitting with abandon between discordant weirdness and psychedelic riffs and even throwing in a (presumably unlicensed) instrumental version of some or other popular disco tune, I'm not sure of the name though. Overall this is reasonable enough stuff but a bit forgettable, it also makes the grave error of having not much in the way of merciless domination. With a name like Dominatrix Without Mercy I kinda expect extended scenes of ladies sexually abusing powerless men (which is sheer awesomeness) and there isn't remotely enough of that here so that loses it points. Worth a look for enthusiasts but probably not essential.

Extremely rough and shocking stuff

[Woodyanders · 9/10 · 26 May 2006]

Sexy, slender brunette model Mara (the extremely hot Marlene Willoughby) answers an ad in "Screw" magazine for a high paying job at a New York whorehouse which specializes in turning all kinds of deviant sadomasochistic bondage and discipline sex tricks. The house's dumpy middle-aged madame (curly-haired fortysomething lady Ultra Max) shows our curious protagonist the ropes (and chains) of the B & D business in this splendidly seamy, frequently shocking and occasionally arousing slice of mondo kinko sickie roughie 70's porno sleaze.

The sexual vignettes graphically enacted herein range from mildly perverse to genuinely unnerving. Shown in a swiftly paced juxtaposition of squalid sexual tableaux, set to an incessantly droning, discordant score and punctuated with often hideously profane dialogue, we not only get the standard cunnilingus, ejaculation, masturbation, sodomy and fellatio, but also an unsparingly nasty and disgusting barrage of utterly degrading rough stuff: voluptuous Cuban-American firecracker Vanessa Del Rio crams a banana in her vagina and then eats it, one poor dweeb spends most of the movie locked in a closet, an understandably frightened blonde babe gets bound to a chair and has her legs savagely beaten with a leather belt, and the madame urinates on a wimpy guy's face because he showed up twenty minutes late for an appointment (the madame even mercilessly pokes fun at the guy's pitifully small and unimpressive penis).

During the film's single most gut-churning sequence Iggy Pop lookalike Marc Stevens and some other guy cruelly demean, taunt, tie up and manipulate a horrified, pathetically submissive young lass (the eminently adorable C. J. Laing) who for a good thirty positively grueling minutes is made the helpless subject of these vile control freaks' mean and selfish carnal whims. Several other male customers are played by legendary 70's hardcore movie studboys Jamie Gillis, John Leslie and Fred Lincoln of "The Last House on the Left" infamy. While not exactly a real turn-on, this pervasively seedy and seriously warped adult movie aberration definitely scores points for sheer audacity alone and more than delivers the lowdown ghastly B&D goods.