The Big Snatch (1971)

Purely Joyful Movie!

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

Young Rene (Ginnie Kindall) is kidnapped off a playground swing set. Right after flying into town, lesbian Lillian (Tracy Handfuss) is forced at gun point into the back of a truck. Housewife Colette ("Barbara Que" / Uschi Digard) is out watering the lawn in broad daylight when she gets swiped right off her front yard. Innocent 18-year-old virgin Bernice ("Rita Book" / Peggy Church) is snacking on Lays (foreshadowing?) chips when she's snatched off the street. And finally, leggy blonde party girl Pamela ("Nancy Nice" / Jane Tsentas) is abducted immediately after leaving a bar. All five girls don't know it yet but they've all fallen into the clutches of whiny long-haired perv Bart. Bart, who's played by the butt ugly "Harry Chest" and incidentally has no hair on his chest, drives them out miles into the desert to his remote home and then gives them the scoop on what's going on. They're to be his sex slaves and obey his every wish. They're to call him "master" while he calls them "pig." They'll eat... when and if he wants them to. They're to stick to a strenuous exercise routine to keep in good shape. If any of them try to escape they've been warned that the grounds are surrounded by trained, savage dogs who will eat them alive. And if they disobey or are caught doing something they aren't supposed to do, the other girls will have to whip the disobedient one.Bart is assisted by his bigger and perhaps even uglier mute sidekick Momo (played by Momo), who carries around a piece of hose to whip the girls with. Bart even bosses poor Momo around and refuses to let any of the girls have sex with him, causing the frustrated Momo to try to rape whatever girl he can get his hands on. Because he found Pamela at a nightclub and she's wearing a short skirt, Bart decides to "rape" her first but she goes along with it simply because she'll do anything to survive. The girls are then taken to a drained out swimming pool and are forced to do in-place jogging, push ups, leg lifts and topless toe touches. One girl is forced to get on all fours and is used as a step stool. While Bart is having his way with Colette, the lesbian takes the virgin out into the brush and helps her "relax" by rubbing her shoulders and then going down on her. When it's time for the virgin to give it up, she refuses so Bart has her tied to a running truck motor to "steam your clam open" so that he'll have "one well-basted bird."After being raped, beaten and tortured for nearly an hour, the girls finally decide they've had enough and plot their revenge. One of the girls seduces Momo, the others hold him down and then castrate him with a pair of vise grip pliers (!) They then manage to get the upper hand on Bart and decide to give him a taste of his own medicine by forcing him to go through everything they went through. He gets his dick squeezed with the pliers, is forced to dance and exercise naked and is then beat with the hose. for an encore the girls decide to "sock it to him night and day nonstop" (i.e. screw him) until he's dead. I've got to admit, I've never seen a man gang raped to death by five women before. Now I have. Thank you Big Snatch for enriching my life.There are trashy movies and then there are movies so trashy the sleaze goes right through the roof into the stratosphere. This is one of *those* movies. It looks extremely cheap (not surprising since the budget was just 11 thousand dollars), has awful acting and photography and much of the time the "rapes" seem a little too enjoyable for the "victim," but this is amusing enough to pass the time, most of the females look good and there's a mean-spirited twist at the end that's kind of good. Everyone was so embarrassed by this they used fake names and the credits are hilarious. The cameraman is "Otto Focus," the sound was done by "Less Noise" and the grip was "Jim Nasium." Something Weird distribute this on DVD-R and it's certainly worth a gander if you like this kind of stuff.

Just so I am clear about why this $11,000 sexploitation film should be a standard for comparison, let me explain. For anyone who questions whether an exploitation film has drifted into sexploitation territory, I suggest immediately watching "The Big Snatch". Only if the flick in question can match "The Big Snatch" in minute for minute skin, should it even be considered as sexploitation. Another test would be, can you turn off the sound for the entire film and lose nothing? One big advantage of losing the audio is no generic porno music, no lame dialog, but you can still get the gist of a "humpathon" like "The Big Snatch". - MERK

I don't usually go into these sorts of films with high expectations, but to my surprise The Big Snatch is actually quite good! The title is obviously meant to have a double meaning, but actually it relates to the part of the plot that involves a couple of men going round kidnapping girls, only to have them turned into 'sex slaves'. Naturally, considering that this is a seventies rough porn flick, the acting and production values aren't up to much; but all you can really expect from a film like this is plenty of sex and a few laughs and the film delivers that. The plot works with the film quite well; it offers numerous opportunities for a bit of action, and most of these are capitalised on. The film doesn't feature a great deal of surprises in the first half, we just watch as the girls are 'trained' by their captors, but there's a decent twist around the middle in which the tables are turned and the film becomes a bit more interesting, and also features a few nail biting moments. The sex is mostly just softcore, so the film might not please the fans of the harder stuff, but its all fairly decent.

Without a doubt one of the most obscure and underrated movies of all cult movies. If you ever get a copy of it keep it. Nobody wanted to be associated with this movie (as you will notice from the hilarious credits)but for Peggy Church and Uschi Digart it was an opportunity to land more exploitation roles in the future. The acting is atrocious, the women are all very good looking, especially Digart who was only 19 at the time, and believe me they don't make them like her anymore. The movie is funny because is so bad, but a couple of the scenes rank high in eroticism specially the ones with Uschi ( I doubt any warm blooded man can resist her charm and accent), the camera work is very good, and the reason why I like this movie is because is fast paced, corny to a fault, and dated, but still a gem of exploitation or soft-core and will give many men out there hours of viewing pleasure.