I love Mondo Macabro. They put out amazing releases and clean up neglected foreign films, making things a million times better than they have any right to. Just this year they've released a slew of films that have never even been put out on DVD in our country. They're one of my favorite labels.

However, they nearly got me in trouble by sending me a review copy of this film. With no warning, my wife opened it and instantly called and asked why I bought it. Thanks - I hate looking a gift horse in the mouth (and this movie does way more than look when it comes to horses).

Oh yeah - this entire review is NSFW. You've been warned.

This is the second in this series of movies to be directed by Joe D'Amoto. Whatever name he uses, you know exactly the kind of insanity that that name means.

Emanuelle - notice the missing M to denote that this has just enough legally not to do with the French film that starred Sylvia Kistel but just enough to make you think that it may - is a photojournalist out to get a great story no matter what. No matter what often means that she's getting naked and in trouble, starting with an angry virginal boyfriend of a model that wants her dead.

She's played by Laura Gemser, who has also used the name Moira Chen, and if you've seen a Bruno Mattei or D'Amoto film, you know exactly who she is. I'd recommend her star turn as a psychic who gets menaced by mutant fishmen in Endgame myself.

Here, she's on the trail of playboy Eric Van Darren, who is enslaving women and creating a harem. She also hooks up with Italian duke Alfredo Elvize (Gemser's real-life husband Gabriele Tinti who is in Enter the Devil if you'd like to descend further down the funnel of Italian scum) and his wife (Paola Senatore, Eaten Alive!).

You may be like - hey, this seems like the typical Cinemax After Dark film, albeit with much better production values and one hell of a musical score. That'd be correct until Emanuelle ends up going to an island where every fantasy can become reality. Hold the Ricardo Montalban!

That's when she discovers that some of the folks there like making love while watching films of young women dying. Yep - snuff films!

Emanuelle is disgusted and quits her job to go on a long vacation with her boyfriend. Of course, she's soon come back for Emanuelle Around the World, where she meets a guru who promises the ultimate orgasm. And that guru is, of course, played by George Eastman. Ivan Rassimov also shows up, and if you suddenly started searching for this film, you get why I spend so much time writing about movies on this site.

After that, D'Amoto and Gemser would team up for perhaps an even more insane tale than this one, Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals, and one other Black Emanuelle film, 1978's Emanuelle and the White Slave Trade.

If you saw the version of this that played on Cinemax or Showtime in the 1980's, you didn't get the full uncut madness that appears on this blu ray. Honestly, outside of degenerates, I have no idea who is ready for such madness.

You can get this directly from Mondo Macabro. The colors are gorgeous, the music sounds better than ever and the extras, like a documentary entitled D'Amato Totally Uncut: The Erotic Experience, brand new audio commentary by Eurotrash aficionados Bruce Holecheck and Nathaniel Thompson and a brand new interview with author David Flint, are worth just as much as the movie.

But man - you guys gotta warn me when you send me this kinda stuff. Still, much appreciated.

EMANUELLE IN America is a notorious entry in Joe D'Amato's long-running 'Black Emanuelle' series, starring Laura Gemser. This one infuses the usual '70s-era softcore fumblings with some real nastiness and grit, making it an exercise in bad taste. But then you'd expect little different from the director who brought us ANTHROPOPHAGUS THE BEAST.

The story goes that Emanuelle is now working as a reporter, taking on undercover assignments around the world. What this is an excuse for is a series of lengthy, pointless, and not particularly erotic sex and nude scenes, nearly all of them involving Gemser. The '70s-era fashions and the snazzy music make them amusing, but I'm not a big fan of sexploitation films so your mileage might vary.

Where the film becomes notorious is in its uncut form. As well as featuring hardcore inserts, Gemser witnesses bestiality and a snuff film seemingly inspired by the ILSA franchise. As I watched the BBFC approved version of the film, most of that stuff was expunged, although I can't say I'm particularly bothered by that. EMANUELLE IN America is still a cheesy, below-par slice of Italian sexploitation, extra footage or otherwise.

Extreme depravity, hardcore sex, and ultra violence: I'd heard that this sleazy offering from Italian trash-movie king Joe D'Amato (Aristide Massaccesi) was the epitome of exploitation, so I borrowed a copy from a friend and settled down to enjoy a prime slice of deviancy. Unfortunately, this supposedly spicy dollop of D'Amato sauce actually turned out to be rather bland.

Laura Gemser plays Emanuelle, an investigative reporter determined to get her scoop, whatever the risk. Using her womanly wiles, she digs up the dirt on an organised-crime boss and his harem, some lust-crazed Venetian aristocrats, and a sex club for lonely women where our horny heroine eventually stumbles on the story of the century when she discovers a couple enjoying a genuine snuff movie.

The first half of the movie is rather dull, packed with plentiful female nudity but hardly any of the 'rough stuff' that I had read so much about; only a brief scene involving a happy horse named Pedro is worthy of note.

Eventually D'Amato hits his stride and, during an orgy scene, he delivers the first of many hardcore moments; from here on in, the XXX action is more plentiful, but the clumsy direction and editing means that they are far from erotic.

At the end of the movie, Joe throws in a smattering of very gory pseudo-snuff footage for good measure, but this only serves to make the film feel even more disparate. The end result is neither a soft-core adventure, a hardcore porn movie or an all out gore-fest, but a disappointing (and often boring) half-assed mixture of all three.

See it so that you can talk knowledgeably about the genre to like-minded sickos, but don't expect anything too amazing.