Bruce La Bruce has been a favorite filmmaker of mine since Super 8 ½, a gritty, funny and gleefully bitchy portrait of a gay porn icon/artist/director long past his prime.  His follow up, Hustler White, was an homage to Sunset Boulevard with gay hustlers and amputee sex that caused general revulsion at otherwise-bland gay and lesbian film festivals everywhere.  Though Skin Gang (a “lame” title, Bruce admits on his web site) may be among the back room of your local video store because, well, it’s hardcore pornography, it’s nice to know that a several-year absence hasn’t mellowed him any.

   The story (yes, folks, story) involves a gang of skinheads that go out gay-bashing and stealing from old ladies when they’re not busy doing hard time with each other.  They’re all meanies except for Manfred, the lovably klutzy skinhead who trips over his shoelaces, defends women and jerks off over a copy of “Mein Kampf.”  The group trains their sights on a bourgeois interracial couple that cheat on each other between meals of sushi and intense foot-sucking action (shades of La Grande Bouffe).          Eventually, the skinheads act, robbing the couple and raping the black one as the group stands around, shouting "fuck the monkey!"  Though soon, the tables turn.

    This is, of course, punctuated with a rather bland assortment of sex, though there’s at least some sense of pacing this time.  La Bruce likes to keep the action moving, cutting quickly and never holding the shot too long, and the inclusion of a decent score helps as well.  There’s even a woman in the cast, though after a brief sex scene (to piss off the standard homo in search of a quick porno, no doubt), she’s excised from the group after saying she “can’t stand the company of a man after I’ve fucked him”

    While most sex scenes are shot on film, a good portion seems to be shot on grainy, black and white 8mm (or possibly pushed super 8 video?) with overdubbed sound.  The shots are nicely composed, but no doubt due to the restrictions involving non-actors, the blocking is stiff as hell, and the line readings are, for the most part, a bit on the laughable side.  Half the cast sounds like Christopher Lambert, and only the estrogen-heavy Cameltoe comes off as believable.

    The sex scenes are tedious, sure, but La Bruce gets a fair share of decent bits in.  A well-placed photo of Batman and Robin, some clever camerawork in a bathroom scene that allows an actor getting head to be surrounded by the graffiti “you look like shit,” and random displays of general hooliganism are among its strong points.  In many ways, it’s a bit like John Waters’ early Mondo Trasho, albeit with shot-on-video sex scenes inserted into various intervals.

    Those looking for quick pornography are bound to be frustrated by Skin Gang, but if you’re a fan of La Bruce, you know what you’re going to get.  I only wish he didn’t have to stick in overlong sex scenes in order to get a film made.  Cheaply made and poorly acted, sure, but this is obviously the work of a real underground filmmaker, someone with a photographic talent and a grinningly cruel sense of irony, a real rarity in the smarmy, blaringly cute cesspool that gay cinema has become.  Somebody give this man a budget and no censorship restrictions!

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UPDATE:  After E-mailing La Bruce himself to see if I could get permission to use some shots of the film from his website, he informed me of the following:

Skin Gang was just nominated for 9 adult video awards, including one for Cameltoe as
best actress in a non-sexual role, best solo jerk off (on Mein Kampf), and best
"Group Scene" (they refer to it as "Bastian and the Nazis") scary, huh. what you
should see is the softcore version, "Skin Flick", which I made for the British
and Japanese markets. I didn't really have control over the hardcore version, so
it's kind of sloppy and they cut out all the best bits, as far as i'm concerned,
including this amazing intellectual text by the Russian (Reinholt - played by
soviet poet Yaroslav Mogutin) over the sex scenes and the singing of various
national anthems by the actors.

So a more traditional La Bruce version is out there, though it may be tough to find here in the U.S... I'll keep an eye out and if I can spot it, I'll do another update.  Anyone with availability info, please let me know!

Check out Bruce La Bruce's website for more info.