a Primal Root written review

“You know, it’s just a big kick. A trip, you know? Look, don’t be so serious. I mean, you know, it’s a groove.” – Cindy’s best friend Karen explains sexual intercourse

Growing up sure can be hard, especially when you’re a disturbingly sexy yet trashy teenage girl from a divorced family, your Dad’s a lecherous creep who’s always staring at your step sister while she’s in her underwear, your stepmother’s a constantly bitching alcoholic and your step sister is forever getting laid and trading pussy for pot while you’re still wearing your hair in pigtails and are just too scared to spread those thighs for some pimply faced classmate at the local high school or one of those college jerks still looking to score teeny-bopper poon.

This is the very basic premise of “Cindy & Donna” a very strange brand of coming-of-age flick, exploitation film and soft-core porn. Cindy and Donna are step sisters, Cindy’s the baby of the two and Donna is the older, more sexually experienced. Cindy’s Pop is a boozer and a perv while Donna’s Mom is kind of a booze hound killjoy that I’m sure her husband blames for his tendency to spend all night at bars after work, bang prostitutes and get boners of his stepdaughter. It’s suburban dysfunction at it’s very finest and not really played for laughs, if anything, it all comes of as shockingly depressing…which makes it really funny…Huh? Stay with me.

“Cindy & Donna” tells the story of the red headed, teenage pixie virgin, Cindy (played by Debbie Osborne of “Country Cousins” and “Tobacco Roody” fame, I also happen to have a bit of crush on this chick who vanished off the face of the earth in 1972.) as she begins to blossom and become increasingly curious about what it is to be a sexually active young woman in 1970’s America. A voyeur by nature, she is constantly peeping in on her family members and being exposed to the truly depraved and disturbing sex lives of her Father and stepsister. We’re going to leave Mom out of this because she’s just an alcoholic who spends the majority of the film either drunkenly shouting out insults or passed out in bed watching what sound like bizarre Indian massacre movies.

Cindy witnesses her older stepsister, Donna (the ever foxy Nancy Ison) sneak out of the house at night and ride her boyfriend Greg’s flesh pole of freedom in order to obtain some grass. Cindy is also aware of her Father’s other vice besides alcoholism and ignoring his family, hookers. Ladies of the night. Prostitutes. We are given a front row seat to this doughy, middle aged man’s sexcapades with the lovely and incredibly well built Alice (Alice Friedland, looking like an American version of Swedish sex goddess Christina Lindberg) a professional stripper, spank magazine model and, yes, prostitute, who we’re introduced to in an extended sequence of Alice gyrating her crotch into the camera and bouncing her lovely, bountiful, natural boobs in artsy-fartsy low angle shots that make sure her tits and ass take up THE ENTIRE SCREEN. She invites Pops back to her place for a night of awkward genital grinding, fondling and utterances of the phrase, “You blow my mind!”

I can see the artistic intent here.

After Pops and Alice finish up it is revealed that Alice is only 17, the same age as his naive, peeper of a daughter, Cindy. You’d think this was primed to set up some kind of plot point where Pops would approach his daughter and talk openly with her about “the birds and the bees” and perhaps even cause the man to realize what a terrible Father and husband he’s been and get him on the straight and narrow to ensure his wife and children are provided for emotionally as well as financially and go on to live fulfilling lives together.  No such luck, Pops boozes it up the following night, can’t get an appointment to poke Alice and decides to go home and fuck his stepdaughter, Donna. AND HE DOES! He stumbles into her bedroom completely wasted, disrobes and goes to town on her young, naked, nubile self AND SHE OPENLY ENJOYS IT! She pulls him in closer, smooches his whiskey drenched gob with tongue and allows the patriarch of their family to grope her chesticological region and finger her little Donna.  It’s disturbing and totally unbelievable. Of course, it’s revealed that Cindy is watching this whole incestual shindig go down from the doorway of their adjoining bedrooms before throwing herself upon her bed and weeping. Strangely, the incident is never mentioned again, not once, for the rest of the film. And this a bit more horrifying than the incident where Cindy watched Donna get banged by her boyfriend Greg in the back of his sports car as payment for weed, which Cindy then went back to her bedroom and masturbated over. I started wondering if possibly Cindy is imagining all these sexual hijinks she witnesses as part of her own repressive sexual desires and fantasies, but I might be giving “Cindy & Donna” too much credit. But then again, who know, perhaps director Robert Anderson saw something in this material beyond just the TnA and deep, dark, sexual depravity. One thing’s for sure, looking at the film this way opens up a whole new perspective.

BUT I’M GETTING OFF TOPIC!

Hey, the closer the, the deeper in…

That morning Mom and Pops head to Vegas for the weekend and are never relevant to the “plot” again. Cindy confides all this, minus the Daddy/Stepdaughter action earlier, to her BFF Karen (sexy, confident, Cheryl Powell) who has recently made the transition from naive young girl to slutty, cock starved teenage hellion. Karen’s advice to Cindy? Get laid, basically. They end up going to the beach where they meet two dorky guys in tiny bathing suits. They hardly even introduce themselves before the gentlemen whisk these ladies off to their casual sex shack on the beach and start putting on the moves.  The moment the scene begins Cindy starts shouting about how she just wants to go home as Karen drops her bikini quicker than you get food poisoning from a McDonald’s Filet-O-Fish sandwich and starts riding her dork pick of the litter as if he were Seabiscuit. “Don’t be a drag, Cindy!” Karen commands as she humps dork boy’s baby batter baton.  The scene goes on for way longer than it should as Karen gets fucked on one bed and Cindy continuously cries “Stop it!” and “No!” on the nearby stained sofa as her zit faced, teen date rapist drools all over her neck and licks her face. This is all taking place in the same room so the camera just sits in medium shot and documents this uncomfortable moment in time for what feels like forever. As soon as Karen gets her rocks off they both head for home where they smoke some weed, put on a record and enjoy some experimental lesbianism so Karen can demonstrate for Cindy “what it feels like.” My, my, it’s been a big day for these two.

Tell me that’s not Shia LeBeouf back there.

What’s Donna up to while her parents are out of town? Just hanging out with her boyfriend Greg…and allowing several creepers to take nude photos of her as a way to pay back the money she owes Greg for the weed he purchased her the other day. Rather quickly, the photo shoot devolves (or evolves, depending on your view) into a mild mannered gang bang in Greg’s rumpus room. Donna really gets off on this “groovy” action, despite the men never having to remove their underwear in order to penetrate her baby factory, and the scenes goes on without ever showing the end of the gang bang when they, I assume, smoke a  little reefer, play air guitar and eat Doritos.

The very next morning, after Cindy and Karen spend a night of playing bumper clits together, Karen assures Cindy that she was “marvelous” in the sack and that she should try the ultimate trip and have sex with an actual man.  This gets the wheels turning and Cindy puts her plan into action. She invites Donna’s boyfriend Greg over and they start going at it on the family sofa, which seems like a daring place to lose one’s virginity. I mean, how will Cindy explain that stain to her folks? Anyhoo, Cindy begins taking off her awesome 70’s dress and asks Gregg “Can you dig it?” His reply? “I can dig it.” and she is soon nekkid and rubbing her petite, teeny-bopper body all over Gregg, the Scott Stapp of the 1970’s.  But wouldn’t you know it, just as Cindy’s about to go cock spelunking, Donna comes home and stumbles upon this scene and exclaims “DON’T MESS WITH MY SISTER!” Gregg responds the only reasonable way any man would after being interrupted while about to have his man utter suckled by a young woman, and picks Donna up and throws her out the front door onto her AstroTurf lawn. Donna, confused and mortified (despite the fact she fucked her stepdad a night or two ago) wonders aimlessly into the road and is run over by a car. Cindy watches this happen through the screen door of her Cabrini Green model suburban home and screams. The picture freezes on her shocked and horrified face. We then cut to a brief sequence of her swinging at a jungle gym where we can see her red panties.

The End

 I am speechless. I mean, after the build up of this film I totally expected Donna’s discovery of Cindy boning her boyfriend to end in a threesome, not vehicular manslaughter! This is one Hell of a way to end your sex picture!  I can’t even begin to imagine what poor little Cindy’s therapy bills are going to look like. Acquiring knowledge from afar, as Cindy did, proved only to corrupt her young, curious mind, not enlighten it. Sad, really.”Cindy & Donna” is a bewildering and entertaining exploitation sex picture. Straightforward and shameless to the point of absurdity,” Cindy & Donna” is an ode to teenage indiscretion and skeezy old man perversity that will have you questioning the sanity of those who made it and yourself as you pitch a tent in your corduroy trousers. Filled with copious, unapologetic nudity, drug use, casual incest and experimental lesbianism…the mission statement is blunt. “Cindy & Donna” is a one of a kind, filthy, perverse, sleazy coming of age exploitation film. Yes, I enjoyed it thoroughly.

If you don’t talk to your kids about sex, who will?

I’m giving Cindy & Donna FIVE OUT OF FIVE Dumpster Nuggets. This puppy’s a must see.

Stay Trashy!

-Root